Yeah I watched the Clemson VT game last night. VT was super aggressive with blitzes most of the night and yet they still gave up 42 points. Clemson was not much better giving up 35 points playing mostly read and react with very little blitz. I think our defense plays as good as either of these two teams. The facts are, other than Alabama, no body plays great defense. Every game played yesterday teams were scoring in the 30's and 40's. That is just modern day college football. You can argue scheme and personnel until the cows come home but the facts are modern day D1 college football is all about the offense.
Go Jackets!
That's fine, but we still need to measure ourselves against the other teams currently playing D1 college football...and if you just look at that, we're not doing so well on the defensive side of the ball. Here are a few issues (
https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/):
#49 in opponent points per game
#64 in opponent yards per game
#78 in opponent yards per play
#53 in opponent points per play
#54 in opponent offensive TD per game
I'll admit, these numbers aren't as bad as I thought they'd be, but they're not exactly good either. It doesn't matter if you slice it by play or game, we haven't been that good on defense
compared to our peers. I know we're going to give up yards and points the way football is played today...I'd just like to see these numbers in the 30's rather than the 50's - 70's.
Now, the good news is that we played a TON of young guys this year. I think we can get better just by experience alone. If we bump these up into the 30's I think we have a chance to be really good the way our offense can score at times.