Eight
Member
So next year we will have...
Starters: Mathis and Coleman
2nd Team: Horton and Ellison
3rd Team: Armstrong and ??
True Freshman: Watson and Murray
We have a lot of bodies for sure but if this University of North Texas guy can provide a speed rush I'd take him in a heart beat. We are still super young at the position and having to defend 80+ plays a game you need 5 solid DEs a game.
when are we defending 80+ plays a game?
here are the average number of plays per game the opposing offenses have run since 2014:
2014 - 73
2015 - 77
2016 - 77
2017 - 61
2018 - 69
2019 - 64
2020 - 62
have there been individual games where an opposing offense has run 80+ plays? heck yes, but we haven't been near those numbers for 4 years and only one opposing offense has run 70 plays this year and that was baylor
in fact, only two teams have run more offensive plays than tcu this year, ou with 67 (+7) and baylor with 70 (+3). this past week the frogs and wvu ran the same number of offensive plays and the other games the frogs ran more plays by a fairly big margin
in regards to being super young that just isn't right as well. mathis is a 3rd year soph, horton is a junior, colt is a soph and next year all three will be upper classmen and arrmstrong would be in his 3rd year in the program.
what we aren't is consistent or productive at a key position that is critical for this defense and we have really, really fallen off since ben and lj. biggest drop in productive talent since the frogs have joined the big 12 at a critical position