CSUN NOTEBOOK: CSUN HOPES DEFENSE AWAKENS.Byline: Chris CHRIS Chemical Hazards Response Information System (US DoD) CHRIS California Historical Resources Information System CHRIS Computerized Human Resources Information System CHRIS Command Human Resources Intelligence System Branam Staff Writer Some thought it was last week, at Montana. Or maybe a few weeks before that, at Eastern Washington
Each time, the Cal State Northridge football team needed a statement from its defense. The defense couldn't respond, and the Matadors lost and dropped further down the Division I-AA statistical charts. Is today's home game against Sacramento State going to be different? ``I feel good about this (game),'' senior linebacker Jack Heaslet said. ``People are concentrating and people are focused. This is a big game.'' Of course it is. In August, the CSUN CSUN California State University Northridge coaches and players scoffed at their predicted finish of eighth in the Big Sky Conference. The Matadors (2-3) are in danger of losing for the third time in four conference games. It's the middle of October, and they are 1-2 and eighth entering today's homecoming Homecoming Odyssey concerning Odysseus’s difficulties in getting home after war. [Gk. Myth.: Odyssey] You Can’t Go Home Again revisiting his home town, a writer is disillusioned by what he sees. [Am. Lit. game at North Campus Stadium. Contributing to the sub-.500 record is a defense that is statistically worst in the conference and one of the worst in Division I-AA. CSUN is giving up an average of 494 yards per game, almost 50 more than the next-worst defensive team, Weber Weber, river, United States Weber (wē`bər), river, c.125 mi (200 km) long, rising in the Uinta Mts., N central Utah, and flowing north and northwest to join the Ogden River at Ogden. The combined stream flows to the Great Salt Lake. State. Sacramento State averages 470 yards per game, second in the Big Sky. Uh oh. ``We're not a great defense,'' said Foster Andersen, CSUN's defensive coordinator A defensive coordinator typically refers to a coach on a football team in the National Football League or college football who is in charge of the defense. This position aids the head coach a great deal in many ways by delegating play calling to other coaches and allowing the head , ``but we have to find a way to win. Right now we're not in sync. We're just not playing good team defense. . . . There is no easy answer.'' Here are a few: Andersen does have a few reasons for the Matadors' collapse. First, he says not many teams in the Big Sky are strong defensively because the conference has always had an offensive mentality men·tal·i·ty n. The sum of a person's intellectual capabilities or endowment. . ``I hate `basketball-playing-football,' '' he said, referring to the up-and-down-the-field effect. ``People have made their minds up that they're going to throw the football . . . this conference, it's a joke on how (offensive linemen n. pl. 1. the football players who line up on the line of scrimmage. Noun 1. linemen - the football players who line up on the line of scrimmage ) hold. They're throwing guys down.'' Second, Andersen said the teams that are strong defensively have a dominant defensive line. CSUN does not. ``You build a defense from its line,'' he said. ``If we can't have a pass rush from our defensive line, then we're putting all the pressure on our defensive backs.'' Which leads to another problem: the Matadors' secondary. CSUN is seventh in the conference in pass defense. |
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