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Otherwise, you can take one look at that listing of total defense rankings in the Southland Conference and see why McNeese is in trouble when it's offense isn't clicking as happened last week against Southeastern and earlier in the year against Northern Iowa.

BTW: What a pathetic league in terms of defense. Sometimes I lament the fact that Mcneese has lost its tradition of having strong defenses. Some people respond by saying it's just that offenses in general and in the Southland in particular have gotten so much better.

I've looked it up a number of times and scoring in I-AA/FCS hasn't increased much at all since 10 or 15 years ago when the Cowboys fielded strong defenses. And when Southland teams get into the playoffs their offenses always get pretty much shut down at some point.

It's not that the Southland is all that great on offense. It's that it sucks on defense; with McNeese leading the way in terms of sucking this year.

JohnStOnge wrote:BTW: What a pathetic league in terms of defense. Sometimes I lament the fact that Mcneese has lost its tradition of having strong defenses. Some people respond by saying it's just that offenses in general and in the Southland in particular have gotten so much better.

I've looked it up a number of times and scoring in I-AA/FCS hasn't increased much at all since 10 or 15 years ago when the Cowboys fielded strong defenses. And when Southland teams get into the playoffs their offenses always get pretty much shut down at some point.

It's not that the Southland is all that great on offense. It's that it sucks on defense; with McNeese leading the way in terms of sucking this year.

Offenses are light years better now in the SLC than they were others when we first joined the league... Not even close. Not sure what numbers you're looking at.

Going back to 2002 in the SLC (that's as far back as the SLC stats on their website goes) ...

2002 - McNeese led league in points scored at 31.2 ppg. SFA was 2nd at 29.3 ... SW Texas was 6th at 19.2 and Sam Houston was last at 17.9 ... everybody else was in between. SFA led league in total offense at 388.6; McNeese was 2nd at 388.5 ... Sam Houston was 6th at 287.0 and SW Texas was last at 279.7.

2003 - Nicholls led league in pts scored at 35.4, McNeese 2nd at 33.8 ... Texas State was 5th at 26.2, Sam Houston last at 21.7 ... Texas State led in total offense at 443.4, McNeese 2nd at 424.9 ... NW State was 5th at 376.5, Sam Houston last at 358.5.

2004 - Sam Houston led in pts at 37.0, NW 2nd at 33.4 ... McNeese 5th at 23.8, Nicholls last at 22.7 ... SHSU led total offense at 471.4, NW 2nd at 408.8 ... Texas State was 5th at 343.2, Nicholls last at 333.3

2005 - Texas State led at 37.0 ppg, Nicholls 2nd at 30.8 ... McNeese 6th at 24.6, NW last at 21.5 ... Texas State led total offense at 439.1, Nicholls 2nd at 415.8 ... McNeese 6th at 317.8, NW last at 313.6.

2006 - McNeese led at 25.2, SHSU 2nd at 23.9 ... NW 6th at 17.0, SLU last at 16.5 ... Texas State led in total offense at 351.6, SHSU 2nd at 345.1 ... Nicholls 6th at 291.6, SLU last at 290.6.

2007 - McNeese 1st in ppg at 35.2, UCA 2nd at 33.1 ... NW 7th at 21.8, SFA last at 16.0 ... UCA led in total offense at 452.2, McNeese 2nd at 431.8 ... SLU 7th at 335.7, SFA last at 329.7.

2008 - McNeese and UCA tied for lead in pts at 37.5, Texas State 3rd at 36.4 ... NW 7th at 26.7, Nicholls last at 25.7 ... McNeese led total offense at 464.1, SHSU 2nd at 457.3 ... SLU 7th at 340.7, Nicholls last at 310.8.

2009 - McNeese led at 35.0, SFA 2nd at 34.8 ... Nicholls 7th at 19.8, NW last at 14.4 ... SFA led total offense at 468.9, McNeese 2nd at 433.2 ... NW 7th at 333.5, Nicholls last at 296.3.

2010 - SFA led scoring at 36.2, UCA 2nd at 26.9 ... Nicholls 7th at 21.0, NW last at 17.6 ... SFA led total offense at 442.9, UCA 2nd at 372.2 ... NW 7th at 327.5, Nicholls last at 273.9.

