Sweet, Sweet Victory #10: The Defense

You cannot say enough about what our defense has accomplished over the past two seasons.  It has been remarkable...long time since this program had a defensive identity, and now we have one.  They had done an incredible job...and let us not forget that they lost their defensive star (1 of 2, anyway) in the UT game and then built around that and were more dominant following that.

It is impressive.

So was the performance against NIU.  Not that it was a total shut down, because it wasn't, but because they stopped drives and won enough battles to put the game away...against a team and player that were considered unstoppable.

For example:

They averaged 42 points a game.  They scored 27 against BG.

They averaged 7.4 yards per play.  They got 5.5 against BG.

Jordan Lynch averaged 7.7 yards per rush coming in.  He got 4.8.

NIU had thrown only 5 INT this year.  BG got 2.

Etc.

Coach said after the game that BG's strategy was not to let anything get over the top and force NIU to drive the ball down the field...and that NIU would have a hard time making long drives against our defense.

This strategy worked.  Look, NIU had 29 first downs, which is a ton.  The difference is that they had to run 82 plays.  They had 454 yards of offense...but they had to run 82 plays to get it.  Their long run was 23 yards and their longest passing play was 20 yards.

So NIU moved the ball...but without big plays and with only 2 meaningful TDs.  BG stopped drives.  NIU only punted once...but they tried 4 field goals and surrendered once on a 4th down.

BG took an explosive offense and made them plug for yardage, and in that kind of game, they had enough to get the job done.  They didn't shut Lynch down...but they did reduce his effectiveness to that of a human player and those are all huge accomplishments and championship accomplishments.

Before the game, Coach said you have to tackle Lynch.  I thought BG did an excellent job.   He broke some tackles...guy is a really good player....but most of the time the first guy there held on and had help there very quickly.

It is probably one of the top defensive performances in program history, provided exactly when needed.

All week BG talked about the team concept and that is certainly what worked here.  Lots of guys had good games.

Ryland Ward made 11 tackles.

Boo Boo Gates made 6 but at least a couple prevented big plays.

DJ Lynch had 11 plays, 1 for loss and a key hurry.  Was all over the place.

Truss 8 tackles and 1 break up.

Sutton 7 tackles and a hurry.

Bryan Thomas 2 TFL and a hurry.

Ted Ouellet, an INT, a sack and a hurry.

Aaron Foster, an INT and 2 break ups.

You get the idea.  This defense may only have one first-team All-MAC player, but its the best unit in the conference.  Simple as that.

And a unit that won a championship.  Coach Elko said that the BG defense and the NIU offense was like 2 freight trains coming together.  His freight train won the collision.