What exactly is wrong with this defense?
 

Good fun win against ECU. Gutty last drive by Mangum. Nice job by our new RB. He's not the fastest, but he has drive. Poor man's Unga.

But out defense is very average at best.

My initial thought is that our DL is kinda subpar and so are our LBs. Seems these guys are frequently taking the wrong angles and not making tackles. And then our DBs are mediocre as well. It's like the entire defense is just not good.

ECU really beat themselves in terms of 2nd half turnovers. This was supposed to be the season that Bronco turned the defense around. But to me it just looks like a lack of talent on the field.

We were down three cornerbacks. Preator was one, Michael Shelton another.

Did Tuiloma leave the game?

I read that Tuiloma was only in for about 20 plays. It was a combination of bringing him back cautiously as well as running a lot of nickel. He's expected to play a lot more this week. Cincinnati has a good offense but a weaker defense than ECU. We'll see how it goes.

BYU's defense can make some big plays here and there, which is what caused a couple of the turnovers. They struggle a lot more with playing against good pocket passers. I thought they mostly played pretty well against ECU's running QB who couldn't pass well. Also, had Mangum not gotten hurt we likely would have been able to keep ECU's offense off the field more. As soon as he went out our offense couldn't stay on the field, which gave ECU a lot more opportunities. The defense isn't going to be great this year. It's a little better than last year's awful defense. I think it can still be adequate enough to win games as long as we can keep Mangum out there.

It lacks consistency, but it is creating turnovers.

Tuiloma is huge for the Defense because otherwise the offense has the middle to run through.

I am not predicting a great defensive effort but Cincy will be the first game where the entire defense is on the field. We'll have Tuiloma, Langi, Preator, Shelton, Hahnemann and Takitaki.

We might be pleasantly surprised.

IndyCoug showed that turnovers are largely random.

I didn't like how he drew his conclusion, but I've seen confirmatory studies elsewhere.

I didn't think the D was awful, however. One of the 5 TDs were given up on special teams, and our offense gave them a short field twice.