Dbearson;842562822 said:

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Completely agree, in fact, 5 wins with this D is basically inpossible

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I agree as well. And now our offense is under performing, so I think our upside is 4 wins this year.

BerlinerBaer;842562350 said:

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Our defense is average. Surrenders yards but get takeaways. I'll gladly take it considering where we've been.

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Average is a major upgrade from the past few seasons.

BGGB2;842562732 said:

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Fumbles especially are a crapshoot. Yesterday, Cal fumbled four times and lost only one. WSU fumbled three times, and lost them all. That bit of luck is probably the game right there.

+1. I remember a game vs. Oregon a couple of years ago where every time we dropped the ball, the Ducks recovered. And every time they fumbled, they recovered it themselves. I was thinking, "Geez, can't we catch a break?" Was it the Big Game last year where tipped and deflected passes from Goff kept floating right to one of their guys, instead of falling harmlessly to the turf?

Cal is due for some breaks. So far, we're getting them this year. Perfect timing, because we need a big year to goose recruiting before the likely fallback next year.

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Fumbles aren't that random, actually. It's all about good placement, which comes down to fundamentals and experience.

The 2013 Oregon game is further evidence that this is true. Of course Cal, a team of freshmen and sophmores playing on the road at the time , weren't going to win the majority of those loose balls. Ditto the Big Game last year and the '13 NW game. Their guys were there to make a play like ours are now.

An average D in 2014 gave-up about 27 ppg. If we would have had an average D last year, basically giving-up 13 fewer points per game on average, we would have had 4+ more wins...

Going from horrible (40 ppg) to poor, like let's say 33 ppg, would be noteworthy. Better offenses to come, but it's looking like this D will vastly improve upon the number of points allowed.

As stated here or in another thread, our offense is behind last year's pace by about 4 to 5 ppg (first 5 games).

Agree with the Fred Clerici post above...3 man rush on long third downs with no pressure could have cost us the game...Especially frustrating the 3rd and 16 in the third quarter...The WSU quarterback threw some nice passes when he had time...with pressure not so accurate...bringing 4 or blitzing more late in the third and the fourth quarter was key...Pretty frustrating up till then...ATTACK!!!

Sure would like to see the 3 man front go away. Love the improvement in turnovers and sacks but allowing 389 passing yards for a mediocre QB can't continue.

I don't think the offense is really worse this year. By this time last year, we had already played an overtime game against Colorado (who had a terrible defense), and scored 60 against Wazzu, who by any measure, had a MUCH worse defense last year. And two of those TDs were kickoff returns. And Lasco was healthy through the first 5 games last year. And last year team would score on Cal so quickly, we'd often get the ball right back.

The Defense: yeah, turnovers - especially fumble recoveries - can be really flukey. I expect us to regress to the mean sooner or later.

Our defense is good in bursts. We are not consistent yet and thats why wsu had a lot of 1st downs.

icecream12345;842563509 said:

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Our defense is good in bursts. We are not consistent yet and thats why wsu had a lot of 1st downs.

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One example is Dozier, who made a couple of good plays. However, he was burned a lot too, and some of it was just fundamentals. He has to work on his technique. That was alarming that he already had his hips turned as the Wazzu WR was at the LOS. Guys like White, Allensworth, Drew and McClure are playing really good ball right now. Walker has played better than last year, but can continue to improve (nickel suits him well).

Our defense is average. That is a big improvement over what we had before, so in that sense it's good. It's not really a "good" defense relative to the best in college football.

KoreAmBear;842563511 said:

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One example is Dozier, who made a couple of good plays. However, he was burned a lot too, and some of it was just fundamentals. He has to work on his technique. That was alarming that he already had his hips turned as the Wazzu WR was at the LOS. Guys like White, Allensworth, Drew and McClure are playing really good ball right now. Walker has played better than last year, but can continue to improve (nickel suits him well).

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All of a sudden, we have a pretty decent-quality starting defensive backfield in Allensworth, White, Drew and McLure! Heck, say Wilson comes back strong, and Kragen keeps shining, that's not a bad set of defensive line starters, either!

sycasey;842563512 said:

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Our defense is average. That is a big improvement over what we had before, so in that sense it's good. It's not really a "good" defense relative to the best in college football.

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The takeaways are elite, though. Most of these are not really flukey, either. I'm not sure if it's sustainable, but we will need it.

grandmastapoop;842563745 said:

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The takeaways are elite, though. Most of these are not really flukey, either. I'm not sure if it's sustainable, but we will need it.

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That's kind of what's making us average. Not that good on yardage given up, but they are making up for it by forcing turnovers. Some of that is luck, but it also takes some skill and discipline to be in position to grab the ball when it's up for grabs, something we didn't have the last two years.

That said, I do expect our turnover luck to even out a little bit.