Elite? They were barely top 20 in defense last year. That's good, but not close to elite. Elite defenses don't give up a ton of big plays and blow multiple second half leads.
Honestly, if we never won a NAtty in any other sport but football and basketball, I would be completely happy with a ton of natty's in both.
Pair that defense with a semi-capable offense and numbers would say otherwise.
I cited games where we had the lead in the second half. Was the defense in a bad spot when Mizzou had to drive the length of the field on the final possession? Was it in a bad spot up 14 against Navy, a team that usually can't play from behind because of their style of play?
We don't deserve you, Wichi!
I know.
You have to view it in the correct context. This was the worst offense since the Blake days.. the D gave up a lot of empty yards, short TD drive points, and were gassed continually. Top 20 with worst offense in my (almost) lifetime = elite and performed much better than top 20.
Sure.. but you're just wrong. Defense was always gassed, and navy, hardly anyone gave a crap about the bowl game, except for service academies ironically
I just will agree to disagree. Again, not saying our defense was bad by any means. I can’t stand Brent and think he is an awful head coach but I give him credit for fixing the defense. But it’s not elite yet. I agree that short TD drives can’t be held against them. But big plays due to busted assignments? That’s absolutely on them. Even Teddy talked weekly on the pod about how they allowed too many big plays. If you scroll through last year’s team defensive rankings, you’ll be hard pressed to find any where we are top 10. Many aren’t even top 20. You can’t simply blame all of that on the offense.
So let’s see, we played well against Bama (yes), got a big interception against a bad Auburn team that was unsettled at QB, held Tennessee in check (at home, not on the road) in a game where they got extremely conservative, partially because our defense was playing well and partially because they knew they didn’t need to score in the second half. I’m not sure how much more clear I can make it. Our defense was good. Some games, very good. Elite defenses are very good to great dang near very week. Some of the Bama teams really struggled offensively. The SEC as a whole didn’t generally have many good QBs till the last few years. People would talk about how it was almost a different sport than what the Big 12 was playing. But even when they had bad offenses, they had teams in the title hunt because their defenses absolutely dominated.
