Frank was a huge loss at LB. No one could step in for his loss of production. The wind was let out of the sails the whole way it went public right before game day. Frank was responsible for something like 60% of our turnovers in 2016.

Our DL was very thin. Remember when we had LBs lined up over center? Seemed like a modified 2-5 defense. We had a limited depth chart at DL going into the season (with many on the side lines as Red Shirts & transfers or injuries), and then lost more. We will be much deeper this year. In fact, 2018 is the first year I will judge our 4-3 DL performance.

With so many injuries, you are now playing guys that were deeper in the depth chart, did not have playing experience, are not as skilled, do not have time in the system, etc. By default you *have* to play vanilla defense because they can't grasp the advanced things and wind up with blown assignments.

A good defensive team can recover with 2-3 starters out and still play fairly well. Not dominant, but still a decent D. Lose more than that, and there are now gaping holes that get exploited.

So 2016 was pretty aggressive. 2017 was pretty passive, bend-don't-break. I expect a much improved D in 2018.