No defense today across the board
Just look at some of these scores:
- Florida 38, Texas A&M 41
- Virginia Tech 45, UNC 56
- Missouri 45, LSU 41
- Texas 45, Oklahoma 53 (4 OT)
- Alabama 63, Ole Miss 48
Wow. Either nobody played defense today or the impact of covid is being felt more on defense than offense. I don't know how else to interpret so many ridiculously high scoring games than to attribute it to covid, between players out, missed practices, and practices hampered by social distance guidelines.
And with Big Ten beginning play in a couple more weeks, anything to take away and apply?
October 11th, 2020 at 8:13 AM ^
His last season: 7 points against OSU, 14 points against Mississippi State, and not waking up until it was 24-0 against Wisconsin was real modern.
October 11th, 2020 at 8:39 AM ^
Defense was the BIGGEST problem.
His offense could light up the scoreboard if we were playing Bowling Green, Delaware State or UMass. But against ranked teams or teams with a basic pulse, we'd put up 17, 10, 14, 13, etc. We weren't going to win any shootouts unless we joined the MAC.
October 10th, 2020 at 11:35 PM ^
Alas modern football is all offense. Too many advantages for the O, not enough for the D.
October 10th, 2020 at 11:37 PM ^
Georgia, BYU, and Clemson played defense today. You could very well see all three in the playoff.
October 11th, 2020 at 12:29 AM ^
I was going to say - Clemson certainly did. Despite having as good an offense as anyone in the country (and the likely Heisman frontrunner) they held a pretty potent Miami offense to 17 points. Clemson deserves that #1 ranking, at least thus far.
October 11th, 2020 at 12:38 AM ^
And Miami got 7 of their points on a blocked FG attempt that went for a TD.
October 11th, 2020 at 9:42 AM ^
I agree with your point but
October 10th, 2020 at 11:47 PM ^
The takeaway is that Big Ten games will be 28-14, and they will get housed in the playoff.
October 10th, 2020 at 11:51 PM ^
TBH I was kind of expecting the opposite. I always thought defenses were ahead of offense in spring football because it was easier to shake the rust on defense. I guess that's not the case. The lack of spring football has led to really sloppy defensive performances.
October 11th, 2020 at 7:48 AM ^
Maybe the defenses ARE ahead of the offenses... And this is still what it looks like! Welcome to modern football.
October 10th, 2020 at 11:57 PM ^
Ole Miss has had no defense the whole year.
51 points to Florida
41 points to Kenucky
63 points to Bama
That’s GERG level.
I assume DJ will be the fall guy since he’s calling the plays.
October 11th, 2020 at 2:40 AM ^
Might just be me, but Durkin and Kiffin belong together. Ethics be damned!!
October 11th, 2020 at 12:14 AM ^
Kentucky had no problem playing defense today against Super Genius Mike Leach. Mississippi State scored zero offensive points (only points came on a safety) as KJ Costello was picked off four times and threw the ball 55 times for 232 yards, good for a pathetic 4.2 yards per attempt. Not to be outdone, his backup threw 15 passes for 43 yards (2.9 YPA) and two picks.
MS State will probably beat Vandy because the 'Dores are truly terrible but I don't know if I see another expected victory on their schedule.
October 11th, 2020 at 12:26 AM ^
May be a blessing, a year without defense. Now, I hope our offense is on the verge of tearing it up! Since our secondary is weak, we need to outscore teams. Here is an early prediction. Michigan 48 vs Minnesota 40.
October 11th, 2020 at 12:45 AM ^
Welcome to modern football. You have to be able to score points because every game has the chance to turn into a shoot out.
October 11th, 2020 at 1:00 AM ^
Definitely some defense against Mike Leach today. A grand total of 2 points for Miss State.
October 11th, 2020 at 11:00 AM ^
But...but...I was told that Mike Leach was a Super Genius capable of winning every game by throwing for 600 yards. What happened?!
October 11th, 2020 at 4:57 PM ^
Somebody got out the old Apple Cup tapes and saw how Washington stopped his Washington State teams 7 straight years
October 11th, 2020 at 1:03 AM ^
A. Texas/Oklahoma and the entire tire fire that is the Big 12 are complete garbage anyway. They never did play any defense. As if you expected it from Chis Ash.
