Wow, bagging on the 2007 defense. That was the last defense to beat Northwestern. That 2009 defense folded like origami against them, and we all remember last year's meltdowns against Indiana (saved by a dropped TD), OSU, Wisconsin, NU and Minnesota, not to mention the meltdown in Arizona.
The 2009 defense needed not one, but two blocked FGs to get past UNI. And it completely collapsed at the end of the MSU game, it's only saving grace that night was Stanzi was on fire and O'Keefe called the best game ever and the D collapsed so fast in the clutch that Stanzi and O'Keefe had time to bail them out. The 2009 defense had two studs who had a great sense for where the ball would be, Edds and Angerer, but we had to deal with some growing pains with those two fellas, but by the time they were seniors, they were able to close out games with opportunistic plays in the clutch a few times and were the difference between a 8-4 or 7-5 team and a 10-2 team.
This year's team will be good, but as usual, it will be the offense absolutely dominating TOP to keep the defense from getting exposed with the structural flaws inherent in a Ferentz defense.