Just in general, I think too much is made about the difference and types of defenses. There’s only so many zones and man coverages and only so many gaps up front to cover. The differences are really individual techniques taught to the players, coach philosophies (how often you blitz, disguising fronts/coverages), and who has what responsibility (runstuffing 2 gap d line vs a Lovie style every man has 1 gap, etc). Now I understand those differences can be pretty drastic with the types of players you need and what it may look like on the field, but if you can recruit the players you need, and develop and teach them properly, any scheme should, and has proven to, work.
Now, Lovies scheme has always frustrated me based mostly on personal preference. I think confusing the qb is the key to college defense and my favorite way to do that is through aggressive blitzes, press coverage, and disguised converages. Lovie tends to be more “basic” in his looks and traditionally doesn’t blitz a ton. If his team is fundamentally strong in the secondary and good individually up-front, it should still work fine, just not my cup of tea.
I guess what I’m getting at is if Lovie wants to stay with his philosophy, I’m totally fine with it and it’s something that can definitely work. (Iowa has run a similar scheme with great success for years). They just really need to sure up the fundamentals and get coaches who are comfortable coaching that scheme.