The Defense did hold A&M to only 6 points in the 2nd half.

[Randman5000 4,228]

They don't give out wins and losses based on halves. The offense scored 38 and that should be enough to win. It doesn't matter when A&M scored their 41 points, that they had 41 when the game ended is what counts.

If our defense was as good as, say, UL-Monroes' the fumbles wouldn't have mattered.

And I believe if we'd have gotten the benefit of a kid's first start instead of his second, we might have looked just as good.

Look, you're right, 38 points normally wins. Hell, we should have had at least 48. But when you fumble on the first drive setting a good offense up at midfield, when you allow a FG that would cut the lead to 8 to be blocked and returned for a TD that puts the other team up by 18 instead, when you fumble at the goal line going in for the go ahead TD late, then squander a defensive three and out that forced A&M to punt from their end zone by snapping it when no one is ready to turn it over again with a minute to play, you lose.

Sure, the defense should have played better in the first half. But they gave us multiple chances to win late and the offense choked at crunch time. We're not used to seeing it, but this wasn't a case where the offense had to play perfect or make spectacular plays to pull out the win. They just had to not do idiotic stuff. The fumbled exchange and premature snap were utterly unforced errors committed by veteran players. You can't overcome that many boneheaded mistakes late.

So while I'd love to see better defense, the defense also made it possible to win that game not once, but twice late.

This. Yes, that's what is heartbreaking....despite the horrible first half, horrible defensive performance in our house by a team we were supposed to kill and being down late....we still should and could have won. Hard to swallow.

[StatTiger 3,188]

The thing I wish I could understand is why we're able to make such awesome adjustments at halftime but not earlier. Why not after the first quarter? Why do we suck for an entire half, then turn it up after halftime? Obviously I rather finish strong than start great and be unable to adapt as the game progresses. But if we're so good at identifying the problems and fixing them, why can't we do that on the sidelines before halftime?

Titan,

The scary thought is that Johnson himself has stated the players tend to execute better more so than him actually making adjustments.

[fredst 9,064]

75,58,94,68,71,76- those are the lengths of drives we gave up for points yesterday. Find me a team whose defense surrenders that and still wins. Not going to happen very often. Throw in a special teams TD against us and the fact that we even had a chance to win is miraculous. Offensive mistakes at the end were painful to watch but the bottom line is this: our defense is atrocious, has been for about 6 years now and there doesn't appear to be a quick fix. Ellis Johnson does not appear to be the answer at DC and it sounds like there may be other staff issues as well. Until the D is fixed we will be left watching very entertaining football on offense but will be hard pressed to compete at a championship level consistently (like the team across the state, painful as that is to admit).