Good stuff. Curious why you called some of our linebackers undersized, though. Williams was short, maybe, but I thought he was pretty big (weight wise) for a college LB? Maybe because they don’t match up well with OL in the phone booth, and there’s more of that responsibility in a 3-4 than a 4-3? There are a lot of 4-3 teams out there (mostly outside the Pac-10, it’s one of the reasons the SEC is perceived as so “fast”) that run ~210 pound LB’s out there, so by comparison I’ve always been under the impression our LB’s are pretty big?

I totally agree with this analysis (on this play in particular) and in general that our linebackers are the week point of the defense. Is it simply that Felder, Williams and Follett were better athletes than our current contingent of Bishop, Young, and Kendricks? The former set of guys did mostly start for 3+ years, which shows some degree of athleticism. Or is it game experience? Will our current linebackers grow into the playmakers of last year, or is this the level of play we should expect for this year, and possibly next?

I think I share you’re optimism about the run defense, but I’m a bit less optimistic about the pass defense (short zones) covered by the linebackers.
About our run defense against U$C, I noticed that those runs you’re referring to (4 10+ yards) generally happened when the second team D-line unit was in, with 92, 40, and 95 I believe. In general it seemed U$C had more success running the ball against the less experienced 2nd team unit than the first team unit. It certainly helped that Hill was popping ODowd backwards ~2 yards on a very consistent basis.