Ben Gross: Did you see that defense in the football spring game! Eleven tackles, four sacks and three interceptions. This is a whole new defense from last season.

Andrew Hansen: While those stats are impressive, you have to take them with a grain of salt.

BG: Why a grain of salt?

AH: Well first off, Garrett Wolfe wasn’t even in the game.

BG: True, one of our top offensive players did not play. But in order to get to Wolfe, you first have to get through the offensive line. And I think the stats proved they could.

AH: But it was the second-string offensive line, and even when the starters are in, you have to realize we’re replacing Brian Van Acker, Ben Leuck and Jake Ebenhoch. That’s more than 5,000 snaps NIU has to replace.

BG: Very true, the defense did face a weaker offensive line than in the past and that did overinflate the defenses stats. Think about this; in spring training for baseball you may have a minor league kid at the plate, but he can still hit a ball that requires a great defensive play for the out. So, superior defense can shine, even when the offense isn’t an equal match.

AH: I think you’re comparing apples to oranges here with baseball to football. Football is a far more physical sport and an experienced defense could out-muscle an inexperienced offense, making them look better than they actually are.

BG: Good point, but our defense is just as young as our offense. We had four sophomores and one freshman start. Those five combined for 16 tackles and one of the three interceptions.

AH: But they are experienced. All four of those sophomores — Tim McCarthy, Larry English, Craig Rusch and Bradley Pruitt — earned varsity letters last year and McCarthy, English and Rusch all started at least four games.

BG: But that doesn’t explain why the defense picked off two passes from Dan Nicholson — the quarterback who beat Toledo and brought us into the MAC championship. Surely you won’t say he is inexperienced.

AH: No, he’s quite experienced, but both of those interceptions were pretty weak. One was off a lame duck pass and the other was practically thrown right at McCarthy. They definitely were not what I would call athletic defensive plays.

BG: But couldn’t it just be that all the defenders did their jobs and made Nicholson throw some bad passes, which made those interceptions easier than one of those top 10 plays you see on ESPN?

AH: Nicholson is still working out the rust between him and his receivers. NIU’s receiving core minus Britt Davis started all of two games last year.

BG: The offense is more inexperienced than last year, but the fact off the matter is this defense is legit. It may not be able to rack up as many tackles and interceptions per game in the fall as it did in the spring game, but this defense is much improved from last season.

AH: Either way, we’ll figure out how legit this Huskie defense is in the fall when it takes the field against possibly the best offense in the nation in Ohio State.