Again it is about the DBs being down this year compared to last year. For one thing, the DL play really dropped off this year, really bad. Wasn't all that expected. We had trouble finding an end opposite Meredith, Meredith played banged up, we had issues at DT, surprisingly...
For another, we lost near the entire secondary: Prince, Hagg, Gomes, and let's not forget Courtney Osborne, who one way or another, was a lost promising player from last year. Prince - elite level talent locking down one side of the field at CB. Hagg and Gomes - centerpieces of the D. Gomes was an incredible playmaker, and Hagg's role is often overlooked, but he was a key guy there that enabled us to do a lot of what we did. Suddenly all those are gone, and we don't have the personnel to replace them.
Heck, for a few games we didn't even have Fonzie. Stafford was a liability in coverage at the start of the year, both he and Andrew green got better, but with the losses we had and the playing time Blatchford and Thorell had to get in everyone's place...this was not something Sanders was going to do much better with, either.
And for all the talk of 'different style of play' - necessitated by the Big Ten refereeing - did Fonzie really do anything differently? The younger guys didn't play much press because when they did, they got abused. They weren't ready for that.
So all we have to go on are the positive reports of Raymond's coaching ability and his reputation as a technician. That is important. Not to mention, Raymond is a recruiting asset.