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Message: [QUOTE="pokercuse08, post: 5300500, member: 6535"] Conference-only in points per game allowed we were 12/17, sacks 12/17, turnovers T-7/17. I wanted to look this up because I remember a lot of games where a lot of people were ranting about the soft defense, only for us to force a turnover or two later in the game. In addition, the points per game allowed includes everything, like the four pick-6's in ACC games. That's 3.5 points per game. It doesn't account for super short fields after special teams mishaps. Now that's true for everyone, but we know our ST cost us a lot more than others and probably cost us a couple points per game. I think we had more pick 6's too, so I think it's reasonable to guess that it all added up to 2.5 to 3 points per game. That's enough to put us right in the cluster of teams from #7 Pitt at 27.4 ppg allowed to #11 FSU at 28.3 ppg allowed, which seems fair to me. If you think that's a reasonable adjustment, we were in the middle of the pack among ACC defenses - just outside the top half in ppg allowed and just int he top half in turnovers. Pretty solid job IMO given this next part... White was running a 3-3-5, which made sense when we were basically conceding that we could not recruit the level of DL and LB talent/size that we would need to compete with the Clemson's of the world in a 4-3 or 3-4 front (or the nickel variations of these). So you give up size, you add speed on the back end, and you try to create some confusion for the QB. It's the right adjustment IF you can't recruit the combination of talent and size needed. Fran and ERob are not making that concession. So they switched us to a big boy defense. But we're in the midst of transitioning from not having the requisite size/talent to having it. So it stood to reason that this year there might be some struggles. This is an area where I do think we need to give them 2-3 years to get their guys in and developed. [/QUOTE]

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