Being down 38-34 means you still have to score a TD to win or tie. If you fail to score the TD on 4th down, and the foe gets the ball inside the 5, you can have sound reason to hope your D can make the hold and force the punt from the end zone.
I think somebody on our D got a hand on Perkins on that 1st down when he was on the 2. If that tackled is made, the game may well have ended very differently.
We are far too thin on D. Ray Vohasek was lined up in the middle, as the NG, for a couple of plays. The guy played DE on a 4 man front in Juco last year, and we are so thin at DT and NG that he plays in the middle of the 3 man DL for us a few plays. We have seen absolutely nothing, not a hint of sign of anything, in terms of development by Lawless and Taylor, and barely more than that by Gill. Crawford and Strowbridge get tired.
Position coaching cannot be successful if there is little player development.
We've had virtually play making from OLBs. In a 3-4, if you don't have OLBs who make plays, including when they move forward to be stand up DEs, then you have a major problem that offenses can exploit.
Our secondary got injured players back and looked worse.