[washingtonismoney]

You're right, looking at the stats UCLA was over their season-averages of YPP in both passing and rushing. It does feel like this is an Oregon situation, although I think Oregon was more intentionally risk-taking, playing aggressively knowing that if they screwed up and the other team scored it didn't matter, but if they made a great play then they'd be digging the hole deeper and deeper.

Anyway, this is what we expected, right? The defense doesn't need to be great, just "good enough". And it was definitely "good enough". In another thread Hulk posted that we were over 3 ypp greater than UCLA through 3 quarters (the 4th was an exercise in futility for UCLA). That's really impressive.

Yup, these are high-class problems to discuss, of course. But I'm still a bit cautious about the team for that reason. The defense will need to chip in against N.D. (which looks like the lone complete team on the schedule). Against the rest of the teams on the schedule, I think most have prominent enough strengths that we can't afford a total off game from the offense. And because of that, you want to have diversified strengths. Can the defense bring it and hold a decent offense to, like 10 points and destroy their souls (a la the 2012-14 defenses?) I doubt it. Maybe with some in-season development. Certainly the outlook for next year has some promise.

[washingtonismoney]

You're right, looking at the stats UCLA was over their season-averages of YPP in both passing and rushing. It does feel like this is an Oregon situation, although I think Oregon was more intentionally risk-taking, playing aggressively knowing that if they screwed up and the other team scored it didn't matter, but if they made a great play then they'd be digging the hole deeper and deeper.

Anyway, this is what we expected, right? The defense doesn't need to be great, just "good enough". And it was definitely "good enough". In another thread Hulk posted that we were over 3 ypp greater than UCLA through 3 quarters (the 4th was an exercise in futility for UCLA). That's really impressive.

Yup, these are high-class problems to discuss, of course. But I'm still a bit cautious about the team for that reason. The defense will need to chip in against N.D. (which looks like the lone complete team on the schedule). Against the rest of the teams on the schedule, I think most have prominent enough strengths that we can't afford a total off game from the offense. And because of that, you want to have diversified strengths. Can the defense bring it and hold a decent offense to, like 10 points and destroy their souls (a la the 2012-14 defenses?) I doubt it. Maybe with some in-season development. Certainly the outlook for next year has some promise.