How bad will defense be?

mefirstplayer · Aug 26, 2019

Was just reading some articles published earlier this month, and stumbled into this mostly doom-and-gloom piece about BC's defense:

Does BC’s defense have enough firepower to keep its offense in games?

Wow, this was a weird question to type. Just a few years back in 2015, the Eagles featured a top-five defense that allowed the fewest yards (254) and the fourth-fewest points (15.3) per game, in addition to ranking third in the country in defensive S&P.

Since then-defensive coordinator Don Brown departed to powerhouse Michigan, BC has regressed defensively each year. Last season, for as many playmakers as the Eagles had, they were giving up a whole lot of yards—416 per game to be exact. Coming into 2019, BC only has five players on defense that have started a collegiate game. Things could get ugly, and this time around it’s the Eagles’ offense that might have to do the heavy lifting.

I realize the defense was not great last year. But the 416 yards per game is misleading when you factor in the schedule. In reality, BC's defense was rated #32 by Bill Connelly's metrics, which is plenty respectable.

But this year, Connelly projects BC's defense to be #63—a 31-spot dropoff from last year. This is a massive drop. To put it in perspective, it is the 2nd-biggest projected drop for any team. Only Vandy's defense—falling from 57th last year to 94th this year (37 spot fall)—fell by a larger margin.

So, my question is this: Do you think BC's defense will fall to being merely average nationally? Do you think it could be an even steeper decline? Will this year's team just be playing in high-scoring shootouts every week?

bshay21 · Aug 26, 2019