True... regarding the Miami game... but I disagree with your conclusion. The key is ultimately your DL and not your DBs. The run and shoot was new - and it seemed to be unstoppable. Teams were trying to slow down their own offenses to keep the UH O off the field and on defense match their smurfs with additional DBs. Texas was the first to load the LOS and go after the QB like they did. This was basically Buddy Ryan’s theory against the pass.
The larger point is that you live or die with pass rush and not coverage.
I agree that if you can generate a pass rush it's much better than to trying to 'out coverage' somebody. But what happens when you can't? I don't think Texas has the personnel for it right now. Even good defenses sometimes have to generate QB pressure from blitzes.
Outrushing the run/shoot was possible because those teams got small and didn't have TEs, or other large bodies, to take on the extra large rushers. It's the same reason that offense had problems in the red zone, and ultimately stopped being used. But these offenses today are different, using TEs, h-backs, or larger slot blocking receivers to seal edges and pick up rushers. So I don't know if the same solution would work now.
Ultimately if you can get to the QB... somehow... that's the key to disrupting these offenses. What seems to have worked best (both against us and others) are blitz packages the keep QBs guessing all game. I think that can be accomplished without 4 down rushers because we've seen it done successfully.
However, it *is* more complicated and dependent on scheme than individual effort. We've seen these current offenses stick around for quite a while, with no real apparent defensive solution to stopping them.
I will concede that if could recruit big beef on the d-line then it would make more sense to move that direction, but we haven't been able to for a while. We can, though, recruit a lot of good dbacks. So a defense centered around them makes more sense right now.
