Giving Up The Big Play

Stoops today (h/t Jake Trotter):

"Expect defense to be significantly better from a year ago. D-line, d-ends much better than they've been billed to be."

As I'm sure a lot of you will remember, our defense wasn't an elite unit last year in terms of traditional statistical measures. They were 53rd in total defense (361.9 yd/gm) and 33rd in scoring defense (21.8 ppg). However, they were very opportunistic - 8th nationally in forced turnovers (32), 8th in sacks (37), and 3rd in tackles for loss (106).

How was a ball-hawking defense that was so good at making plays in the backfield coming up short