B. ESS EEE CEE is not much better, sadly. Nick Saban looked legit depressed in the 4th quarter.
C. "Coach O" apparently was made by Joe Brady and some guy in Cincinnati.
D. Still laughing about Florida losing despite the announcers praying it would go the other way.
October 11th, 2020 at 11:27 AM ^
What do you mean the announcers were praying for Florida? I didn't watch a ton of that game. But I believe Greg mcelroy was in the booth. He was on college football live this week saying he was buying into Florida, and they were the clear team to beat in the SEC East. Was he on TV making excuses for his bad take?
October 11th, 2020 at 2:33 AM ^
Bizarre as it is, the big twelve game had the most impressive defense of the games listed.
LSU had guys playing that honestly looked like they had never played football before. They were a shit show at times
October 11th, 2020 at 1:10 PM ^
Not surprising with LSU. Bo Pelini is the DC now, his team's discipline (or lack thereof) is well documented at Nebraska. Not to mention his defensive scheme has been outdated for nearly a decade.
October 11th, 2020 at 4:42 AM ^
Clearly, you haven’t seen UGA play. Defensive roster loaded with dudes that play a fundamentally sound gap control D.
October 11th, 2020 at 7:26 AM ^
For a historical perspective, check out today's "There are..." on the Message Board. JWG Wolverine posted the winning touchdown in the 1971 win against Ohio State.
While Ufer got excited when Michigan scored with 2 minutes to go, on the assumption that the game was over, today announcers would be saying that it left OSU with too much time to score.
October 11th, 2020 at 8:32 AM ^
The ways of modern football... Today, the best defense is an offense that scores every time it has the ball. The scoring pressure generally causes the other team to get more predictable offensively, to get away from their (most likely) balanced game plan. This is what happened to Michigan last year against both OSU and Alabama. They kept scoring and Michigan didn't, so M had to begin abandoning the run and rely more on the pass - something Shea could not do. That's how the avalanches we're so familiar with begin...
I've said it for a couple of years - I don't care how good DB's defense is, if Michigan isn't capable of scoring 40-something against good teams, they're going to lose.
October 11th, 2020 at 8:49 AM ^
I’d argue that we are in trouble, since we don’t have proven DBs, WRs or a QB.
October 11th, 2020 at 9:08 AM ^
The tempo used by Ole Miss took its toll on Alabama. The Alabama D wasn’t set on a number of plays. Recall a few (10?) years ago when Saban complained about teams using tempo to prevent the D from changing personnel? Seems as though he may still dislike tempo.
It was almost like Kiffin knew what Saban’s kryptonite was.
October 11th, 2020 at 9:23 AM ^
I will say this - I do enjoy that the SEC apparently feels that, to spice things up a bit, it simply needed to become the Big XII but with a decided talent advantage when compared to that conference. What we have then is a game which will send defensive-minded fans and coaches into madness, but with more defensive players that will end up in the NFL all the same.
October 11th, 2020 at 9:40 AM ^
I was half expecting a thread about there is no defense for the boards poor behavior and etiquette.
October 11th, 2020 at 9:44 AM ^
If you dont have a great DL your D is gonna get run. Especially the DT position in my view. If your middle guys can immediately push the pocket that kills the timing of quick throws and throws an O off.
October 11th, 2020 at 9:50 AM ^
UT-OU with like two minutes left was 31-17 so that’s kind of like defense. Sort of.
October 11th, 2020 at 9:54 AM ^
My buddy is an OU grad. He blames the BLM "distraction" this summer for their defensive struggles. After hearing that, I was really disappointed they pulled out the RRS yesterday.
October 11th, 2020 at 10:50 AM ^
Texas fans are claiming the same thing, and they might actually have a point. There are claims that the Texas fight song has racist origins, and there was a push to get rid of it, with many on the football team agreeing with this view. After the game with OU, just one player, Sam Ehlinger, (apparently the whole team used to do this) stayed on the field to sing the fight song. Blame on BLM might be misplaced, but it definitely seems like there is some division in the Texas locker room.
