I couldn't agree more

by Busco21, Tuesday, April 07, 2009, 15:09 (6259 days ago) @ Jay

There is a HUGE difference between "boy strength" and "man strength". Our kids have the former.

I would worry even more if we were playing a read and react scheme. There is no way some of these kids would win the battles, week in and week out, trying to hold a gap or defeat a double-team.

The aggressive scheme will help, but I'm betting we'll still struggle against the better running teams on our schedule.

Two keys: No big plays and success on 1st down.

No big plays will make an offense have to convert over and over again to score. Which leads me to...

Defensive success on 1st down. If the Irish are able to put the offense in a 2nd and 8 or more quite a bit, even power running teams will be forced to throw on second or third down much more often (which I believe will be our strength - defending the pass).

I'm a huge believer that getting a sack on 1st or even 2nd down is so much more important than on 3rd down. On 3rd down, all you need is an incompletion. On 1st or 2nd down, you can kill a drive with a sack.