Defense: Have we ever had it?

[solo]

I've only been watching since the Faust years, but I really can't remember any dominant ND defenses in the last 26 years. Holtz had a couple of good seasons defensively pre 1990but honestly, the best defenses I remember watching were the early Faust years post Devine. And those years are somwhat fuzzy in my memory.

I would love for a coach to come iin an play defense like Miami used to, like FSU, like Washington the year they won the NC, like Arizona and the desert swarm, like some of Bob Stoops' defenses. Can we recruit athletes for a REALLY dominant and aggressive D?

 

[Stalking_Eagle]

I've only been watching since the Faust years, but I really can't remember any dominant ND defenses in the last 26 years. Holtz had a couple of good seasons defensively pre 1990but honestly, the best defenses I remember watching were the early Faust years post Devine. And those years are somwhat fuzzy in my memory.

I would love for a coach to come iin an play defense like Miami used to, like FSU, like Washington the year they won the NC, like Arizona and the desert swarm, like some of Bob Stoops' defenses. Can we recruit athletes for a REALLY dominant and aggressive D?

I think it needs to be a mixture of things. I think we finally have a coach that can light a fire under our players and have them get the attitude of being a fierce unit.

Along with the new attitude comes a new scheme and I hope this one is much more of an attacking and taught in a manner where the players can understand it. Once the players stop thinking and just start reacting and concentrating on hitting and flying to the ball will we have the defense we see a lot of in the SEC. Too many times last year players were trying to figure out what role they had each play and if they were blitzing it would end up late hense no pressure and many TD's over the top.

When the public starts to view ND Defense as bad-ass then the 5-star recruits will start to come in. I think even with Minter the last two years we have some guys in place that can get the defense going. I think Laws is going to be Key to the DL this year and he will have a monster year. The LB's have another year under them and with C-Brown coming in the Defense can almost start with a clean slate.

 

[TexasDomer]

Our defense the first Ty year was a pretty good one. It's why we had such a good record.

 

[chrislw35]

I've only been watching since the Faust years, but I really can't remember any dominant ND defenses in the last 26 years. Holtz had a couple of good seasons defensively pre 1990but honestly, the best defenses I remember watching were the early Faust years post Devine. And those years are somwhat fuzzy in my memory.

I would love for a coach to come iin an play defense like Miami used to, like FSU, like Washington the year they won the NC, like Arizona and the desert swarm, like some of Bob Stoops' defenses. Can we recruit athletes for a REALLY dominant and aggressive D?

We had an awesome Defense with Shane Walton and those guys. We also had a great Defense when Chris Zorich and his class were here. Several times we have had awesome defenses. We Got alot of those players from the CPL and Texas we will be getting those players again soon.

 

[solo]

Our defense the first Ty year was a pretty good one. It's why we had such a good record.

I agree that our D that year was pretty good. But more because we were the recipient of a lot of turnovers and were very opportunistic. When we played teams that didn't beat themselves, we got pounded.

 

[sonomairishfan]

I've only been watching since the Faust years, but I really can't remember any dominant ND defenses in the last 26 years. Holtz had a couple of good seasons defensively pre 1990but honestly, the best defenses I remember watching were the early Faust years post Devine. And those years are somwhat fuzzy in my memory.

I would love for a coach to come iin an play defense like Miami used to, like FSU, like Washington the year they won the NC, like Arizona and the desert swarm, like some of Bob Stoops' defenses. Can we recruit athletes for a REALLY dominant and aggressive D?

88-93 had very dominate defenses. you must have missed the hey day of the holtz era.

 

[IRISHDODGER]

Yeah, '88 & '93 immediately came to mind. The game that sticks out for each of those teams respectively was the Miami & BC game where they each allowed over 30 pts. However, the Miami game wouldn't have been won were it not for ND's forced TOs incl. an int ret for TD. I'd probably throw in the '89 unit as well. Regardless of what the voters said, that was at least a co-national champ team. Ty's first team won w/ defense. An argument could be made that the '02 D was just worn out from carrying so many games on their shoulders by the time they went in to LA & got throttled by Carson Palmer & Co. Of course, D was supposedly Bob Davie's specialty & he was responsible for every starter on that '02 D. I think the overriding reason why we don't immediately think of dominant defenses when looking back at the Holtz years, is that all of his DCs seemed to have the "bend but don't break" philosophy. You just never saw that fiercly aggressive multi-blitzing SEC-type swarming defense. I'd say the '93 unit was the closest b/c of all the great athletes on that team (& coincidently, or not, Vinnie Cerrato's last class were seniors that year). But that's now in the hands of Corwn Brown, so let's hope for a new attitude w/ better results.

