…I noticed three major things about the defense:

1) They sooooooooo ran out of gas on that first drive of the second half. Sure, they had given up yards in the first half, but they just looked a step slower after that drive. The long drive and the 4th-down conversions take it out of you really quickly.

2) I figured our strategy against Hot Tub Griffin III would be similar to what we attempted against Juice, and instead it really seemed like the exact opposite. Instead of trying to surround Juice and make him throw deep to get to us (which he did), we pretty much went into an umbrella defense on every play, content to give up 5 yards but making sure not to give up 50. That can work a lot of times if you come up big on the 3rd-and-3’s or 4th-and-1’s, or whatever 3rd-and-long you get, only Baylor made the plays in those situations. It was a very conservative gameplan, and that doesn’t really fit the strengths of this team. We don’t have a defense that is fantastic on every play (obviously), but we have aggressive guys who can make the big play, and the “don’t act—react” gameplan we had here just didn’t work.

3) Brian Coulter was probably the most active guy on the defense. LOVE seeing that.