2011 - SHSU led in pts at 36.9, SFA 2nd at 35.7 ... NW 7th at 21.3, Nicholls last at 18.0 ... SFA led total offense at 439.4, SHSU 2nd at 407.5 ... Lamar 6th at 331.5, Nicholls and NW tied for last at 283.4.

2012 - SHSU led in scoring at 40.0, UCA 2nd at 34.8 ... SLU 7th at 18.8, Nicholls last at 17.7 ... SFA led in total offense at 504.5, SHSU 2nd at 458.5 ... NW 7th at 296.8, Nicholls last at 280.7.

2013 - SHSU leads at 43.9, McNeese 2nd at 39.6, SFA 3rd at 39.1, SLU 4th at 38.6, UCA 5th at 33.4, Lamar 6th at 32.1, Nicholls 7th at 29.0, NW last at 26.2 ... SFA leads total offense at 596.6, SLU 2nd at 474.1, UCA 3rd at 467.1, SHSU 4th at 460.6, McNeese 5th at 455.6, Nicholls 6th at 426.3, Lamar 7th at 423.2, and NW last at 382.0.

And for your assertion that defenses are "bad," SLU is giving up 21.1 ppg to date, which would be good enough for first or second in points allowed, going all the way back to 2003 ... and would be in the top three in 2002. And 2013 is a year when offense is CLEARLY on an upswing in regards to total offense and points scored in the SLC.

Offenses are light years better now in the SLC

I think the question of whether Southland offenses have gotten a lot better time or what we're seeing is the effect of Southland defenses getting worse is kind of a chicken/egg thing and my own opinion is more the latter than the former.

I've had similar discussion on the McNeese board talking about how McNeese used to be really good on defense and a common response is that offenses have just gotten better. Maybe by some but not by that much. Certainly not in I-AA/FCS in general. I ran some numbers for those discussions and I'll list some below. The list is of the median of I-AA/FCS team average scoring 1995 through 2012. I used median because 1995 through 1999 numbers I used were not in a form that could be easily copied and pasted into a spreadsheet for calculations. But I did calculate the average team scoring averages for 2000 - 2012 and put them next to the medians in parenthesis to show that you'd get the same basic picture with averages. Though I won't put it here I also looked at 25th and 75h percentiles as well as maximums. Same basic picture. And that picture is that, though per team scoring may have gone up some in I-AA/FCS over the period it didn't go up much. There is not even a "statistically significant" upward trend. But if you were to ignore that and calculate the underying rise anway so as to take out the random "noise" you'd say you'd get a trend line that has the 2012 end point 1.4 points per game higher than the 1995 start point.


Year Median (available averages in parenthesis)
95 23
97 23
98 24
99 25
00 26 (25)
01 24 (25)
02 24 (25)
03 26 (26)
04 26 (26)
05 25 (26)
06 22 (23)
07 27 (27)
08 25 (26)
09 23 (24)
10 25 (25)
11 25 (27)
12 26 (27)

I also looked at the combined per game scoring averages of Southland teams in 1995 and 2012. It was 25 in 1995 and 28 in 2012. A little bit higher. But McNeese, for example, led the nation in scoring defense in 1995 at 9 points per game. In 1997 they gave up 11 points per game. In 1998 they gave up 12. In 2012 they gave up 21. And that was an unusually good year. In 2011 they gave up 25 per game and this year so far they're giving up 27. So you're talking about their scoring defense being 9 to 18 points worse while per team scoring overall has gone up maybe 4 tops and about the same in the Southland.
.

Since 2007, when Southland teams were eliminated from the playoffs, they did so in large part because their offenses got shut down. During 2007 through 2012, for example, Southland teams that made the playoffs cummulatively averaged 37 points per game in conference play. They averaged 24 points per game in the playoffs and were held to less than 20 more than half the time (9 of 17). But to me what happened when they were eliminated is particularly telling. In games in which they were eliminated from the playoffs they scored 15, 13, 0, 13, 24, 6, 14, 13, and 16 points. And the 24 came in a game where SFA scored 21 in the first quarter then Villanova figured them out and shut them down for the remainder of the game. They scored 0 after halftime and lost by 30 points. Sam Houston State averaged 43 points per game in Southland play during 2011 and 49 in 2012. The BearKats scored a combined 19 points in two games against a real defense in the 2011 and 2012 championship games.

