[washingtonismoney]

I wasn't talking about Swann, I was talking about guys who are redshirting. If someone can make a Thomas-like jump from "on the bench" to "honorable all-pac-12" then we have a chance, especially if the secondary starts performing to form.

But, really, there's not a lot of reason for optimism on the defense. We'll probably need something like 2011 or 2015 to happen where the offense is so good that the defense just needs to be "good enough", though given the performance this year and our losses and our reserves, I'm not optimistic.

Then again, did we have any reason (besides Skov coming back) to think we'd get the performance we did in 2012? Hope springs eternal...

Right, but even if someone makes the leap from bench to honorable mention all pac-12 it's not good enough. Let's take the 2015 defense as a baseline. It was OK, ranking #64 in yards per play and #48 in points per drive allowed. (S&P+: 43rd; FEI: 45th; FPI: #43).

So what were the constituent parts on the defensive line? You had honorable mention Thomas... but then you also had first-team honoree Aziz Shittu. Also honorable mention Brennan Scarlett. So you had three all-Pac honorees to hold up a just-decent defense. Add to *that* first-team Blake Martinez and second-team Ronnie Harris and we start to see the level of talent necessary.

Relative to that baseline, we can see that the DL will fall well short even if we grant the premise that someone emerges as honorable mention all-conference from the bench this year. In fact the team will need multiple emergees just to keep pace with 2015.

The good news is that I think the other units can keep pace, if not exceed, 2015 pretty reasonably. Justin Reid will be better than Harris; Quenton Meeks with a bounce-back year would be all-conference. And then some group of Alameen Murphy, Holder, Malik Antoine, Paulson Adebo, etc. can fill out the defensive backfield. Bobby Okereke can give a good Blake Martinez impression, though I think he'll be slightly (but not complainably!) worse. We'll see about the rest of the unit but I like Toohill and Fox.

The defensive line problem, in my mind, is just too big.

(I think we had a very good reason to suspect 2012 would be really good: https://www.ruleoftree.com/2012/4/20/296...-be-anyway)

[washingtonismoney]

I wasn't talking about Swann, I was talking about guys who are redshirting. If someone can make a Thomas-like jump from "on the bench" to "honorable all-pac-12" then we have a chance, especially if the secondary starts performing to form.

But, really, there's not a lot of reason for optimism on the defense. We'll probably need something like 2011 or 2015 to happen where the offense is so good that the defense just needs to be "good enough", though given the performance this year and our losses and our reserves, I'm not optimistic.

Then again, did we have any reason (besides Skov coming back) to think we'd get the performance we did in 2012? Hope springs eternal...

Right, but even if someone makes the leap from bench to honorable mention all pac-12 it's not good enough. Let's take the 2015 defense as a baseline. It was OK, ranking #64 in yards per play and #48 in points per drive allowed. (S&P+: 43rd; FEI: 45th; FPI: #43).

So what were the constituent parts on the defensive line? You had honorable mention Thomas... but then you also had first-team honoree Aziz Shittu. Also honorable mention Brennan Scarlett. So you had three all-Pac honorees to hold up a just-decent defense. Add to *that* first-team Blake Martinez and second-team Ronnie Harris and we start to see the level of talent necessary.

Relative to that baseline, we can see that the DL will fall well short even if we grant the premise that someone emerges as honorable mention all-conference from the bench this year. In fact the team will need multiple emergees just to keep pace with 2015.

The good news is that I think the other units can keep pace, if not exceed, 2015 pretty reasonably. Justin Reid will be better than Harris; Quenton Meeks with a bounce-back year would be all-conference. And then some group of Alameen Murphy, Holder, Malik Antoine, Paulson Adebo, etc. can fill out the defensive backfield. Bobby Okereke can give a good Blake Martinez impression, though I think he'll be slightly (but not complainably!) worse. We'll see about the rest of the unit but I like Toohill and Fox.

The defensive line problem, in my mind, is just too big.

(I think we had a very good reason to suspect 2012 would be really good: https://www.ruleoftree.com/2012/4/20/296...-be-anyway)