I'm gonna legitimately be realistic for a moment....

This is what I was told so take it with a grain of salt and I'm sure it will be contradicted and I'll be a moron but oh well, here it goes. 

With the hiring of deke Adams, the philosophy of the defensive line changed. Adams coaches a more aggressive style where he wants the line to attack vs lawning teaching more of a gap control technique with the line. When lawning was there, he wanted his tackles to basically hold up the offensive lineman and force the running backs to have to try to bounce outside which in turn was forcing them into the defensive ends that were trying to set the edge to force them even wider. The exception was clowney who was basically allowed to pin his ears back and try to disrupt everything in the backfield, hence the motion that the best way to neutralize clowney was to run right at him because he basically got up field so quick that he took himself outta the play by over pursuing. This in theory worked because it forced teams to run a lot farther for say a 3 yard gain. Well, in comes Adams who wants his defensive line to attack and try to get up field and cause disruptions in the backfield in every play. This puts the gap assignments on the linebackers because in years past, the d line was setting the gap control now it's the linebackers job to fill the gaps left open by the d line being the ones to attack. This is where the  inexperience at lb is really hurting Carolina because one wrong step into the wrong gap and there is a lane wide open. This is a known fact

This next part is complete speciation on my part but this is what I think was happening earlier in the year. Obviously Carolina got hashed for some big plays in just about every game this year. I think the secondary was trying to over compensate for the linebackers, basically feeling like they had to cover the linebackers ass because they were so inexperienced, which in turn put them outta position and lead to big plays in the passing game for opposing teams. Also something to consider is the defense really didn't get a whole lot of help from the special teams in the vandy as Kentucky game. We fumbled a kickoff deep in our territory in both of those games which led to short fields and quick scores and a shift in momentum. Turnovers are part if the game and in years past our defense was pretty salty and when things like this happened, the defense would bail them out so to speak. That just hasn't been the case so far this season. I do feel like the defense is progressing as the linebackers get more sound in their gap assignments. You will still see this defense give up some big plays here and there but overall I think they took a step in the right direction Saturday at Arky. Even though Arky is a fairly one dimensional team, if a nothing else it should provide some confidence to the young corp of lbs, an gaining confidence is half the battle. Lb is not a position where you have time to try to think your way thru it, you have to react off of instinct and these freshman have been playing not to blow an assignment and in turn have either thought themselves outta the play or didn't react quick enough to get in the play. I have no doubt that they will get better from here on out and be a much improved unit toward the end of the year. Only time will tell though.