Early Returns Indicate There May Be Hope For Our Defense

The Aggie defense won Sunday's scrimmage using the team's modified scoring system, 101-65. What is significant about this accomplishment is who was missing from our defense: CB Dustin Harris and SS Trent Hunter, two players who will be starting when the team takes the field September 4, did not play for the defense. The fact that our defense was able to perform well without two of the starters in our secondary gives me hope that we're seeing some progress and improvement on that side of the ball.

The first two offensive drives, the offense dominated, with Jerrod Johnson leading the 1st team offense on a 5-play, 70 yard scoring drive, with a 35 yard TD pass to Brandal Jackson putting the offense in the end zone. The second-team offense had a 13-play drive that stalled inside the 10 yard line, After those two drives, the defense brought the pressure and the pain, with Von Miller and Lucas Patterson getting back-to-back sacks on the second offensive drive to stall the offense. SDE Eddie Brown also brought plenty of pressure; Brown seems to be settling in to the defensive end spot, although I still hope we work him some at NG.

As the scrimmage wore on, the defense was able to apply more and more pressure, especially off the edge, to slow down the offense. I am hopeful this is what we'll be doing in actual games, too, although I hope we are able to do it from the beginning of the game, and don't have to give up big plays early on before we start playing. The problem with trying to read anything into the performance of our defense against our first team offense is that our first team offense is pretty damn good, and they're going to score on a lot of people. We can't really criticize them for simply being mortal. I still hold that playing against our offense is going to pay dividends down the line, especially for our secondary, because if we can even begin to shut the door on the offensive talent we have, we'll have a pretty good defense.

This is only the beginning for our defense, but seeing signs of improvement and reasons to be optimistic sure beats the alternative.