If this defense or these defensive coaches think anywhere near your second comment, they all need to be tested for drugs. There is not one team in all of college football that is scared of this defense. SDSU proved that on Saturday.
I completely agree. There's no room for any defense, at any level, to think that way. But these are 18-21 year old kids, and sometimes they don't think quite as maturely as the rest of us. Honestly I think there's merit to this particular line of thought (otherwise I wouldn't have brought it up), simply based on how easily they get "shocked" when things like this happen against FCS foes (and the other 15 teams that have racked up huge yards on Bo's defenses in the last couple years). How can they work hard and make progress at practice each week, and then come out the do this on such a regular basis?
To me, this is a mental thing, not so much a skills things. We all know if you have the wrong mental approach, you'll get burned on way or the other...on the flipside, the right mental approach will help you do the types of things we've seen glimpses of against tough teams (eg. 1st qtr vs UCLA, first 3 qtrs vs. Georgia, etc.).