Another thing is that Southland playoff teams ALLOWED an average of 32 points per playoff game during that 2007 through 2012 period. And if you take Sam Houston State out, because I think Sam Houston State really did have both better offense and better defense than the Southland was usually putting up, the average score is Playoff Opponent 38, Southland Team 19.

Southland offenses are not "all that." You find that out when they get into the playoffs. I do think Sam Houston State's offense was pretty good in 2011 and 2012 but if I had to bet I'd bet they'd have averaged less than 30 points per game playing in the MVC of CAA. And I don't think that's an off the wall comment. In 2011, for instance, they scored 20 against the MVC's last place team, Western Illinois, during the regular season and 6 against that league's first place team in the championship game. As it happens Western Illinois was also second to last in the MVC in scoring defense. They gave up 1 point per game less than Missouri State did. And of course North Dakota State was first in MVC scoring defense. So, though we don't have an average for Sam Houston State playing every team in the MVC, we've got the average they scored when they played the best team from that league with the best scoring defense and the worst team from that league with very close to the worst scoring defense. And that average is 13 points per game. Moreover, every single team Western Illinois played in MVC games scored more against the Leathernecks than Sam Houston State did. Also, 7 of the 8 teams North Dakota State pleyed in the MVC scored more against the Bison than the Bearkats did.

In my opinion the numbers Southland offenses put up are largely a function of Southland teams generally sucking on defense. At least as compared to defenses in the stronger FCS leagues.

There's just not a lot of defense being played west of the Mississippi unless your team is named NDSU.

AZGrizFan wrote:There's just not a lot of defense being played west of the Mississippi unless your team is named NDSU.

Actually I think Southeastern Louisiana is DECENT on defense. So in context of the Southland their defense looks great. But I was thinking this morning that even if you're just looking at it from a Southeastern Louisiana perspective you can see that Southland defenses or weak. Take a look at Southeastern's scoring against non conference FCS opponents:

SE Missouri State 45
South Dakota State 26
Samford 34

AVERAGE 35.0

Now look at how they've scored in conference play:

SFA 56
Northwestern State 37
Lamar 56
McNeese 41
Central Arkansas 58

AVERAGE 49.6

See? Defense is BAD in the Southland. There's just no other way to put it. Future Southland member INCARNATE WORD held Southeastern to fewer points (35) than any of the Lion's current conference opponents has so far.

Jesus Christ Jon!! Do you even watch the games???? We could have scored 70 on SEMO, should have scored 45+ on SDSU but turned the ball over six times, and played without Bryan Bennett against Samford - still scored 34 by turning around and handing it off 70 times.

JohnStOnge wrote:

AZGrizFan wrote:There's just not a lot of defense being played west of the Mississippi unless your team is named NDSU.

Actually I think Southeastern Louisiana is DECENT on defense. So in context of the Southland their defense looks great. But I was thinking this morning that even if you're just looking at it from a Southeastern Louisiana perspective you can see that Southland defenses or weak. Take a look at Southeastern's scoring against non conference FCS opponents:

SE Missouri State 45
South Dakota State 26
Samford 34

AVERAGE 35.0

Now look at how they've scored in conference play:

SFA 56
Northwestern State 37
Lamar 56
McNeese 41
Central Arkansas 58

AVERAGE 49.6

See? Defense is BAD in the Southland. There's just no other way to put it. Future Southland member INCARNATE WORD held Southeastern to fewer points (35) than any of the Lion's current conference opponents has so far.

JohnStOnge wrote:BTW: What a pathetic league in terms of defense. Sometimes I lament the fact that Mcneese has lost its tradition of having strong defenses. Some people respond by saying it's just that offenses in general and in the Southland in particular have gotten so much better.

I've looked it up a number of times and scoring in I-AA/FCS hasn't increased much at all since 10 or 15 years ago when the Cowboys fielded strong defenses. And when Southland teams get into the playoffs their offenses always get pretty much shut down at some point.

