What is wrong with these boards? There must be some sort of weird sniffer that is doing some work to prevent spam and is randomly swallowing posts.
Let us try again:
Notable defensive plays where (a) he is on the field and (b) his poor or solid play is relevant to play outcome.
Fournette did not play this game FYI.
1) 1st & 10 from >25. 2 deep zone. Run off guard away from Evans. Takes angle to get to landmark to protect against deep run and arrives as gang tackle is made for 19 yard gain. No responsibility here besides get to landmark and protect long gain. No influence on play. Should have gotten to landmark and attacked a bit earlier (contact at maybe 12-15 yards), but nothing terrible here.
2) 1st & 10 from <45. 2 deep zone. Trap off guard away from Evans. Play is blocked beautifully again. Evans has same responsibility as (1). He is very late getting to his landmark. He gets there as the RB is breaking the last tackle so he is now one on one. He should have been decisive and had a MUCH better angle to make this play. His slowness to arrive at the landmark put himself at a disadvantage. Instead of attacking the ball carrier, he tries to break down. The RB accelerates away from him to the open field, further destroying any tackling angle. Evans dives, gets a futile pair of hands on shoulder pads which is immediately shrugged off. 45 YARD TOUCHDOWN!
Not good at all here. This sort of stuff is my major concern with him.
3) 3rd & 11 from >3. 2 deep zone with Evans walk-up into box. Counter to Evans side. He surely has force responsibility here. 1st two steps are hesitative shuffle while he reads (not good). Gets upfield 1 yard, accepts the blow rather than delivers it and RB spins and drags for 6 yard gain.
4) 1st & 15 from >32. 2 deep zone. Run action off guard (same as play 1 above) away from Evans. This is good initially. Shuffles toward landmark to protect deep and reads the PA-fake well enough as he doesn't overcommitt (he has deep zone responsibility). Hook-up to flat on his side. He reads and races over, at pretty much the correct angle, to be about 2.5 yards away as CB brings WR down.
This is good stuff here. Assignment sound, good read/react, good fundamentals, shows unique burst to get on top of play.
5) 2nd & 2 from >32. Other safety walk-up turning this into Evans at deep safety in a cover 3/cover 1 with deep safety look. At snap Evans rotates to middle.
The good: He recognizes in-cutting route to side he is rotating to, takes correct angle to point of intercept and hits receiver.
The bad: He doesn't separate the receiver from the ball and Evans actually gets the worst of it, having to come off the field (receiver is unfazed).
13 yard gain.
6) 1st & 10 from >16. Evans recognizes something at snap and moves opposite to deep safety as he walks up to box. Clearly man coverage. PA-fake and Evans has TE to his side. He doesn't take any false steps to engage the PA-fake (this could be good or bad...bad if he's too passive or good if he reads it all the way), and blankets the flat route.
I'm pretty sure LSU thought this was a cover 2 zone look because it looks like combo routes meant to influence C2Z. This is a bad play against man and goes nowhere.
7) 2nd & 10 from >16. 8 man front and Evans is literally standing next to the SAM. Power to strong side (Evans side) and its blocked beautifully. 2 OL are out in front. Evans would have contain here and he does a solid job of forcing the RB back inside to pursuit while dealing with a full steam OL. What could have been a bigger play is only 7 yard gain.
8) 1st & 10 from >31. Evans walk up into box. Looks like trap cutback run. Evans is extremly slow in recognition. He then takes 2 poor, indecisive steps to get further out of position and then completely gets washed out of play. Not good.
11 yard gain.
9) 1st & 10 from >41. Evans walk up into box. Man coverage. PA-fake his side. He doesn't take any false steps to engage the PA-fake (this could be good or bad...bad if he's too passive or good if he reads it all the way). He's in position and blankets the TE on skinny post. Throw is to WR outside of other hash.
10) 1st & 10 from <41. 2 deep look and 2nd safety walks up into box. Outside zone stretch away from Evans side. He doesn't move (at all) for about 1.5 seconds. He then takes a hesitant shuffle toward the middle of the field after the hand-off has occurred. RB cuts back 5 yards down field and Evans plants and moves up 3 yards, breaking down in good tackling posture to engage. RB cuts back away from Evans and is engaged with another defender. Evans moves to engage and RB easily shakes the defender holding onto him while simultaneously shaking the utterly meek, unaggressive (and now poor angle) tackle attempt of Evans. He's out the gate for another 13 yards (23 total).
This is really not good.
11) 1st & 10 from <48. Evans walk up into box. PA-fake and what appears to be man. It looks like. Will is rushing, Mike appears to have TB and Evans has FB. Evans takes false step to account for PA-fake on this one (contrast with 6 and 9 above). Mike reads his man is pass blocking and then turns to try down the LoS to get out to flat to FB who is going to get the ball. FB catches flat-route at LoS with Evans 6 yards away from him and continuing to move outside.
Now it is hard to say what happens next. Evans MAY have seen the Mike coming down LoS and decided "I'm out of position so I'm going to ad-hoc Contain here with the Mike having Force". Regardless, what happens next is awful. The slow-footed FB puts his foot in the ground, avoids the Mike, and goes straight North-South. Evans is rushing laterally (for contain?) rather than pursuing carrier downhill and is completely shook and either can't or just doesn't try to change direction to make the play. Cavalry arrives as Evans mostly watches the FB rumble for an 8 yard gain.
