My first impression in defense was I felt like we were not blitzing but realize they were able to make quick passes.
I saw us chasing the long pass receivers with our best on their fast guys leaving our short coverage to cover tight ends and shallow fast revivers. Blitzes are more dangerous of course, under those circumstances/
What they did… and they had the personnel to do it was to spread the field wid… more importantly in this contest however was they spread us long… ALL the way down the field.
That meant a more porous run defense.
We were outmanned and out coached… or is outcoached one word?
Less blitzes meant less sacks, so much for the Avenue.
I cannot say I know the solution other than to TRY some risky defense pressures that would have been made obvious with tight coverage on the wideouts at the line.
I DID notice that at the initial reads, their pass defense had corners close to the line and as the snap approached they would quickly run back, giving more cushion to our wideouts to cover deep.
So at first look to Tune and Belk, we were most often covered for the short game yet that was just the look they gave. By the time Tune looks up figuring to see open receivers, they were covered and our short receivers had run their quick routes and were, I guess in a more “help the QB out” get open chaos for Tune to step through.
Maybe we need better plans post route moves so Tune knows where to expect them to go… same developing by this time deep as well.
All that said, I am NOT a football expert, just an ADD analytical multi variables troubleshooter.
I do expect the game is more complicated and do not know how much of that sort of thing is accounted for by coaches and players. MAYBE SMU watched film and knew what our post route habits were.
All in all, I give SMU credit in being prepared and making few mistakes.
We made a few mistakes and had a couple of bad breaks, different people will have their opinions as to how they see any given play.
I call the game as being the team with the least consequential mistakes, and the most breaks won.
As far as our looking like we only had 9 players on the field, I credit their coaching, planning, and execution.
Our talented personnel were not enough to overcome them.
A different and more successful team we may beat 9 out of 10 times but their offense beat our defense, our few bad breaks, and our foul-ups.
SMU played beyond their capabilities, imo. It was like they had a clean, well executed game that beat our good but not great game.