2003 – OSU 183
2004 – BGU 269
2005 – ASU 560 (Sam Keller 35/56 461 4 TD 0 Int)
2006 – La-Laf. 176
2007 – MSU 146
2008 – WMU 350
2009 – FAU 358
2010 – WKU 299
For those that are concerned because the defense gave up 299 yards to Western Kentucky Pelini's first game of the season history shows us that the total yards gained is almost on pace with the average given up by his defenses. He has been a DC/HC for 8 opening games. In those games his teams have given up a total of 2341 yards or an average of 292.625 per game. At NU alone his defenses have given up 1190 total yards for an average of 297.5 over 4 seasons. Like Bo said if this was game 4 or 5 then there would be cause for alarm but it was game 1 and we still dominated so people need to calm down a little bit.
Keying in on the games Pelini actually had control over, I wonder what we should expect to see in game 2 based on what we saw from him defenses in 2003, 2008 and 2009.
2003 - Utah St 238
2008 - @ Wake Forest 373 (arguably Bo's toughest opponent in a game 2)
2009 - Arkansas St 274
So, when you compare game 1 to game 2 in these seasons, it appears we should expect...not much difference in opponents' total yardage. Those 3 game 1s we averaged 297 yards allowed, while the 3 game 2s we averaged giving up 295 yards. In 2003, we gave up 55 more yards in game 2. In 2008, we gave up 23 more yards. And last year, we tightened the reigns giving up 84 less yards than game 1 vs FAU.
Obviously there are many, many other contributing factors to consider, but simply based on this, one would think our defense will improve slightly in the "total yards allowed" category when we face Idaho.