Points scored are kind of a big deal. Last year, we gave up 24 or more 5 times (twice we gave up just 24). We’ve given up 24 or more in both games (sure, 7 of that from LaLa was special teams, but whatever). This is not a good defense. The DL gets pushed around a lot, the LB’s are remarkably slow both to the ball and in coverage, the secondary is going to get absolutely torched this year, Zims is either trying to compensate for the rest of the secondary being bad or has just regressed, and the only one who looks like he plays with any effort is Mueller. They are getting scapegoated just fine.
The only surprise or highlight out of the last game for the defense was that Tanner’s finally put in a zone blitz concept whereby the DL/DT dropped back into coverage.
I just think that it's a combination of the offense putting them in worse spots and them not generating turnovers that's causing the scoring. Again, from a pure yardage standpoint, the two defenses differ by a matter of inches.
Also, the first half defensive performances in both games weren't really that bad. They seem to wear down in the second half, which may also be a byproduct of these games being on two of the hottest days of the entire year.
I mean, let's face it, we beat Miami 52-13 last year, and we were +2 on TO because they fumbled it three times. Had Miami not coughed all of those up, and we recovered all of them, maybe we win that game 38-27 or something like that, and the score would have more accurately reflected what we saw against ULL last night. And, to be clear, if we're going by last year's stats, ULL had a better offense than Miami did if you're looking at yards per play.
I'm not saying that they are a good defense. But I don't think they're as bad as a lot of people are making them out to be.
