Good article. The secondary did improve considerably as the season progressed. Throw in Gerry's comments about different verbiage between Banker and Stewart, the talk of "buy in", new system, injuries to the LB's, guys reverting back "to the old scheme", poor pass rush etc it is a recipe for the crap show we saw last year.
Do I expect our pass D to be top 10 next year? No. Do I expect it to be visibly improved? Yes. I think if teams figure to go air raid against the D they might be in for a surprise.
This is year two. Wrinkles are being ironed out. Guys are all in. Guys have much more experience. This year will be different.
I'm not sure our secondary improved much as the year went on, as much as we simply started playing teams that were incapable of taking advantage.
Iowa was never going to light us up through the air. I would argue that UCLA had plenty of success throwing the ball, our offense simply did a good job of keeping Rosen & Co. off the field. I do agree that the pass defense should improve, there's simply nowhere to go but up. I'm uncertain if the improvement will be enough, however, to really think they've turned some kind of corner. Hopefully I'm wrong.