It's not that the Southland is all that great on offense. It's that it sucks on defense; with McNeese leading the way in terms of sucking this year.

What about that DB Mike Smith recently recruited by Southeast Louisiana he has excellent size 6-3 210 4.44???

What about that DB Mike Smith recently recruited by Southeast Louisiana he has excellent size 6-3 210 4.44???

I don't know but I did notice that they have tall defensive backs and that they did very good jobs against what are probably the two best passing attacks in the Southland (Stephen F. Austin and McNeese). If not the two best two of the three along with Central Arkansas.

JohnStOnge wrote:

What about that DB Mike Smith recently recruited by Southeast Louisiana he has excellent size 6-3 210 4.44???

I don't know but I did notice that they have tall defensive backs and that they did very good jobs against what are probably the two best passing attacks in the Southland (Stephen F. Austin and McNeese). If not the two best two of the three along with Central Arkansas.

Thanks a guy as big as Smith should have been a starter from the opening!!!!

dal4018 wrote:

JohnStOnge wrote:BTW: What a pathetic league in terms of defense. Sometimes I lament the fact that Mcneese has lost its tradition of having strong defenses. Some people respond by saying it's just that offenses in general and in the Southland in particular have gotten so much better.

I've looked it up a number of times and scoring in I-AA/FCS hasn't increased much at all since 10 or 15 years ago when the Cowboys fielded strong defenses. And when Southland teams get into the playoffs their offenses always get pretty much shut down at some point.

It's not that the Southland is all that great on offense. It's that it sucks on defense; with McNeese leading the way in terms of sucking this year.

What about that DB Mike Smith recently recruited by Southeast Louisiana he has excellent size 6-3 210 4.44???

He didn't qualify ... we have plenty of DBs though our senior CB, Todd Washington, has been out the last three weeks with turf toe ... he's got a chance to go in the first 2 rounds of the NFL draft. Our sophomore on the other side, Harlan Miller, has a good chance to be 1st rounder in two years - he's better than Robert Alford (2nd round, Falcons) at this stage of his career ... we have the best collection corners in the country by far. We have a couple of 6-2 and 6-4 safeties and a backup corner who is 6-3, and would start for most people.

slulionsfan wrote:

dal4018 wrote: What about that DB Mike Smith recently recruited by Southeast Louisiana he has excellent size 6-3 210 4.44???

He didn't qualify ... we have plenty of DBs though our senior CB, Todd Washington, has been out the last three weeks with turf toe ... he's got a chance to go in the first 2 rounds of the NFL draft. Our sophomore on the other side, Harlan Miller, has a good chance to be 1st rounder in two years - he's better than Robert Alford (2nd round, Falcons) at this stage of his career ... we have the best collection corners in the country by far. We have a couple of 6-2 and 6-4 safeties and a backup corner who is 6-3, and would start for most people.

Dammn shame somebody that big 6-3 210 4.44 is NFL material.Wonder what juco he attends????There is a guy that caught my eye before Smith Theo Alexander 6-4 205 is he a corner or safety and he is a senior??? Too bad Smith didn't qualify he and Alexander would have made a nice DB duo!!!!

What type of defense does The Lions with its DBs play man-to-man with bump and run or safety help over the top!!!!

dal4018 wrote:What type of defense does The Lions with its DBs play man-to-man with bump and run or safety help over the top!!!!

We're pretty multiple though primarily man under with some help ... we run a highly complex scheme and sometimes it's hard to tell what we're doing coverage-wise, but more times than not we're in man.

dal4018 wrote:

slulionsfan wrote:
He didn't qualify ... we have plenty of DBs though our senior CB, Todd Washington, has been out the last three weeks with turf toe ... he's got a chance to go in the first 2 rounds of the NFL draft. Our sophomore on the other side, Harlan Miller, has a good chance to be 1st rounder in two years - he's better than Robert Alford (2nd round, Falcons) at this stage of his career ... we have the best collection corners in the country by far. We have a couple of 6-2 and 6-4 safeties and a backup corner who is 6-3, and would start for most people.

