There is one HUGE elephant in the room that no one addresses when they point to the offense and say they completely failed our defense. If you do that, you have a very shallow understanding of the game.
Our defense was actually aided to an extreme amount by our offense. I felt our offense extremely underachieved in scoring points but they did the one thing that aids the defense tremendously, they moved and held the ball. If your offense has the ball and wins the TOP, then the defense does not have as many possessions that it has to defend and will look even better by having less points scored against it and less yards given up.
Our main offensive problem is not moving the ball, it’s converting in the red zone. Campbell has the offensive style he wants, it slows down the game and makes closer games which makes the defense fresher and look better stats wise. Why I don’t see any major change in the OC and offensive philosophy.
And while the defense was good, there were times like the Tech game where when Tech pressed the next possession after giving up the lead, they put ISU on skates.
ISU football history is full of weird seasons and this was one of them.