"Prevent" Defense Only Prevents Winning

Tonight, my boys from MTSU, my alma mater, were within 2:30 of winning their first ever Sun Belt conference title and going to their first ever bowl game as a Division 1-A team. They had cruised to a 20-7 lead with less than 3 minutes remaining in the 4th quarter behind a mixture of solidly executed offense and swarming, pressure defense. So, it seems natural that they'd continue doing what brought them so much success all game, right? Wrong! I swear, they must have been watching Tennessee play the last few years...simply maddening.

In a prevent defense, the D-line only rushes 3 men against 5 O-linemen and drops the remaining 8 men back into deep coverage, letting receivers make uncontested catches in front of them. The problems with this approach are twofold: not only does the defense get no pressure, receivers don't get jammed at the line of scrimmage and break off chunks of yardage 10-15 at a time (this matters because, in college football, first downs stop the clock). Simple math tells us that, at this rate, it doesn't take long to go all the way down the field. MTSU trotted out this very nonsense defense tonight late in the game with predictable results.

The Blue Raiders gave up a quick TD pass to bring the score to 20-14, they let Troy recover the onside kick, and then they turned around and played the same defense that had just failed them minutes earlier AGAIN! Troy marched the ball down the field and scored the tying TD and winning PAT with 15 seconds left, and MTSU's final Hail Mary fell incomplete as time expired.

MTSU now has to wait until next week...if Troy wins, they win the conference, get the bowl bid, and MSTU stays home. If Troy loses, then MTSU goes. This loss can be placed squarely on the shoulders of the coaches for playing scared and playing not to lose rather than doing what had brought them success all game and all year. The players didn't deserve to lose such a heartbreaker, but with that kind of coaching, losing is a certainty. I feel bad for the guys, but I'm not surprised. I think using the prevent defense and losing a game once should put a coaching staff on automatic probation, and if it happens a second time, they should be fired, no excuses and no exceptions.