Any hand-wringing about our defense next year is misplaced.
Even though we will have some holes and be young, we will be the best defense in the conference as always.
You guys want the defense to be 91 dominant - and we won’t be for another 2-3 years. But we will be basically the same as this year for the first half of next year - then we will start to eclipse this year’s D toward the end of next year.
Tuli is going to end up being a huge time player and Taki will be good as well. Obviously it sucks that we need them this early, but Greg Gaines played pretty fucking well as a frosh in 2015.
The ILBs lack some experience, but half our season we’ve been playing Wambaugh this year. If Welly and Beavers are healthy - they’ll be good (not great).
OLBs are gonna be a lot better next year as Ngata puts on weight and Tryon gets experience. Benning is not “decent” in the run game as @RoadDawg55 suggests - he’s really fucking good against the run.
He is one of the reasons teams find it very hard to consistently run on us and he’s dangerous if you try to stretch the play out to his side.
Most people around here get too caught up in individual players. Keith Taylor was probably just as good against Stanford as Kev King would’ve been. Molden is looking fucking good.
The overall talent level is going up on D.
Obviously I would like to have our D in 2021 be our D in 2019, but it’s going to be basically the same as this year for the first half and then better the second half.
We are the best defense in the P12.
With you all the way except for the Benning love.