Coaching philosophy. If we're up, we take our foot off the gas and run clock instead of scoring points. See the Akron game this year for the perfect example. We're up 20 at the beginning of the 4th and only win by a touchdown, because our offense went super conservative (for instance, a QB sneak out of the pistol on 3rd and 2).

Gotta believe that if our D was healthy all season we'd have 2 - 3 fewer losses in 2012 and those PPG comparisons would look a lot different.  If you only give up 10 per game, like ND, you can go a long way on offense with 20.

A few things here....

I'd like to agree with the statement above, but we have ZERO MAC championships since 1968. 

PPG is a single data point that reflects the effectiveness of the offense, defense and special teams, not just the offense.  How do points generated from special teams compare to previous years.  How about the take-away ratio?

By no means am I in the "heads should roll" camp.  This has been a year of great highs and anquishing lows.  But this still beats losing 31 - 0 to Northeastern.

Marshall? Buffalo? Arkon?

Right, because the offense got us out of those games. Then things switched in the last third or so of the season

No, they weren't. My point was that the BAD defensive performance of the first two-thirds breakdown follows) of the year didn't bite us in the ass because the offense overcame the defensive deficiencies. The defense DID play good in 3 of 4 games to close out the season, but the offense (of special teams) cost us two of those games, and we beat EMU. The thread topic was "has the offense been improving", and it is my contention that it was the offense, not the defense, that got us past UMASS, Buffalo, and maybe Akron. BostonBobcat is correct in saying that we performed well against Marshall (my memory was skewed by how quickly they scored their first 14 poitns).

2012 defensive performance (FCS opponents excluded in "relative result", but included in quantitative)

                                       (How their offense 
                                     performed against us)          (Their score relative to mean Points/game (PPG))
Opponent                          Relative Result                           Appearance of quantitative certainity                     Qualitive
Penn State                    Lowest score of season                             Held under PPG by 15.1pts                        GOOD
NMSU                      2nd HIGHEST score of season                         Exceeded PPG by 6.2pts                              Bad
Marshall                  2nd Lowest score of season                            Held under PPG by 16.9pts                        GOOD
UMASS                        Highest score of season                               Exceeded PPG by 21.3pts                            BAD
Buffalo                         Highest score of season                               Exceeded PPG by 9.7pts                              BAD
Akron                         3rd highest score of season                           Exceeded PPG by 2.9pts                    Sure isn't good
Fiami                               Median score of season                            Held under PPG by 0.3pts                  Good enough
EMU                             T-4th lowest score of season                       Held under PPG by 7.3pts                          Good
BG                                T-2nd highest score of season                   (only) Exceeded PPG by 2.8pts         Pretty good   
                                           (but punting)                                                (with the punting woes)             considering punting
Ball State                   Highest score of season                                Exceeded PPG by 17                            BAD BAD BAD
Kent State               2nd LOWEST score of season                        Held under PPG by 6.4pts                 REALLY GOOD
                                 (even with their D scoring 2 of those)              (under PPG by 20.4 without 2 defensive TDs

(And I really do hope that looks good. I'm afraid that my "table" will just be a mess when I hit submit)
So whats it all mean? The defense (AND the offense) played well against Penn State and Marshall. Likewise, both sids of the ball crapped the bed statistically speaking against Ball State. The offense played so well against NMSU that it didn't really matter what the D did. But look at those numbers from UMASS and Buffalo! With the offense of 2005-2010, we lose those games.

I feel like I've wandered away from whatever my original point was, so I'll conclude. Before the Miami game, the D didn't impress me, though it must be stressed that they played very well against Penn State and Marshall. After the Miami game the defense played pretty good, excepting Ball State whichdidn't really get out of hand until after Neal Huyun and Carl Jones were lost.

Please please, call me matt. My initials could be mis-interpreted (in a way that rhymes with "Ducker") when taken without the context of my OakID

HA! Thats true!
That makes this easily the most productive thing I did yesterday

I don't know.  Our defense has been almost sufficient at points.  But not nearly good enough, to be frank.

Sorry.  But this bend  but not break and no-attacking, no-aggro defense we play is not spirit-infusing.

At some points we need the defense to win the game, to get us going when the offense is not.  Sorry for repeating again, but THAT'S what we needed the D to do against BG in the last home game.

At some points we need a D that controls the game.

Aren't you guys tired of defenses controlling us when it matters?  Wouldn't you like to see us do it to them?



Yeah, the offense does need to be better.  Hurry up anyone?
It's also fair to say that this staff will dial it back late when we're up big.  That is okay.