While we undoubtedly have one of the most talented, fastest, most physical, and most disciplined defenses in college football- and have for several years now- why does that never seem to translate into as many turnovers as one might expect? This year we forced 13 turnovers in 13 games. That was good for 102nd in FBS (and 90% of FBS teams played 1 less game than we did). We recovered exactly ONE fumble all season. That's almost impossible, and was obviously last in FBS. Against the better teams we played (7 opponents that finished at .500 or above), we forced 4 total turnovers. Last year in our first 13 games we forced 16 turnovers. In 2021 in our first 13 games we forced 15 turnovers. I mean, you would just naturally think those numbers would be higher, with the speed, strength, & athleticism we have on that side of the ball. I just can't figure it out. And it definitely hurts in terms of rarely giving our offense a short field to work with, snuffing out opponents' drives, etc. You can argue one of the big differences in the game vs. Bama was our costly turnover, while we forced none by them. Really wish we could get it turned around in that department moving forward.