This is really not good.
12) 3rd & 4 from >46. 2 deep. Full LB dog, leaving Evans in man with TE to his side. Evans is 10 yards off the LoS and takes no steps forward to engage TE. Instead, he backpedals twice and then plants as the TE hooks up at 5 yards. Evans is 6 yards off of him at this point and entirely out of position. He breaks as ball is in the air and is 3 yards away at catch. He jumps on TEs back who drags him for another 3 yards.
13) 2nd & 9 from <34. Evans sprints out to sideline at snap to cover boundary receiver. This looks like he was late on his assignment or someone else screwed up. Regardless, QB and receiver recognize, go hot route and hook up at 8 yards. Evans accelerates and gets a pass breakup.
So, bad for assignment screw-up (if that is what happened here...and it looks like it) and good job breaking up the play.
14) 3rd & 9 from <34. 2 deep safeties, but this appears to be 3 deep with a "Robber" look for Evans steps up to play the Square-in while the CB on his side appears to have the deep half. He steps up on the Square-in, denying that throw, while the throw goes to the flats incomplete.
Not a difficult read here as there was no combo route to influence him, but he does his job.
15) 1st & 15 from >37. Straight man look with 1 deep safety. Evans is heads up on slot receiver, in off-man (7 yards off LoS). PA-fake but he isn't sweating it. He clearly has no run responsibility. Quickout and he blankets it.
16) 3rd & 1 from <48. 8 men across LoS including both CBs. Mike is 1 yard off. Evans walks up 1 yard off. Sneak. He's in the pile. No conversion.
17) 1st & 10 from >25. 2 deep with opposite safety walk-up. Evans rotates to mid-field as deep safety at snap. Nice cutback by RB and he drags defender for 9 yard gain. Evans timidly moves up to get involved and (amusingly) gets some friendly fire. This isn't really consequential, but it just doesn't look very good on tape.
He looks hurt, ginger, or timid in a lot of this. I really wonder if he sustained a rib/shoulder injury or something from (5) above.
18) 2nd & 3 from <46. 2 deep but both safeties in box due to tight O look. Simple tight (not wide) pitch to TB. Man...Evans does a whole lot of worthless steps/shuffle here. He has literally moved nowhere South (just a couple weird steps laterally while he reads) here until he catches the TBs helmet in his sternum 7 yards downfield and then gets dragged for another 2.
This is not good.
19) 1st & 10 from >45. Evans in box nearly next to Mike at snap. This is another one of those plays where he takes all of these wasted East/West steps trying to read and react to the play and never gets South. Cut back away from him, he is lost in the wash and ends up chasing the RB for a 45 YARD TOUCHDOWN.
This is not good.
20) 2nd & 11 from <18. Evans in box nearly next to Mike at snap. Run action strong side (Evans side). SAM jumps FB so it appears like Evans has TE man. 4 yard stop to boundary WR Evans side. CB plays it terribly. Nowhere to be found and then compounds things by not staying on the outside shoulder of the WR who easily gets outside of him and RACES FOR A TOUCHDOWN. Evans gives chase, but to no avail.
21) 1st & Goal from >6. Everyone in box at snap. Man coverage. Just a straight man on man Belly run. Evans takes another non-aggressive pair of East-West steps at snap and gets South 1 yard as he's heads up with the TB who has some trash at his feet. He accelerates and Evans angle and effort as absolutely horrible here. He gets a single hand on the RB who WALKS IN FOR A TOUCHDOWN afterward.
This is not good.
22) 1st & 10 from <23. Straight man look with 1 deep safety. Evans is heads up on slot receiver, in off-man (7 yards off LoS). Outside Zone run to Evans side. WR gets up on him and manhandles him. I mean manhandles him. Pushes him 6 - 7 yards downfield. Evans doesn't have run responsibility here, but come on. He doesn't have any idea its a run until way too late (the way the WR was engaging him should have been telltale). He then can't disengage and is on skates for the rest of the play? 19 yard run.
23) 1st & 10 from >47. Safeties switch at snap with Evans rotating to short side of field (which turns out to be play-side of straight FB Lead run. RB drags people for 8 yards. Evans is nowhere to be found until end of play where he touches the pile.
24) 3rd & 5 from >31. 2 deep initial look rolls into man to man with Evans as single high deep safety at snap. The other safety gets crushed on a corner route. Evans recognizes the corner route, sprints and makes the tackle (19 yard gain). But not before he slows down to ensure the tackle. He shouldn't have had to taper off his sprint. He should have never let up and try to separate him from the ball at the catch point. Again, passive, timid, unsure.
God this whole defense is awful. The JUGGERNAUT offense of LSU just makes them look all clown shoes and spinning bowties. Its hard to tell if Garrett and Evans aren't difference-makers (on the whole) or if its just that everyone else is so bloody bad. I think its a combo of both in a lot of cases.
Again, there is such timidity and lack of assertive behavior that it looks like he was hurt.
