Miami's offensive line was freaking huge. At the same time, I saw them holding on the run a lot, if not in the pocket. Kudos to Indiana for figuring out how to deal with that.

Heard somewhere they watch more film than actual physical practice. Haven't fact checked. But assuming you have 15 games of reference data, and you watch every one of them...it helps.

Indiana's defense succeeded because they lured Beck into throwing the ball.
Beck throws into coverage under pressure. Frankly A&M did the same thing but coaches took the ball out of Beck's hands.

The reality is CFB did not have the highly talented QB's of the past and defenses looked good.

I don't know the stats but it felt like the playoff had a high number of turnovers. Alabama in their prime had fewer penalties than most of the teams in the CFP had in turnovers.

barnag said:

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I mean, our defense did hold Miami to it's fewest points all season in 16 total games.

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This. Our D only had one issue and that was the explosive run. I think we're asking the LBs to play above the athletic ability and our DT's weren't stout enough to minimize the holes RBs had to run through.

King of the Dairy Queen said:

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MBAR AG said:

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Who coached Hodges?

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I think Timmy d was coord, but thd defense fell off the planet when Hodges wasn't on the field. Hope he got into coaching.

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Yeah we lost that game the second he went out. You could tell the difference immediately. I think we had some injuries in the game or two before that one that hurt also.

Indiana's defense was second in the nation, allowing 11.7 points per game, but their offense that averaged 41.6 points played a much larger role in their 16-0 national championship season. Their offense dominated an Oregon defense that smothered an explosive Texas Tech offense that had averaged 42.4 points in their previous 13 games (12 regular season games and the Big 12 Championship Game). Also, Indiana continued to make big plays to control Miami from start to finish.