At the recent CAA Football Media Day, Andy Talley had high expectations for a defense that returns a lot of letterwinners and gave up just 18.4 points per game a year ago. That’s very good. 2nd-best in the CAA good.
Truth is, they were even better than that. If you take out all the points that came directly from turnovers by the offense (five touchdowns in total), that defensive scoring average drops down to 15.2 ppg - over 3 points better than the raw numbers indicate.
So even though they’re replacing some key contributors at important positions, it’s no surprise to see Talley look to the defense to control the game once again.