Dammn shame somebody that big 6-3 210 4.44 is NFL material.Wonder what juco he attends????There is a guy that caught my eye before Smith Theo Alexander 6-4 205 is he a corner or safety and he is a senior??? Too bad Smith didn't qualify he and Alexander would have made a nice DB duo!!!!

Theo Alexander is having a great year - more specifically, a great past month. Like a lot of JC kids, he struggled some last year due to the complexity of our defensive scheme, but he's really starting to come into his own. He's been backing up at free safety though truth be told, we don't really have starters and backups. We play 22-25 kids per week on each side of the ball and rotate liberally throughout the game.

slulionsfan wrote:

dal4018 wrote:Dammn shame somebody that big 6-3 210 4.44 is NFL material.Wonder what juco he attends????There is a guy that caught my eye before Smith Theo Alexander 6-4 205 is he a corner or safety and he is a senior??? Too bad Smith didn't qualify he and Alexander would have made a nice DB duo!!!!

Theo Alexander is having a great year - more specifically, a great past month. Like a lot of JC kids, he struggled some last year due to the complexity of our defensive scheme, but he's really starting to come into his own. He's been backing up at free safety though truth be told, we don't really have starters and backups. We play 22-25 kids per week on each side of the ball and rotate liberally throughout the game.

Is that the reason Smith is not on the squad the complex scheme you guys run or is it academics.Maybe if you guys scaled back he could catch up later on then his talent will come out.Use a little bump and run now and then.Do you use some semblances of the famous "46" defense from Chicago,Tennessee,Philadelphia in terms of all out blitzes that would play into the hands of your DBs in terms of interceptions.How come your defense is struggling? You guys should be among the nation's best with that talent.What NFL teams are looking at Alexander right now?I thought he should have been the one over Alford as NFL material at 6-4 205.Hey imagine all those huge DBs for your school playing for North Dakota St the NFL would be beating down their doors.

I'm skeptical of the idea that Southeastern's got the best set of corners in FCS with North Dakota State's corners out there...assuming the one that got hurt against Illinois State is not out for the season. At least in terms of starters. But who knows?

One thing's for sure, they're not anywhere close to North Dakota State in terms of overall effectiveness of their defense either overall or against the pass.

Like I said, Southeastern Louisiana is decent on defense and that makes them very good in a relative sense in the context of the Southland Conference. But in the context of FCS it is not an outstanding defense. More of a middle of the pack one whether you talk about how good it is overall, how good it is against the run, how good it is against the pass, etc.

JohnStOnge wrote:I'm skeptical of the idea that Southeastern's got the best set of corners in FCS with North Dakota State's corners out there...assuming the one that got hurt against Illinois State is not out for the season. At least in terms of starters. But who knows?

One thing's for sure, they're not anywhere close to North Dakota State in terms of overall effectiveness of their defense either overall or against the pass.

Like I said, Southeastern Louisiana is decent on defense and that makes them very good in a relative sense in the context of the Southland Conference. But in the context of FCS it is not an outstanding defense. More of a middle of the pack one whether you talk about how good it is overall, how good it is against the run, how good it is against the pass, etc.

Are you talking about Williams was he the DB that got injured vs Illinois St.What is the weakness of the Lions defense that they are not mentioned among the best nationally with all that talent.Like I said maybe the Lions should scale back it's defensive scheme.I saw North Dakota's DBs only a few are above 6-0 most of them are 5-7 and it's best guy Williams is 5-11 they must be very aggressive in order to play that well to be mentioned among the best in the country.Would love to see Williams vs Eastern Illinois WR Erik Lora if the Panthers get that far by the way Lora has 306 career receptions passing Jerry Rice.

JohnStOnge wrote:I'm skeptical of the idea that Southeastern's got the best set of corners in FCS with North Dakota State's corners out there...assuming the one that got hurt against Illinois State is not out for the season. At least in terms of starters. But who knows?

One thing's for sure, they're not anywhere close to North Dakota State in terms of overall effectiveness of their defense either overall or against the pass.

Like I said, Southeastern Louisiana is decent on defense and that makes them very good in a relative sense in the context of the Southland Conference. But in the context of FCS it is not an outstanding defense. More of a middle of the pack one whether you talk about how good it is overall, how good it is against the run, how good it is against the pass, etc.

