How about that Minnesota defense!!
Maryland puts up 207 total yards against Northwestern and then a week later they're 4th in the country in yards per play. How? The Minny defense.
Here are the bottom 5 in yards per play on defense in CFB (disclaimer for small sample size, but the point remains):
99 UNLV 7.37
100 UMass 7.52
101 Vanderbilt 7.52
102 New Mexico 7.52
103 Minnesota 9.48
A full 2 yards worse than everyone else. Yikes. There's a long way to go until the end of the year, and I'm sure they'll figure some things out, but only 1 team has topped 8 yards per play against in the past 6 years and that was that UCONN team in 2018 that was statistically the worst defense in college football history according to Connelly, etc.
Another Big Ten thought: Purdue is 2-0 and sitting pretty along with Northwestern in the Big Ten West, but I gotta say I saw some warning signs for them this past week. Illinois finds out their starting QB Peters is out with COVID late in the week along with a backup TE. Not only that, but due to contact tracing, 2 starting OL, the backup QB, the kicker and 4 in the 2 deep on defense are also out, along with 5 or 6 guys that play sparingly, something like 14 guys. (By the way, kudos to them for playing, right?) They are down to their 3rd stringer at QB, who sucks, and then HE gets hurt on the second drive with an ankle injury, leaving them with the 4th stringer Coran Taylor, who has never played because although he is athletic, he can't hit the broad side of a barn and per practice moles has proved to be a walking turnover in practice. All of that proves true in the game, as Taylor throws 2 horrific picks and fumbles twice, including one that Purdue picks up and trots in for a TD from the 5 yard line. He also missed about 5 or 6 throws by a mile to wide open receivers. Despite all that, he still threw for 277 yards and Illinois ran for 200, racking up 475 yards. Final score was 31-24 with Illinois giving it up on downs at the 10 yard line on their last drive. If they can only escape by the skin of their teeth in that terrible scenario for Illinois, either Purdue is shaky or Illinois isn't as bad as they looked in week 1.
