I disagree with board on one thing
The defense wasn’t great but it wasn’t bad. Gave up 13 points first half, made adjustments- gave up 3 in second half and it was on an interception to mid-field. I put this 1% on the defense and 99% on the offense - which was offensive to watch. Freeman, Denbrock, and Leonard. Even with a not great day by the defense - game should be 47 - 16.
Replies to: I disagree with board on one thing
The offense was worse, but 1% vs 99% is insane.
Until their best player went out of the game for injury, they moved the ball on us at will. Even when he went out they still ran the ball too easily.
Yeah you can blame the offense more, specifically the QB, because late in the game when we had the lead he threw the stupidest interception I think I've ever seen, which set them up for the game winning drive.
But they could have bowed up and prevented the winning score, and even though the defense was better in the second half, we still gave up almost 200 yards rushing with their best player missing a lot of the second half. No way the D gets off the hook with 1%.
Ultimately trying to blame one side or the other is pointless as this was a complete team failure in all 3 phases of the game that resembles what we've seen in 3 seasons now and it starts right at the top.
Dont kid yourself, that D was horrible
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The D is fine. Not championship level. D line is the weakest link
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I agree with this. Wish we had some beastly DTs but the D was great. We should do to these MAC
teams what other big time programs do to them…they run right over them. Unbelievable that we can’t do that and are completely impotent when it comes to throwing downfield.
The D was not the problem yesterday.
This is right.
The defense is very good. IMO, two things need to change starting today:
1. Freeman must abandon his offensive philosophy and let Denbrock run the show with no interference from him.
2. Denbrock must choose the QB next week with any QB on the roster not named Leonard or Buchner.
The offensive ineptitude was the principal reason for the loss. However watching the game, the…
…defense was not good at critical points and gets some of the blame as well.
For instance, NIU made that last First down and ND didn’t even deserve a shot at the fools gold field goal….
Sad state of affairs all around.
The defense has been fine. The offense lost this game 100%.
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Nah, he’s right. D was decent but it couldn’t get off the field or make big stops when needed.
Played plenty decent enough to win comfortably though.
True, but they also couldn’t get off without giving up some first downs.
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Problem is the D was on the field way too long mostly because of the offense.
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No reason for offense to not be scoring well north of 20 points per game especially against NIU.
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I can agree with that assessment.
I went back and looked at the predictions post from Thursday...and most predictions had NIU scoring 7 or more...many predicted low double digits.
So NIU scoring 16 wasn't a shock...at least according to the sample size of predictions.
But nobody predicted that ND would only score 14. The lowest ND score prediction was 24.
The loss Saturday was due to a failure of the offense.
Now...this is just us giving predictions for the game....but nobody believed that ND would only score 14 and lose.