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[QUOTE="OttoinGrotto, post: 3632823, member: 297"]
Let's suppose you could get something like the offensive production we got in 2019 and mash it up with the defensive performance in 2020, and that's the team you roll with for 2021 - would you be confident in the team making a bowl?

On the plus/minus way of thinking, the 2019 team averaged 28 points a game, and the 2020 defense gave up 33 points a game, rounding up. So there's some ground to make up at a 5 ppg difference.

But there may be a few things to consider. One, we feel, and I think saw, that our defense was good early in games, but couldn't sustain the results given how much time they spent on the field thanks to an offense that couldn't move the ball, score, and generally give them a break.

The idea of yarfs is also interesting. 2019, we didn't feature an excellent offense by any means, HOWEVER, we totaled about a third more yards than 2020. A third. That's a big difference, and a much more functional offense. Could that tip things enough for the defense to make up the difference in scoring average?

I think that might. We faced 20 fewer snaps per game than our opponents this season. That's nuts. In 2019 our offense only had one snap per game fewer than our opponents. Closing that gap back up appears to be part of the formula for success.

Against what I anticipate to be a reasonable schedule, would the better offensive performance (let's just assume we duplicate 2019's offense) be enough when coupled with the 2020 defensive performance to get us back bowling? I think it's tight... but I think it would. Hopefully the 2021 team both improves over 2019's offensive numbers and 2020's defensive numbers and we don't even need to worry about it.
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