John you have a point in terms of pass defense North Dakota St is ranked #4th nationally and Southeastern Louisiana is ranked #82.Total defense NDSU is #1 in terms pass effiency defense they are ranked # 2 in the country only South Carolina St is more stingier.Florida A&M is the best pass defense unit in the country.Southeastern Louisiana is no where near the top 50 in terms of defensive statistics still its amazing with all that talent.

Since I had the day off I looked up some numbers. I'll just post the results then leave this thread alone. If it's not enough to convince anyone that the Southland teams are not that great on offense and are relatively weak on defense so be it. What I did was take the five strongest leagues and look at how they did against teams from other leagues in the playoffs. I did it once for games against ALL other leagues and again for games in which teams from the five selected leagues played each other. I'm saying the five strongest leagues are CAA, MVC, Big Sky, Southern, Southland.

Here are how the five leagues did over the past five playoff tournaments (2008 - 2012) against all opponents from other leagues, with the average score of the named league first and the average score of the opponents from other leagues second:

Big Sky 31 - 26
CAA 31 - 24
MVC 29 - 23
Southern 26 - 26
Southland 24 - 32

Here is how it looks when you just look at games such that a member of one of the five leagues played a member of one of the other five selected leagues:

Big Sky 30 - 28
CAA 29 - 25
MVC 27 - 27
Southern 26 - 28
Southland 23 - 33

In both lists the Southland had the lowest average offensive output in terms of score and allowed the most on defense. And the gap with respect to defense is notable. In the first list, with all opponents considered, the other four leagues are all within 3 points of each other in terms of points allowed while the Southland is an "outlier" by virtue of allowing 6 to 9 points per game more than the other leagues.

In the second list the other leagues are again all within 3 points of each other in terms of points allowed while the Southland is again the outlier by virtue of allowing 5 to 8 points more than the other leagues.

To me it's all fine and good that Southland teams score a lot against each other. We get a feel for whether that's primarily because the Southland is good on offense or because the Southland is bad on defense at playoff time. And to me what has happened in the playoffs strongly suggests it's more a matter of being bad on defense. A 24 points per game playoff scoring average over the past five years certainly isn't spectacular while giving up 32 points per game during the tournament is, I think, pretty bad.

JohnStOnge wrote:I'm skeptical of the idea that Southeastern's got the best set of corners in FCS with North Dakota State's corners out there...assuming the one that got hurt against Illinois State is not out for the season. At least in terms of starters. But who knows?

One thing's for sure, they're not anywhere close to North Dakota State in terms of overall effectiveness of their defense either overall or against the pass.

Like I said, Southeastern Louisiana is decent on defense and that makes them very good in a relative sense in the context of the Southland Conference. But in the context of FCS it is not an outstanding defense. More of a middle of the pack one whether you talk about how good it is overall, how good it is against the run, how good it is against the pass, etc.

We'll see in a couple of years who's corners are playing on Sundays.

dal4018 wrote:

slulionsfan wrote:
Theo Alexander is having a great year - more specifically, a great past month. Like a lot of JC kids, he struggled some last year due to the complexity of our defensive scheme, but he's really starting to come into his own. He's been backing up at free safety though truth be told, we don't really have starters and backups. We play 22-25 kids per week on each side of the ball and rotate liberally throughout the game.

Is that the reason Smith is not on the squad the complex scheme you guys run or is it academics.Maybe if you guys scaled back he could catch up later on then his talent will come out.Use a little bump and run now and then.Do you use some semblances of the famous "46" defense from Chicago,Tennessee,Philadelphia in terms of all out blitzes that would play into the hands of your DBs in terms of interceptions.How come your defense is struggling? You guys should be among the nation's best with that talent.What NFL teams are looking at Alexander right now?I thought he should have been the one over Alford as NFL material at 6-4 205.Hey imagine all those huge DBs for your school playing for North Dakota St the NFL would be beating down their doors.

No, Smith did not qualify academically out of JC ... not sure where he is right now ... possibly at an NAIA or D-II or not playing at all.

