It depends on your starting point. We had the Golden years of defense -- Manny was a a massive ray of sunshine after that. That was not the return of Hurricane defense but the transfer of Manny's defense with its history of short term success and then fade. He is more gimmick than the old Cane defenses which were more "we will play our base defense, crash the LOS, attack your raping the runners on the way and dare you to beat us". I will grant your that we do not have the speed to play that now but this is Manny's third full defensive recruiting class so that is on him.
The truth remains that Manny thinks HIS defense is the right defense just like Golden thought his was. Manny's resembles our old defense so we felt more comfortable that with Al's herd of cows defense, but it is not our old defense. 2017 with TOC was exciting but THE 3RD down problems were horrible. 2018 improved on 3rd down but turnovers became non factor. That is why I insist Manny should have known his defense needed to get better, instead he hire a the boy who was busy running his same defense -- hum, that is not much different that Al and friend.
I was okay with Manny's OC hire because it showed promise of improvement. It might be wrong move but it had shot. The DC hire and retention of the entire staff showed that "Manny the HC" thinks "Manny the DC" was god. Manny the HC just got beat by the HC who gave him a massive chance at DC of about the best program in the country only to have to fired him before the year was out and then get fired himself. Now Manny gets shot at the greatest HC opportunity there is and what does he do -- assume his defense is good enough. That defense just gave up its second late 4th quarter lead. DCs get fired for that but Manny has he own boy toy at DC now, so I doubt that will happen.
I mistakenly thought Golden would realize his defense was not Hurricane defense and needed to change. That caused me to defend him for two years. Maybe Manny fired his DC this year and brings in one who will give us a real Hurricane defense but I am not going down that road unless he does. Offense might have not been great or even good this week but it took the lead late in the fourth, that put the game in the hands of Manny's defense and it failed. That is his failure. Like him doe not change that.