when i was a kid my absolute favorite toys were the building toys, legos, lincoln logs, and the erector sets, loved them and had them all.
the one problem with all of those is invariably you are going to lose a few pieces, the dog chews up part of your stuff, or your dad accidentally steps on the erector set project you are working on and leave out over night bending a few key pieces out of shape not that any of those ever happened in my childhood home
my mom was and is a neat freak and there was a card board box in my bedroom that was labeled in big letters "broken toys" even though very few of the contents of that box were actually broken, the contents were actually a mishmash of the various incomplete sets, chewed up legos, bent erector pieces etc.... funny part is that there was a point as a kid that if you gave me a new set of legos or the others or i could build whatever i wanted out of that box of "broken toys' i just the broken toys because the fun to me was creating something out of that box
most likely what i made from those random pieces looked a great deal more like the collage i made in 3rd grade for my mom as the christmas present that mysteriously disappeared shortly after new year's that year than a house or car or crane or whatever, but in the end those "broken toys' did their job by entertaining me, keeping me occupied, and growing my imagination
when sonny dykes took over this program and announced his new staff the discussion of how the tcu defensive personnel would fit in joe gillespie's 3-3-5 popped up early and watching the frogs struggle at times early against colorado and smu were a bit concerning.
throughout it all we saw and heard the same calm voice of joe gillespie, we heard about an emphasis and execution, and fundamentals. the defense has continually rotated players on all three levels and something strange has started to happen on the defensive side of the ball.
not only have we seen a defense that has started to take over games, but also show some depth and i think that has gone a very long way in how the frogs' defense has played, especially the last two weeks. the staff of gillespie, mcfarland, buckels, and gonzales plus their support staff has done a great job bringing this group along
consider just from a personnel side where this group started last spring when the transition process for players such as terrell cooper, george ellis iii, colt ellision, dee winters, jamoi hodges, wyatt harris, shadrach banks, zach marcheselli, th-t, noah daniels, kee'yon stewart, abe camara, nook bradford, and bud clark
holdovers from a defense that was ranked 9th in conference play in 6 different categories including rushing ypc at 6.0 and 8th in 3 others.
gillespie and his staff hit the transfer portal and did bring in help, but look where this help came from:
johnny hodges - navy
mark perry - colorado
ish burdine - missouri
namdi obiazor - iowa western juco
josh newton - ulm
tymon mitchell - uga
caleb fox - sfa
lwal ugak - uconn
one guy coming from a defense that had been successful, one that you would want the frogs to mirror that success and mitechell didn't get many snaps there
finally add a really young, defensive line recruit from socal who not many of the recruiting experts gave a second thought too in dam williams and you have a pretty good collection of broken toys. guys with traits and potential that needed to be developed, put in the right places, taught the right techniques, and guys who have pushed each other
if you had to guess, what is the number of defensive categories the frogs are ranked in the top 5 in conference play this year?
looking at the big 12 statistics the frogs are ranked in the top 5 in ever single defensive category this year in conference play and top 2 or 3 in many of them.
The official 2021 Football cumulative statistics for Big 12 Conference
big12sports.com
here is the breakdown through 7 games:
scoring defense - 4th at 26.9 ppg (1st is isu at 20.0)
total defense - 2nd at 378.9 ypg (1st is isu at 300.1)
rushing ypg - 3rd at 149.3 (1st is isu at 124.6)
rushing ypc - 3rd at 4.0 (1st is isu at 3.4)
passing ypg - 3rd at 229.6 (1st is isu at 175.6)
passing efficiency - 1st at 118.4
sacks - tied for 2nd at 16 (1st is texas at 18)
opponent 1st downs - 2nd at 19.6 (1st is isu at 16.1)
opponent 3rd down conversion - 3rd at 31.7% (1st is isu at 30.4%)
opponent 4th down conversion - 4th at 45.5% (1st is 27.8%)
red zone defense - 5th at 84.6% (1st is texas at 75.8%)
funny how far off perception can be from the actual results because based upon those numbers joe gillespie, his staff, the players have put together one of the better defenses in the big 12 and last saturday night in austin wasn't apparently something that just came out of nowhere but been building for some time
