Kind of bored at work so I thought I would pose a question I've been thinking about to those more knowledgeable. It seems like Oklahoma, TCU, and Southern Cal under the Riley brothers have had unreal offenses but very very poor defenses. Same is true of just about all pure air raid teams (I know the Riley version is not pure Air Raid and is better at power runs). It makes me wonder if there is something about those schemes that lends itself to teams not being ready to face other offenses. If the Riley system is at its core very simple, with just a handful of plays out of lots of formations, is the defense ill prepared to face a different more complex offense? Does facing so much passing in practice make them soft against the run? Does the defense know the offense can almost score at will so they lack intensity? I've always felt like our defenses played best under Dabo when our offense was clicking. The two units seem to feed off each other's success.
I'm not expecting us to have a major problem with the defensive talent we have. But, you become good at what you practice, hopefully there isn't something inherent in seeing this system daily that leads to poor defensive play.
I'm not expecting us to have a major problem with the defensive talent we have. But, you become good at what you practice, hopefully there isn't something inherent in seeing this system daily that leads to poor defensive play.
