Mountaineers Looking to Put Together Four Quarters of Solid Defense

While the Mountaineer offense has been about as consistently great as anyone could have hoped for, the defense has not been. I think I was a little over optimistic about the ability of the defense to stay even with, or improve over last years unit going into this year. There really was a ton of new faces out there. I think the talent is there for them to be more of a dominating defense, it just hasn't happened. We all bitch and moan as fans because we want to see the defense play tight pass coverage, and dominating run defense. But that isn't always the point.

I have to ask myself why you would take a lot of chances on defense if you have an offense that is pretty much going to put up 40 points every time they take the field. Rodriguez doesn't like the term "bend but don't break", so how bout smart? Yes they've been burnt a few times, and disrobed once against Louisville. However, the second half of the Pitt game is the way I expected to see them play. Maybe the way I wanted them to play would be a better way of putting it. They were in the quarterbacks face and forced the issue. If Tyler Palko wasn't as good as he is, I would have expected to see about three interceptions in the second half. I think against most college quarterbacks you would see a lot of interceptions under that kind of pressure. You just haven't seen it that much this year. But there's two more games against bowl eligable teams, so there will certainly have their chances.

Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny with low wind and high 50's. Basically your dream day for a college football game. I just wish I didn't have to get up at the butt-crack of dawn to get there.
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