Mel Tucker has two benchmarks for defensive success, and the Buffs are pretty close

Prior to the season, Mel Tucker outlined two defensive goals for his team. They are the same week-in and week-out for every game, all season:

1. Hold their opponent to 3.3 yards per carry or less in the running game
2. Hold their opponent to 5.5 yards per passing attempt or less in the passsing game.

If the Buffs achieve both, their odds of winning go up dramatically. But Colorado hasn’t hit both targets in the same game so far this season.

Against Arizona, Colorado was close. It hit its benchmark in the running game, holding the Wildcats to 3.2 yards per carry but the Buffs didn’t hit their benchmark in the passing game, allowing 7.7 yards per attempt.

For the most part, Arizona’s passing game was kept in check. It dinked and it dunked, but was largely tame.

Except for eight plays.

Tucker came prepared with stats to his Tuesday media availability. He noted that on eight pass attempts, Arizona put up 265 yards. On the 33 other, they were under five yards per attempt.

“That’s where we know that we’re close,” Tucker said.

Giving up 265 yards on eight plays is, obviously, not ideal. Saying a defense that was picked apart like that is “close” might seem like a stretch but there were plenty of bright spots in Saturday’s game.

“There were times when we were stopping the run, getting off the field on third down, playing fast, then you have an explosive,” Tucker said. “If we eliminate the explosives then we can play more consistently on defense, we can hold teams to lower numbers and that gives us a better chance to win.”

The “explosive plays” stat counts all 20+ yard gains. In Saturday’s game, Arizona posted five explosive plays and all were passes thrown by quarterback Khalil Tate. He completed passes of 26, 29, 33, 49 and 75 yards. Outside of those five passes, he totaled 192 passing yards on 36 attempts, good for a 5.3 yards per attempt average.

The inability to stop deep passes is the story of the Buffs’ sesason defensively. With starting safety Aaron Maddox sitting out the past three weeks and starting safety Mikial Onu missing much of Saturday’s contest, it’s no surprise the struggles have exacerbated. Losing starting cornerback Chris Miller to an ACL injury doesn’t help matters.

Now, the remaining pieces of the secondary have to find a solution.

“The secondary has got to be the most important part, and that’s what we’re trying to emphasize, to prevent the big plays that are coming up in the passing game right now,” defensive coordinator Tyson Summers said. “(We’re) making sure everybody’s on the same page, making sure they understand the (opponents’) tendencies from the pre-snap alignments and the looks that we’ve gotten, and being able to have their eyes in the right place. We really feel like, if we can do those things, we can clean up some of the explosive plays we’ve given up in the passing game.”

Colorado is implementing a much more complicated defensive scheme under Tucker and Summers than what it has run in the past. The idea is that for every pre-snap adjustment the offense makes, the defense has a counter that puts it in the best possible situation. Under normal circumstances, Summers says if one offensive player moves in the formation before the snap, there may be nine defenders who align differently. That’s tough to coordinate without more experienced leaders on the field.

“We’ve got a very inexperienced group that’s playing… and we’re looking forward to seeing those guys play,” Summers said, “but to sit here and say we’re going to be in a situation where we have our call sheet of 40 different pressures that have 40 different adjustments… That’s not where we’re at right now.”

The frustration surrounding the explosive plays is obvious, but patching up the leaks on the backend of the defense won’t be easy.

Luckily for the Buffs, they head to Eugene this week to take on the Oregon Ducks. For a team that struggles in the passing game, it’s surprising to hear that taking on potentially the top quarterback in the country could be the antidote to its troubles, but Oregon ranks second-to-last in the Pac-12 in generating explosive plays.

Justin Herbert is certainly capable of lighting up the backend of a defense, but through five weeks, his receivers haven’t been up to the task.

Whether the Ducks’ offense steps up or the Colorado defense shows out, one of these two trends is going to die Friday night.