 

[jboxer562]

One thing I can say about watching the Jets this year... They love to bring multiple blitz packages... Only problem was that in the playoffs vs. the Patriots... Tom Brady picked up EVERY blitz. EVERY one.

 

[IRISHDODGER]

I've only been watching since the Faust years, but I really can't remember any dominant ND defenses in the last 26 years. Holtz had a couple of good seasons defensively pre 1990but honestly, the best defenses I remember watching were the early Faust years post Devine. And those years are somwhat fuzzy in my memory.

I would love for a coach to come iin an play defense like Miami used to, like FSU, like Washington the year they won the NC, like Arizona and the desert swarm, like some of Bob Stoops' defenses. Can we recruit athletes for a REALLY dominant and aggressive D?

another thing worth pointing out: Arizona never won anything worth bragging about while they had that defense & Washington soon went on probation b/c of that national championship class.

 

[solo]

88-93 had very dominate defenses. you must have missed the hey day of the holtz era.

I wouldn't say dominant. Holtz had some solid, sound defenses. but never dominant. His teams could never stop the pass, particuklalry after 1990.

In 1991 we gave up 24+ points 7 times inlcuding 27 to indiana, 35 to PSU and Tenn, and 42 to Hawaii (what a crazy game that was).

In 1993 our defense failed us late in the year giving up 27 points to Navy and 41 points to BC.

If Holtz teams had truly dominant defenses he would have had at least 2 more NC's (even without the dominant D he was robbed of one).

 

[kjones]

Solo, if a dominant defense can't have any bad games, how many dominant defenses would you say there has been in the last 10 years. I just want to know what we are actually comparing it too. If you go by total year stats, Holtz defenses were "dominant", but it sounds like you don't want to have a defense that gave up any bad games. How many of these are there?

 

[tgolden]

I agree that our D that year was pretty good. But more because we were the recipient of a lot of turnovers and were very opportunistic. When we played teams that didn't beat themselves, we got pounded.

Turnovers don't necessarily mean the other team beat themselves. Our D forced a lot of that. And we only really got pounded one of those games. BC was just... I don't even know, and NC St. we were missing how many starters either the whole game or part of it? (Watson, Black, Curtin, Goolsby, Godsey, Holidy, Ryan Grant was banged up, plus maybe a few others).

But I think we had good D in the early 90s for sure.

 

[TexasNDFan]

Davie's last couple of defense were pretty good. They tended to be a bend but don't break type of defense, but when they needed to make a big play they always seemed to do it. This carried over to Ty's first defense.

 

[solo]

Solo, if a dominant defense can't have any bad games, how many dominant defenses would you say there has been in the last 10 years. I just want to know what we are actually comparing it too. If you go by total year stats, Holtz defenses were "dominant", but it sounds like you don't want to have a defense that gave up any bad games. How many of these are there?

I think the word dominant implies that your defense controls the oter teams offense. They dominate, they impact what the other team does on offense, they disrupt, they shut down the other team. That's my definition of a dominant defense. A bend but don't break defense is not dominant by my definition.

I do think that Holtz had some good defenses, but his defenses were never as good as his offenses. Offense was our strength under Holtz. That's just the way I see it.

Can a dominant defense have a bad game or 2? Sure. But if you start having 3 or 4 bad games then it's no longer an anomoly but a trend.

 

[LOVEMYIRISH]

I've only been watching since the Faust years, but I really can't remember any dominant ND defenses in the last 26 years. Holtz had a couple of good seasons defensively pre 1990but honestly, the best defenses I remember watching were the early Faust years post Devine. And those years are somwhat fuzzy in my memory.

Davie 2001. Ty 2002. Holtz 1995.

Fairly dominant.

But NOTHING like the top20 teams we are seeing today.

 

[LOVEMYIRISH]

Davie's last couple of defense were pretty good. They tended to be a bend but don't break type of defense, but when they needed to make a big play they always seemed to do it. This carried over to Ty's first defense.

Bend don't break? Not at all. They were giving up an average of 300 yards per game and less than 20 points per game. They were slightly better than Holtz's D in 1995.

All three of those D's would be about #25 in today's world.

Weis has been "bend don't break"...except we break...LOL

What's really MOST impressive about Davie's D in 2001 is that he had such a miserable offense that the opposing teams got the ball A LOT. Given that, the OPPOSING team had more possessions...and yet he STILL held them to 300 yards.

Weis has a good offense and we keep other teams Offense's off the field...even then we give up more yards and more points.

If you could have coupled Davie's 2001 D with Weis's 2005 or 2006 offenses we would NEVER have been blown out once AND would have played for the NC in BOTH years.