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Best defensive performance in 2025?

LeanMeanOrangeGreen

LeanMeanOrangeGreen

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Hard to pick just one, but what was the most impressive defensive performance from our unit this year? Here’s mine in order:

#1 - Ole Miss. Lane or no Lane, this team could score and they put up points on just about everyone they played. While I know we gave up 27 points, we prevented them from putting together a legitimate scoring drive for 95% of the game. They had the 70+ yard TD run (which was their first first down of the night). Other than that TD, they probably put together one legitimate drive in the 4th quarter that wasn’t aided by BS penalties.


#2 - UF. I know they sucked this year but we held them to 30 yards of offense in the entire first half and I think something like 140 the entire game. Less than a week later they put up 260+ yards in the first half against Texas who was supposedly a defensive juggernaut and knocked them out of the rankings. Somehow Texas was a fringe playoff team later at the end of the season. SEC bias is just laughable. Lol.

#3 - TEMU. No TD’s at their big bad stadium with their big bad home crowd. Yeah it was windy but still. Their star receiver was no where to be found.

#4 - NC State. Not a bad offense. Defense was in the backfield every play. They were helpless. Bailey couldn’t function. Just absolute dominance by our defensive front.

#5 - Ohio State. Shut them out the first half and only really gave up 14 because we took the foot off the gas. Scott’s pick six will be remembered forever. Ohio State wasn’t an offensive powerhouse but they did what they wanted offensively to just about everyone they played other than Indiana before playing us. Very impressive.

Honorable mention - Notre Dame. Big bad Heisman finalist Julian Love was so ineffective, they took him out of the game. Yeah it was a weak year for Heisman finalists. I don’t recall Boise taking out Jeanty…ever.
 
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Give me OSU followed by ole Miss

Actually all of our games in D. The gata podcaster said it best when he said our guys were looking to trade paint when they tackled
 
I know we got the L and we played to many watching too scared or off coverage in first half but looking at overall performance against Indiana, defense did pretty good holding that machine of offense below most of their avg. Coming into game they were rolling and had heisman QB, they were destroying teams in playoffs and many expected them to do same with easy win against us by double digits. Held O avg over 40 to 20 and Heisman qb didnt really get going passing, especially in 2nd half. Felt D played better given circumstance than against Ole Miss
 
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Ole Miss hands down. Through 51 minutes of the game (when Lucas got ejected) we had held them to 16 points (avg 37 ppg) and 290 yards - 73 on the Lacy run (avg 489 ypg). Considering we were down OJ and D Brown even before Lucas went out and had others battling the flu I’d say this was an elite performance against one of the most dynamic QBs we have faced in years.

Edited to add, even the FGs were from 58, 54, and 42 yards. Without an NFL kicker we hold them to 21.
 
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Lining up man on man and press coverage on 2 of the top 5 WRs in college football (including generation number 1 overall) and dominating the way we did was by far the most impressive game.

And that says a lot because we held 3 P4 teams under 200 yards of total offense, held A&M to 3 points, and held Ole Miss 10 points under their season average and Indiana 20 points under their season average... all in the same year in different games.
 
Louisville was impressive, caught us off guard up 14, then held them to just 10 more entire game
 
skyman said:
I know we got the L and we played to many watching too scared or off coverage in first half but looking at overall performance against Indiana, defense did pretty good holding that machine of offense below most of their avg. Coming into game they were rolling and had heisman QB, they were destroying teams in playoffs and many expected them to do same with easy win against us by double digits. Held O avg over 40 to 20 and Heisman qb didnt really get going passing, especially in 2nd half. Felt D played better given circumstance than against Ole Miss
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Really so sad that we didn’t have Lucas for that first half. Completely different gameplan in the 2nd half.
 
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I don’t think we took the foot off the gas against OSU

Sometimes the other team is just really good as well

But that is my #1 game as my answer

Granted I watched a lot of OSU and knew they were vulnerable on offense, but watching us overwhelm them was beautiful

I’m glad you brought up Love and how many RBs we shut down

I’ll throw FSU in there as well. People were pretty scared after the Alabama game and them dropping 70 on people with ease

We dominated them in their own place. 200 yards of their offense was when the game was long over
 
E1k said:
Defense literally won the game vs osu
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I don’t disagree, but defense won a lot of our games this season. Ole Miss was #1 in total offense and put up 40 against their 2 previous CFP opponents including Georgia. They received the opening kickoff against us and didn’t pick up a first down until the 2nd quarter. That 1st down being the 70+ yard TD run that was basically a busted play. We let them hang around by not scoring any points of our own until the late in the 4th.

That Fiesta Bowl saw what was arguably the best offense in the country look completely inept for most of the game. In my opinion that’s the best defensive performance.
 
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JHallCanes said:
I don’t think we took the foot off the gas against OSU

Sometimes the other team is just really good as well

But that is my #1 game as my answer

Granted I watched a lot of OSU and knew they were vulnerable on offense, but watching us overwhelm them was beautiful

I’m glad you brought up Love and how many RBs we shut down

I’ll throw FSU in there as well. People were pretty scared after the Alabama game and them dropping 70 on people with ease

We dominated them in their own place. 200 yards of their offense was when the game was long over
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28-3 with about 11 minutes left in the 4th quarter or something I’d have to double check. All of FSU’s yards and points were given to them while we were just letting the clock go down.

We could mention USF too. They were also a top offense who did very little against Heatherman’s D. They were in the drivers seat to be the G5 CFP representative after annihilating North Texas but choked towards the end of the season.
 
LeanMeanOrangeGreen said:
28-3 with about 11 minutes left in the 4th quarter or something I’d have to double check. All of FSU’s yards and points were given to them while we were just letting the clock go down.

We could mention USF too. They were also a top offense who did very little against Heatherman’s D. They were in the drivers seat to be the G5 CFP representative after annihilating North Texas but choked towards the end of the season.
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People were pooping their panties every week worried about running QBs and those guys were thoroughly dominated

Another narrative we killed this year
 
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