Wreckage Part III....defense

Kent came into this game averaging 2.7 yards per play and 10 points per game.

Against BG, they scored 20 (not counting the defensive touchdown) and averaged 5.4 yards per play.

Coming in, they averaged 2.1 yards per rush.  They averaged 3.9 against BG.

Spencer Keith came into the game with a QB rating of 73 and for this game had a rating of 149.

Suffice it to say, Kent enjoyed success against our defense that they have not enjoyed against anyone else.

In the end, the defense held them to 20 and one of those was off Cooper's fumbled punt, which is not really on them.  Still, you held Temple to 10.

Most of the responsibility for this loss falls on the offense for the reasons listed above.  But, Kent's offense was allowed to be good enough.  They were usually able to get a couple first downs, helping with field position.  They were 3 and out only twice.

The tackling issues were back again, as Kent was able to run the ball on us, as everyone is.  Coach Clawson said that BG was putting men into the box to stop the run, which meant that our corners had to be in soft coverage on the edges, which Kent was able to exploit.  Fundamentally, every team enters the game knowing they can run on BG.  BG had to overplay the box to stop it, and you either take advantage of the overplay (Kent) or you don't (Temple).

The frustrating thing is this.  I think people felt like our team was in a position Saturday to completely shut somebody down.  And while the defense played well enough to win, it was far from a dominating performance.

Put another way, our defense had the opportunity to win the game on its own, with a single digit scoring performance.  And, that did not happen.