October 11th, 2020 at 10:16 AM ^
October 11th, 2020 at 1:54 PM ^
Not contesting your point about scoring at all, but that score of 14-11 sparked some ugly memories and out of curiosity I looked it up.
The only 14-11 score in the entire history of the rivalry was in 1972, when undefeated and #3 Michigan traveled down to Columbus. Bo eschewed field goals on 2 or 3 drives that ended inside the OSU 5 yard line with no points, and as usual we got hosed by the refs who took away a TD from Harry Banks, who'd crossed the goal line on one drive.
October 11th, 2020 at 10:17 AM ^
I'm not particularly a fan of high scoring games. I like defense, good defense. One result aside, I don't necessarily want last year's 10-3 rock fight with Iowa, but I'll take games like last year's 28-21 Penn State - with a different winner, of course.
October 11th, 2020 at 10:39 AM ^
Georgia defeated Auburn 27 - 6. Not so high scoring in that one.
October 11th, 2020 at 9:16 PM ^
Well I heard on this here board that Bo Nix was the best at the elite 11 and Mertz from Wisconsin was just a notch below. And Michigan fans should be scared of Mertz, so it can not be true that Auburn only scored that little with Nix.
October 11th, 2020 at 10:52 AM ^
Don't worry, the big ten will be back soon to put on a clock killing clinic and everyone can pretend the low scores are due to good defense.
October 11th, 2020 at 1:18 PM ^
I don't quite follow. There's what, 2 B1G teams now that don't run a no huddle and at least somewhat hurry up? Not seeing any teams outside of Iowa and Wiscy milking the TOP as a key strategy anymore.
October 11th, 2020 at 2:24 PM ^
The killing the clock bit was somewhat in jest but there are way more teams than 2, including Michigan, that are, shall we say, offense deficient.
October 11th, 2020 at 3:46 PM ^
Michigan hasn't played yet this year, how can you say they're deficient?
October 11th, 2020 at 4:00 PM ^
Okay buddy.
October 11th, 2020 at 1:18 PM ^
Double post got me...
October 11th, 2020 at 11:27 AM ^
With many of these stadiums empty / half full, the offense has the benefit of easier communication to check down. We've seen it in the NFL as well. Defense's have to provide their own juice which benefits scoring. You're doing well if you've been betting the over this year.
October 11th, 2020 at 11:31 AM ^
Notice what these scores are telling us, mainly Power 5 schools with many 4 star athletes-especially on offense. Very high powered offensive attacks. Very good QB play coupled with receivers and tailbacks. Talk about speed in space. The defenses cannot keep up.
Georgia and Clemson have the best defenses thus far in the ACC & SEC. As for the B1G, the Buckeyes' offense should be largely unstoppable. Can Don Brown's defense SLOW down the MN offense? If not, our offense will need to score in the 40s to make it a close game. Lots of intrigue just on our first game.
October 11th, 2020 at 12:01 PM ^
OU-TX: Lincoln Riley sat Rattler (RS Fr QB) for the last few drives of the 1st half after a couple turnovers—seemed to help, as Rattler had a better 2nd half.
Iowa State: I’ve adopted them as “my team” for this season while waiting for Big 10–they have 3 very good Jake Butt type receiving TE. Their QB (Purdy) seems like (hot take incoming) the kind of QB that will make a NFL roster but then get sunk by o by poor decision making...
October 11th, 2020 at 1:45 PM ^
I think that’s football today no matter what. Look at the NFL....Just a remarkable scoring pace.
And credit to another poster earlier in this thread, yes we should be looking at our d with a raised eyebrow, but if your offense can score with anyone than we should be somewhat OK with a bend don’t brake type d. But i think we will be better than that mindset.
I personally think year number 2 under Gattis will be a special one. Could see an explosive offense. (Obvi Joe has a lot to do with that).
October 11th, 2020 at 2:16 PM ^
The NCAA always looks to mimic the NFL. Sieve defenses are the next phase. - All Lion Fans
October 11th, 2020 at 4:20 PM ^
The B12 you expect, but not SEC games.