They ran 70 total plays in 10 drives. 7 plays per drive is not a lot. We failed getting them off the field. 10-15 on third down conversions was rough. They were definitely the better team, and I’m not upset, but I really am not going to say the defense did well when they gave up a ton of points per possession.
No offense but that is really shallow analysis. The plays per drive will be an average brought down by 3 and outs, or other short drives with a punt, which is a success by the defense. A better picture will be how many plays they were forced to take to score. They averaged 9 plays on their scoring drives which is a lot. To compare, Clemson was under 5.5. BC was about 7.
And yes, we struggled to get off the field because we weren't consistent enough on defense. I don't think anyone is claiming our defense played great in a vacuum. I think what people are saying, including me, is that our defense did about as well as could be expected considering they were clearly outmatched against a high ranked team. The defense made some plays and put themselves in a position where they could get a stop. but weren't consistent enough with them to completely get off the field IMO our fumble recover was a result of that fact as the more plays you force an offense to take the more opportunities for mistakes there are. We had a couple of drives where we were able to make the needed plays to get off the field, 3 punts and another FGA when they started at mid field.
There is certainly a long ways though and some of our problems just aren't going away this year no matter what.