I get what you're saying, but that's not really the point that was being debated.
One person said we're doing pretty well in sacks and TFL--which is fine. Not a valid indicator of how the defense has played as a whole, but the stat is what it is. You can't really discount that because they're just splash plays when the plays that have hurt our total defense have been splash plays. A big run by LSU, and about 10 minutes worth of sloppy football against Toledo. Both of these can be weighed and measured in order to form an opinion of how one thinks the defense is performing. We're basically getting splash plays at the risk of giving up splash plays. It's a valid and healthy argument over whether or not this is a winning defensive philosophy.
The problem arises in these debates when posters leave the realm of objectivity and begin to over-exaggerate things. Someone comes in and says TFL and sacks don't mean dlck because we can't get off the field on 3rd down. This is just an objectively false statement intended to diminish the "reward" portion of the above debate and over-exaggerate the "risk."
Defensively, we have allowed 7 3rd down conversions on 41 attempts, about a 16% success rate. Defensive 3rd down conversion rate was one of our biggest weaknesses last season, and 16% is a marked improvement. What is debatable is whether or not this improvement is due to a concerted effort over the off season to address the issue. There can't be an honest debate of that as long as were substituting the objective numbers in favor of conjecture and predictions of what will happen in the future. It's week three. Almost every team we are measured against has played one decent opponent and two cupcakes. Our numbers, for better or worse, are just as valid as anyone else's.
