The Real Problem With Our Defense Last Year
When watching the games last year, I was often left with the impression that the biggest problem with our defense was our offense. I would love to see some stats on average starting field position for opposing offenses, because I feel like our worst moments on defense always came after the offense coughed up the ball in a bad position.
According to http://www.cfbstats.com, we were ranked 84th in scoring defense and 67th in yards allowed. Again, I wish I had stats on average starting field position, but these two stats seem to indicate that our defense was better on a down-to-down basis than it was at preventing points. Maybe you can explain the disparity in scoring defense versus yards allowed by saying we gave up tons of TDs instead of FGs, but there were 14 teams above us in total scoring defense that allowed more TDs. I feel like the most likely explanation for this disparity is the fact that our offense put us in a terrible position so often. This seems to gel with my own impression of the games last year (like the Notre Dame game, for example).
Hopefully the offense turns around in terms of moving the chains and taking care of the ball. If it does, I think we might be able to expect more improvement from our defense (and in our overall record) than your average fan is predicting.
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