More UCD Defensive Ranking

1st Down Def - #96
Rushing Def - #104
Red Zone Def - #89
Team Sacks - #48
Few Pen Per Gm - #71

Hawkins has praised our secondary as very deep ... so where can we improve? We seem deep at LB, but young?

Your stats show we are poor against the run. We have also seen we are poor at getting a pass rush from the DL.I think most sacks above come from blitzes. So defensive line is one area of improvement.
Against ISU we can only judge up to point their qb left game. For the first half the defense players creditably, but missed tackles resulted in some big plays. We could use more size/speed generally.

We have also seen we are poor at getting a pass rush from the DL. — Riveraggie

This, in my opinion, is the main reason we lost to EWU. They formed a border fence around their QB and we just couldn't penetrate it.

NCAA Statistics

http://www.ncaa.com/stats/football/fcs/current/team/22

Too many items to list everything. If you recall Coach Gould had an early focus to replace a number of graduating DBs. Gould also lost at least three studs on defense who transfered to FBS schools - Jordan Hoyt (ASU), Amonai Itaaehau (New Mexico), and Robert Taylor (WSU). (The 1st two don't look to be playing this year.)

Injuries may also play a role. Barely a word on the topic.

Defense

Pass Yds Allowed #83
Pass Interceptions #71
Team Tkles 4 Loss #68

Special Teams

KO Return Defense #49
Blocked Punts (3) #4
Net Punting ----- #110
Punt Return Def #121

Punt return defense reminds me of trying to catch water skippers in my pool net. Just too quick for me.
By analogy punt returners have been too quick for our special teams. We need more speed. And not just from guys who are 5’ 6” and 170lbs

If B. Lee is not getting any PT at WR, why not try him here? Supposedly fast, one attribute that helps.

B Lee didn't play much even under Coach Gould. He was supposed to be a big time player. A inside source told me he has a bit of an attitude.

Tough to put yourself in a hole ... don't cover the punt well, and then give up big yardage on 1st down.

My favorite is giving up a first down when the other team is backed up. One of the worst omens for us seems to be downing the ball inside the five. Has been for years.

Have we lost any significant D playets to injury?

It appears Sac has a monster pass rush, and solid D.

It appears Sac has a monster pass rush, and solid D — movielover

That game has me nervous. They knocked off SUU 54-27. It will be interesting to see how we match up with SUU tihs weekend. With that said, SUC "usually" self destructs against us.

Same here, I watched most of the second half off Sac against UNC and the strength of their team seems to be on the lines.
Winning one of these next two is important. So let’s take them one at a time, win this week and then play loose against Sac with a good season already in the bag

I'm hoping with a top 10 QB, WR, and passing offense, combined with a legitimate turnaround, our recruiting will be on fire.

Two RBs, and a few D linemen might help. Impact players. Maybe back to the JC ranks.

Any feedback on players redshirting who might help? Crawford and Gilbert were highly regarded at WR. Same for Cam Trimble (LB) and DeAndre Morgan (DL). Hunkin, Nixon (both D line)?

Our biggest need is to replace graduating offensive linemen, hopefully upgrading the position.
Still wondering if anyone knows how many scholarships we have to offer. I suspect our incoming class will be the normal 10 - 12, not the 30+ we had this year. I hope some of the guys from last year step up.
The only position we have covered are qb, wide receiver and maybe tight end.

We also appear to be deep at DB and LB. But everyone seems to need work on tackling.

Kind of no name on defense this year, no one with a particularly high impact. At least in terms of defensive stats.Not sure what that means but I don’t think it’s good; we need some guy on D to step up and be the analog of Doss, a guy teams factor into their game plans. We dont have that guy

Parenteau was a beast to start the year. Bua has been solid.

Well there you have it. One has missed the last three games, and the other is a amazing football player because he emerged as a player in his freshman year ahead of much more heralded lb recruits, but he’s limited in speed. He and others have made valuable contributions, but no one stands out in the defensive stats as having a big year,

We did have 20, 21 seniors last year. Lost 2 starting DL, 2 starting LB, and Jones at DB.

Whatever the reason, the defense rankings movielover started this thread with confirm that the defense is weak. Total defense ranked 104. Rushing defense ranked 104.
We don't have problems at just one position, like say North Dakota had at middle linebacker. Its a distributed problem. I don't think we will see many defensive players get league recognition. Answer is recruiting and player development. Going to take awhile.

I think in general it is easier to recruit quality offense than defense in the FCS and then you put on top of that that the Big Sky is basically known for being an offensive juggernaut conference. I'm hoping to see some improvement going forward in the next couple of seasons, but I'm not holding my breath for a huge jump up.

It would be interesting to crunch the defensive numbers over the last 4 or so games. The Weber game alone would really skew the stats against us. On the other hand, let the opponents think they can have their way with us :).

We gave up over 500 to EWU, nearly 500 to NAU, a struggling CP put up mid 400's on us, even ISU got over 400 and that was without their starting QB for half the game. Our defense just isn't very good.

If our defense was even average for the FCS we could have been in a strong playoff position right now.