Making me come out and defend our defense now, are ya?
We had meltdowns, sure. The instances that spring to mind are red zone defense against Michigan (although again, I should give some credit to Michigan- Henne, Hart, Breaston, and Edwards ain't exactly chopped liver), run defense against OU, the first half against Okie State, and a very strange bend-but-don't break gameplan against Arkansas.
But you gotta take the good with the bad, right? We did hold OU to their lowest point total of the season (and I'll thank you kindly for not bringing up that big goose egg we laid on the scoreboard on the other side of the ball) and held Jason White to 130 passing yards, no td's, and two interceptions. Texas Tech (the same Tech that put up 45 points and 600 yards on Cal in the Holiday Bowl) managed just 200 total yards and seven points up until Mack put the scrubs in midway through the 4th quarter. We also held A&M, a top 20 offense, to 6 offensive points and 220 total yards.
In short, last year's defense was a classic case of Jekyl and Hyde syndrome, particularly the secondary.
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I don't think he is going to manage to turn around a pathetic defensive team after one game against Louisiana-Lafayette.
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That's what I'm worried about. The ULL scrimmage probably won't be enough to get our guys comfortable with the new scheme, no matter how good of a coach Chizik is. I can almost guarantee that our defense will be better in November than it is in September. The same thing happened last year with Greg Robinson.
On an unrelated note, I've been looking at tOSU's home record over the last two decades. It looks like the only teams that have had success in the Horseshoe are led by coaching staffs who are very familiar with Big 10 football (i.e. Wisky's Barry Alvarez). I also made note of a year when the Buckeyes went something like 5-6 on the year, but managed to beat two top teams at home (Syracuse and Notre Dame?). That wasn't comforting. Neither is the 99999999-0 home record against OOC teams over the last 20 years.
TheMile, I had a lot of fun in LA with the Michigan fans. Didn't have a single bad experience. Y'all are alright in my book.
PS. Big public school engineering programs kick ass.
EH
