They had the most injuries of the 2 groups and still managed to put up enough points in every game to win, except for the Boise game.

The defense never had even remotely close the significant type of injury that the offense sustain, and yet the coaches managed it and found a way to make it work.

See here is the deal... you could have the best play calling defensive coordinator in the world come and call plays from the sidelines and it won't matter worth a lick if you fail miserably to coach even the most basic fundamentals before the season begins. If you ignore the fundamentals and coach just scheme... you are absolutely doomed to fail. Why? Because the fundamentals is what makes the defense sound, because everyone is playing their position the way it should be played, are tackling how they should tackle, and have a clear assignment sound understanding of the flow of the game. Instead we have a coach that has no experience at all, not playing or coaching from a coordinator role, and he screwed up the defense from the word go... dating back to the first day of practice. He failed to coach then, which hurt midway through the season. But the problems started to be on full display against UCONN when injuries weren't an issue.