What are your (un)realistic expectations for the defense this season?

My unrealistic expectation is that they are NOT top 5 in the country and they DON'T lead us to a shot at the national championship. 

I would accept them holding every opponent to negative yardage. Anything less than that and they're playing down to the competition.

Shutout to keep Paul Bunyan = defeated without dignity.

As bad as the September-October schedule is, I think anything above 10 ppg before the Penn State game is UNACCEPTABLE. 

i expect they’ll play hard and have fun.

hopefully, orange slices at halftime. 

My unrealistic and unachievable expectation is that the defense leads the team to a 16-0 record this season.

And, the turnover Buffs are worn by at least three different players every game.

I'd be quite content with a 15-0 record.

Go Blue!

We could blank Nebraska just since they are so inept and have a turnover machine of a QB, but if we’re rolling through the schedule we’ll just continue to sub so much on D that there will be plenty of sad field goals and Defeated With Dignity drives. I could see like 13.5 ppg and top 5 SP+ finish. 

So much hinges on whether or not this secondary gets healthy. 

Honestly, I think 0 shutouts. Seems like we play more 2nd, 3rd string guys late in the game which will lead to garbage time points for opponents. Both ECU and UNLV were basically shutouts. 

I think we stay around those '21 / '22 numbers. 

I expect better stats. Basically we’ve been playing a team full of garden gnomes the first two weeks and our 1’s allowed nothing. But, we’ve also been without arguably two of our best defenders. Graham and Grant are gonna be an unstoppable force this year and Jenkins is Jenkins. 

Id like to know how they expect us to outscore Bowling Green by 40, when we can't seem to get enough possessions and get a 3 TD lead and then go into snooze mode? 40?! 

I would like to see us full strength. More TFLs and turnovers are what we need.

Slightly better than 2016 but scoring numbers will likely be worse because the coaches (wisely) are more concerned with getting 3rd & 4th guys reps rather than having a shutout.

This is one of the areas that SP+ fails because different teams have different approaches.  For instance, tOSU will try to hang 100 on people and never pull their starting QB while Michigan is focused on winning, keeping starters healthy, and developing younger players.

Negative yards and 0 points. 

Our problem with keeping scoring down to this level is the offense + the 4th quarter.  I.e., the likelihood that our second/third team plays much of the fourth quarter is high.   And they do give up points.

The three players invited to NYC for the Heisman are all players on our D. 

My unreasonable expectation is that we have the best interior DL in the country. Although that might not be so unreasonable

9 PPG against  No QB hits 300 yards passing. 
 

Graham and Grant are talked about on next years line with the returning edge pieces of being a generational defense. Just in time for the onslaught of the new B16

Best defense since '97 and it all starts up front there with Jenkins, Graham, and Grant.  Match that up with Johnson and Moore (who, BTW, have yet to play) and the defense will be impressive...

Given the weak ass Non-Con schedule, I think the defense can't afford to give up more than ~17 points to any team besides OSU, PSU, possibly Maryland, and whoever they would play in B1G championship without going undefeated. Fact is, perception is everything when it comes to the CFP committee and anything less than a perfect record is going to weigh heavy on their minds. Hell, Bama/UT, OSU/ND, and FSU/LSU all have signature games they can point to whether they lose or lost their marquee matchups earlier in this season. 

As for specific expectations, it's probably best to create some more turnovers, sacks, and keep a deep rotation among the DLs and DBs to instill some fear amongst opposing offenses as the season goes on. Sounds rudimentary but if this forces offenses to become more one dimensional towards the run or pass, that's one less battle they have to fight.

My unrealistic expectation is that our very, very good defense will show up in two playoff games and slow those two opponents down enough to allow us to win the title.  Too many vaunted M defenses have shown up to a bowl game and gotten handled for this to be a given, but that's what we'll need to get over the hump.

The starting defense drives me and my family to CedarPoint for a day filled with fun and thrills. Kenneth Grant wins my child a stuffed animal because the worker can't guess his weight accurately.

My utterly unrealistic expectation is that the first team D shuts out everyone...no opponent scoring until the Fourth Quarter.

I expect us to be better in PPG because we look more solid at each level of the defense than we did to start last year or 2021. Especially at the LB position, but I am pretty blown away at how well the mostly second at string secondary has played. 
 

Also, due to how well the secondary is playing, and how Sainristill has taken dudes under his wing…I am all for a Clink becoming our D coordinator when Minter likely takes a head job in the next year or so, and then of Mikey doesn’t work out in the NFL, he should have an open door to come and be on the UM staff. 

I'm not going to make any predictions based on our non-conference schedule. 

Overall, I think the D will be better than last season. Looks like this team is better at DT and LB. Secondary may be slightly weaker. DE are still an unknown. I think stat wise, playing a bunch of weak offenses, we could have a top 5 defense by the time we play PSU.

Double post