Sweet Victory #4: The Defense

I always write the offense first because it is a lot easier than the defense, which is always complicated.

UMass put up a shitload of yards and first downs on BG yesterday.  Like 30 first downs in 76 plays, which is 39% of the plays.  They had 516 yards of total offense with is 6.8 yards per play, including 486 yards passing.

Which is not unexpected.  Frohnapfel is a very good QB and Tajae Sharpe is just uncoverable at WR.  Much like Freddie Barnes, you know he is going to get the ball and yet there does not seem to be a way to impact that.  He had 13 grabs for 156 yards a 1 TD.

So the defense continues to give up real estate in pretty big numbers.

Once again, though BG's defense was up to the ask with red zone stops and turnovers and, in the end, good enough to win.  Yes, UMass had 38 but 7 came on a kickoff return and 7 against the backups.

Here's a list of things BG's defense did well.

BG forced the UMass to be a pass-only team.  (This is a team accomplishment as much as a defensive accomplishment).  The Minutemen ran for only 30 yards--55 if you give them the sack yards back, but either way that isn't great.  Their running backs had only 8 carries.

BG continued to play well in the red zone, giving UMass only 17 points in 4 red zone trips, with one outright stop.

Speaking of which, BG forced a key INT and a key fumble that were each big plays in the game.

While Frohnapfel had big passing numbers, he had to throw 61 times to get there, which means 8 yards per attempt and 61% completions.

BG held them to 6 of 13 on 3rd down, which I mention not because it is a great number but because it seemed a lot worse in the stadium.

BG had 5 sacks and 6 hurries.  There was a lot of pressure of Frohnapfel, which is important since he isn't really very mobile.  BG put some bodies on him and it made a difference on some situations where he had an open guy and missed the connection.

And remember, much of that was done with Austin Valdez in the locker room following his ejection.  He gets a significant share of our tackles and the defense still got the job done.  James Sanford had big day with 10 tackles, 2 sacks and 1 breakup.  Eilar Hardy had 9 tackles, Ballew with 8 tackles (career high), 1 sack and 1 FR.  Mack had the INT, Colvin and Bush with 1 sack each.

Anyway, the storyline for the defense remains consistent.  They certainly are not great, but they are playing hard and making their share of plays to keep the team in the game so the offense can score.  They benefit from the pressure the offense puts on teams.  By and large, the unit is ahead of what I would have expected and getting the job done.  Even more importantly, I think better things are ahead for the defensive side of the ball.