The Gray Area Sports Column: With a historic offense, can the defense keep up?

Central Oklahoma is now home to the number one offense in America. Following the team’s 59-24 destruction of Missouri Southern, nobody has scored more points or racked up more yardage than the Bronchos. They have arguably the most dominant three-headed monster in the country as well in Jett Huff, Terrill Davis and Jaylen Cottrell. Huff, the nation’s leading passer, went for 284 yards and four scores, and of that, 108 yards and a touchdown went to Davis. On the ground, Cottrell had 161 yards and two scores via an unbelievable 14.6 yards per carry. The offense is currently on pace to potentially be the best in school history. There’s no question in my mind that this team can absolutely compete for national hardware, but they need to answer one question: can the defense keep up?

If you remove the 72-0 week one win over Langston, the UCO defense gives up an average of 26.3 points per contest and over five yards per play. That sounds great when you average north of 35 points a game offensively, but what about when the offense doesn’t perform? No matter how dominant this offense has been, there will be a game where they don’t play well. Whether that’s against Northwest Missouri State this week, number 10 Pittsburg State in week 8 or number 11 Emporia State in week 11, there will be a game where the offense only puts up 24 or less. Will the defense be the difference?

There’s nothing saying they can’t win through their defense, we just haven’t seen it yet. We don’t know if this team has a signature defensive performance in them. I’m sure they believe they do, and they should. I just want to see it once before they need it later down the line this season in a win-or-go-home scenario.

As the saying goes: offense sells tickets, but defense wins championships. This team is no different. The offense may nab them the MIAA crown, but I’d prefer to see UCO hoist a trophy with NCAA written on it.