Agree with just about everything you said here, the issue is we saw all the same issues for 3 years. Now we have a quicker strike offense (which surprising as all hell Mullen switched to) which now takes those issues we have seen for 3 years and made them worse because the defense is on the field longer as well.
In 2018 Kentucky, Missouri and UGA exposed the scheme while all the other teams in our division were also rebuilding. In 2019 Kentucky with a 3rd string quarterback, LSU (which exposed everyone) and UGA exposed us while the rest of our division was still rebuilding. Now in 2020, Mullen changed his offensive tune (thank fuching god) and we have an offensive system actually built for the pieces we have, but it has further exposed our schitty scheme and after the attrition of players leaving skill level. So instead of us eating so much clock with our new offensive system we are striking quicker and leaving are schitty defense scheme on the field longer. Couple this with more teams are coming out of their rebuilds, and have two seasons of tape on how we are going to run our defense not a good combination.
How much of the defensive numbers the first two year were due to Mullen's offensive scheme protecting them by being on the field longer? So not only got a schitty scheme and poor recruiting, but they are also on the field longer because of improvements on offense. This isn't a knock on the improvements on offense, the improvements just exposed the issues that were being covered previously.