[Hulk01]

I watched most of the Washington game last night, and was impressed.  Our offense committed more unforced errors than they have since the Notre Dame last year--penalties, sacks allowed, the interception--but both units were lethal most of the game, and Stanford totally dominated the first half.

I watch safeties carefully, of course, and I don't see what some others see.  The defense is yielding more this year, but the difference--which seems to show up vividly in the statistics, are largely two things: far fewer sacks, and the three brobdingnagian plays that skew our passing and total defense numbers: the 70 yard bomb against UCLA, Schuster's brobdingnagian play for USC, and the bomb to Villiamin--three 40+ pass plays in just seven games, compared to just two in 13 games last year.

If you remove sacks from our rush defense numbers, you get these yards per run allowed stats:
2014: 4.1
2015: 4.5

A decline, to be sure, but 4.5 is pretty good--just 10% softer than last year.

Similarly, adjusting for the three brobdingnagian plays, our yards per pass numbers are about 10% worse, too: 5.3 last year, 5.8 this year.

The curious stat is yards allowed per completion.  Last year, teams penny-and-nickled us to death with the pass, averaging just 9.4 yards per completion--the second fewest in the country.  This year, the hell-with-challenging the edges, go deep approach of our opponent's has trampolined that number to 12.1 per completion.  (And if you deduce the three bombs it's still 10.9 per completion, a clear jump for last year. 

What I don't see evidence of, on the games I've rewatched and in the numbers, evidence that our safeties' tackling is a major culprit.  We actually are allowing one less completion per game over ten yards, which suggests we're wrapping up well.  And both of these starting safeties look much better against the run that two safeties that fans here raved about for years: Bo McNally and Ed Reynolds. 

I certainly may be missing the examples, but I've rewatched at least two other games, and I don't see this as an issue,  The challenge I see is the mentioned decline in our pass rush, a few more cases of our linebackers--even Blake twice against Washington--getting taken out, or taking themselves out, and a susceptibility to the very big ball, especually to the deep left against Holder or Murphy, who I feel confident will be very good Dbs very soon. 

And I'd hazard the guess that if this group of DBs had Anderson, Parry, Anderson, and Tarpley in front of them, they'd be part of a defense that might be slightly stronger, to the eye and in the statistics, than last year's.

[Hulk01]

I watched most of the Washington game last night, and was impressed.  Our offense committed more unforced errors than they have since the Notre Dame last year--penalties, sacks allowed, the interception--but both units were lethal most of the game, and Stanford totally dominated the first half.

I watch safeties carefully, of course, and I don't see what some others see.  The defense is yielding more this year, but the difference--which seems to show up vividly in the statistics, are largely two things: far fewer sacks, and the three brobdingnagian plays that skew our passing and total defense numbers: the 70 yard bomb against UCLA, Schuster's brobdingnagian play for USC, and the bomb to Villiamin--three 40+ pass plays in just seven games, compared to just two in 13 games last year.

If you remove sacks from our rush defense numbers, you get these yards per run allowed stats:
2014: 4.1
2015: 4.5

A decline, to be sure, but 4.5 is pretty good--just 10% softer than last year.

Similarly, adjusting for the three brobdingnagian plays, our yards per pass numbers are about 10% worse, too: 5.3 last year, 5.8 this year.

The curious stat is yards allowed per completion.  Last year, teams penny-and-nickled us to death with the pass, averaging just 9.4 yards per completion--the second fewest in the country.  This year, the hell-with-challenging the edges, go deep approach of our opponent's has trampolined that number to 12.1 per completion.  (And if you deduce the three bombs it's still 10.9 per completion, a clear jump for last year. 

What I don't see evidence of, on the games I've rewatched and in the numbers, evidence that our safeties' tackling is a major culprit.  We actually are allowing one less completion per game over ten yards, which suggests we're wrapping up well.  And both of these starting safeties look much better against the run that two safeties that fans here raved about for years: Bo McNally and Ed Reynolds. 

I certainly may be missing the examples, but I've rewatched at least two other games, and I don't see this as an issue,  The challenge I see is the mentioned decline in our pass rush, a few more cases of our linebackers--even Blake twice against Washington--getting taken out, or taking themselves out, and a susceptibility to the very big ball, especually to the deep left against Holder or Murphy, who I feel confident will be very good Dbs very soon. 

And I'd hazard the guess that if this group of DBs had Anderson, Parry, Anderson, and Tarpley in front of them, they'd be part of a defense that might be slightly stronger, to the eye and in the statistics, than last year's.