The Curious Case of Kenny Demens

so that you can learn about Kenny Demens's stats.

http://www.mgoblue.com/sports/m-footbl/stats/092411aac.html

Spoiler alert-- he's leading the team in tackles.

you're complaining that our leading tackler isn't productive enough.

He's the one getting off the ball carrier on every play.

Yes, you remember him because he never did his job.  You are not hearing about Demens much right now because running backs are not high stepping past him with alarming regularity.  I don't think anybody expected greatness from Demens, just the absence of notable awefulness.  That is what we are seeing.  Demens has been solid.

We're going to need to change your username.  Ugh.

Do you even watch our football games? The guy is doing great.

Soon he will be a baby again.

I will provide an answer to your question, but first let me help you help yourself.

To check on how Demens is doing this season, you are only waiting on the UFR from SDSU.  All the other games have UFR's so that's both game evaluation stats, charts, and editorial conclusions per game.  From time to time Brian states that the UFR isn't a tool to compile stats through the season, but you can read the summaries and see a progression game by game.  In addition to that there are various Picture Pages type postings, one by Brian and a coupld others by posters.  They will be easy to find through the search engine available on this site, and you'll want to do that because it will lead you to all the other great sites that provide similar content and can provide you with excellent contrasting/comparitive information to answer your question.

My assessment from doing the above is that Demens has shown strong consistent play that is very good, but has yet to perform any spectacular "prime time" feats.  This is not at all a bad thing and is more likely the affect that there are still other weaker links than it is that he is just an average player.  I don't think he'll be a legendary player, but I think he's a pretty effective player on a still learning and thin defense overall.

My attention to Demens was focused by the running success of EMU.  The jet sweeps certainly seemed to catch everyone, but especially the LB's very flat footed.  I would have to look back at the UFR for specifics, but based on the picture page focus of the EMLOS as a key role to that, as well as the growing summary that Jake Ryan has great talent and energy, but is peforming below average on contain.  A big thing about jet sweeps is that they attach the containing position of the defense.  And if Demens had started to play out of his responsibility, EMU may have had the experience to call an option to then attack that over pursuit.  That said, I think the entire LB corp looked a little slow and lost early in the EMU game.  As always it's hard to assign blame to one person on an 11 person team, especially when you have a DC who drills for precision and everyone executing their assignment.  Thus, for every player who seems "quiet" on the stat sheet, I see a player who is executing their role, and is just waiting for the weakest links to strengthen a little bit more before they talent peaks start to show.  If you'd like an electrical engineering metaphor, our SNR is still too low to really congratulate all the heros on defense.  This approach yields average results in the short term, but big gains in the long term, in my opinion.

So, I don't expect the MSU game to necessarily put Demens up on a pedastal just because of their offensive philosophy, because every schematic approach has enough variation to allow plays to be called against the weakest part of the defense.  And unless Dantonio is a complete idiot, he's only going to target Demens is Demens is truly the weakest link.  And I don't think that's the case, based on how the opposing offenses prefer to attack the edge and to perform a lot of shifts and motion on the line so they can attack a specific side of the defense.

It's like an epidemic.

You're more with the "blue" than the "iq" in your username, I'm betting.

This thread sucks so I'll just add a random thought I just had.

It'd be cool to some point down the road see a trick play where DG comes in the game and throws a deep ball lined up as a WR. Denard hits DG for one of those turn and gun it to the WR right off the snap and then Gallon/Hemingway/Roundtree races down the sidelines and DG hits him in stride. Yea, let's do it.