Since you follow B12 stuff more closely than I do, and the B12 is home to a lot of Spread teams. How do you defense the spread? It doesn't seem like anybody in the B12 has the answer, even Texas who has a good young DCoord in Will Muschamp gave up over 30pts/game vs the good spread teams (Missouri, OKState, OU, Texas Tech, Baylor). I remember that Joe Kines Alabama defense holding Texas Tech in the Cotton Bowl a few years ago. But it seems like you just can't stop a well coached spread team with good athletes. You have to outscore them.
It depends... You can't really stop them, but you can disrupt enough to slow them down a LOT. As you mentioned, Joe Kines did it for Alabama. He's told us many times the answer is S P E E D. Something A&M has been completely bereft of for the last 5 or 6 years. Sherman's first recruiting classes have been about upgrading speed, thus the 13-18 freshman who played in our first game, and the resultant upgrade of our defense. I'll try to answer your question fully tonight when I get home. Can't type that much from work! 8)
I was going to write up my version, but I remembered this article a friend sent me, so I'll let them do the typing! The Spread Bottom line: your defense must be fast, with versatile players. Most passing versions of the spread, like the one Tech uses is heavily reliant on timing. If you can disrupt that timing with jams, and coverages the QB doesn't expect, it will go a long way to slowing them down as well. I found it amusing the author credited Miami with "inventing" speed defenses... In 1985 the Aggies had an All American LB named Johnny Holland. He was a converted QB. As you might guess, he wasn't the biggest fella around, but he sure could run! There were many others just like him on that championship D... 8)