As for our defense, we base out of a 3-3-5, but we have 240-250 lb linebackers and can morph to a four man front when we need to.

I wouldn't say our defense is struggling at all ... we've had a couple of games where our opponents came out with a bunch of wrinkles we hadn't seen on tape (Samford, NW State, Lamar) and we gave up some big plays. Samford had been a predominantly run, dink-and-dunk team the first three weeks and came out going vertical against us - also hit us with several trick plays ... caught us totally off guard and took some time to get adjusted ... once we did, we shut them down, and went up by three TDs until they hit a couple of big plays late to make the score closer than it was. NW State did a lot of new stuff and ran their QB more, but we adjusted to it ... plus we were flat ... Lamar the same thing. UCA simply played well the first half, but again, we adjusted. And there's also a couple of pick 6's in there (SD State and UCA) we gave up on offense, plus other turnovers which set up short scoring drives.

When we're locked in, we're pretty good ... we completely shut down the two best offenses we've faced this year, in SFA and McNeese ... combined, they went 26-67 for 239 yards and 5 INT against us, and we held McNeese to 99 net yards rushing. We held both to 300 yards below their season avg in total offense.

I'm not concerned when we're playing a team we know we can beat without our best effort, and give up some yardage and garbage points ... I care more about how we play when we're playing a very good opponent with a great offense ... so far, we've stepped up to those challenges ... hopefully we do the same this weekend vs Sam Houston.

dal4018 wrote:

JohnStOnge wrote:I'm skeptical of the idea that Southeastern's got the best set of corners in FCS with North Dakota State's corners out there...assuming the one that got hurt against Illinois State is not out for the season. At least in terms of starters. But who knows?

One thing's for sure, they're not anywhere close to North Dakota State in terms of overall effectiveness of their defense either overall or against the pass.

Like I said, Southeastern Louisiana is decent on defense and that makes them very good in a relative sense in the context of the Southland Conference. But in the context of FCS it is not an outstanding defense. More of a middle of the pack one whether you talk about how good it is overall, how good it is against the run, how good it is against the pass, etc.

John you have a point in terms of pass defense North Dakota St is ranked #4th nationally and Southeastern Louisiana is ranked #82.Total defense NDSU is #1 in terms pass effiency defense they are ranked # 2 in the country only South Carolina St is more stingier.Florida A&M is the best pass defense unit in the country.Southeastern Louisiana is no where near the top 50 in terms of defensive statistics still its amazing with all that talent.

NDSU doesn't face the passing offenses with the type of skill athletes we see on a regular basis either; plus they're a huddle up, two-tight, smash-mouth, ball control team who's gonna eat clock on offense. Don't get me wrong, they're great on defense - the best in the country - but it's not hard to cover when your front seven is in the QBs face all night ... I've seen them struggle against teams with decent skill athletes too, they just don't face as many in that league. (Note to MV fans: that's not meant as a knock, just pointing out the different styles of play between leagues).

In your opinion how would NDSU fare in the Southland Conference,Ohio Valley,Big Sky or dare I say the Mid-Eastern Conference or the Southwestern Athletic Conference where where footballs fly threw the air on a regular basis??? You describe them as the 1-AA version of Nebraska!!!! Maybe that is why their pass defense is so good the front seven any DB that was worth his salt had a front seven that kept the heat on opposing QBs for 60 minutes.

dal4018 wrote:In your opinion how would NDSU fare in the Southland Conference,Ohio Valley,Big Sky or dare I say the Mid-Eastern Conference or the Southwestern Athletic Conference where where footballs fly threw the air on a regular basis??? You describe them as the 1-AA version of Nebraska!!!! Maybe that is why their pass defense is so good the front seven any DB that was worth his salt had a front seven that kept the heat on opposing QBs for 60 minutes.

NDSU is great regardless of the league, I just don't think their defensive numbers would look as spiffy if they had to face the type of skill players and diversity of offenses we see on a weekly basis in the SLC ... Missouri State has some skill and moved the ball pretty well on them through the air (in the Fargo Dome), yet had trouble passing at home vs both NW State or UCA.

Again, my comments aren't meant as a knock against the Missouri Valley - its a great league with a bunch of good football teams ... they just play a different style.