New Metrics For Today's Defenses?

>>this is another collaborative post with hemlock<<
Overview and Background:We are ten weeks into the collegefootball season and already a highly respected defensive coordinator has beenfired and the nation’s most elite unit had over half a thousand yards hung onit in one afternoon.  It would seem thatoffenses today must really be ahead of defenses, a thought that would seem tosuggest that with time, as the offenses did in the good old bad old days,invariably catch up.  But maybe somethingelse is at work here, something that the powers that be in the game, the MackBrowns and Nick Sabans of the world, are reluctant to admit, the possibilitythat the terrain upon which the game is played has so radically shifted thatthe old benchmarks according to which defenses were once measured simply nolonger apply.  Put differently, holdingan offense to 300 / game is just not a realistic goal when two teams of similartalent take the field.  With this inmind, what, then, broadly speaking, should be the goals for defenses in the ageof the spread and how should they go about trying to achieve them in anincreasingly frenetic, hostile, and strained environment?


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