"Look at the confusion on the Oregon defense...."

[wheaton4prez]

echo, my take on it is that it was that way by design. The idea was, unlike last year, to play more conservative and force BSU to earn yardage with lots of plays.

The down side was that they had the ball for a long time. But, the up side was that they eventually would make mistakes. I think it worked as expected. While BSU had long drives, they didn't have many if any big plays, they made many mistakes and we kept their score down below most peoples expectations.

The problem is that our offense did way more poorly than expected. Allowing the long BSU drives, as you note, further exacerbated that problem by giving us fewer possessions. I don't think anyone saw that coming. Scoring 21 points would have been lower than most peoples expecations. Yet, it would have won that game.

I think that in future games when we play teams that we are more confident in predicting their offensive scheme, we will have a more aggressive defensive strategy. This game was, imo, being treated as an exception because they burned our aggressive play so much last year.

[Greydrake]

... but we run that ALL GAME LONG ... WHY?!?!?!"

Ah,..., because it is easier than actually thinking up a defensive scheme?

[midwestduck82]

At least if we stop the run against Purdue we will win. Just teach them how to wrap up. We were bouncing off Avery like he is 230 lbs. Grab them and don't let go.

[Greydrake]

Sloppy tackling was clearly evident in the second half which I attribute to fatigue.
Haven't had the stomach to watch a replay, but I recollect the tackling to have been better when we started. I expect a better performance defensively if the offense is consistent enough to give the d' some rest.