Editor’s note: Idaho State Journal sports is looking at the history of ISU football and trying to project where the Bengals are headed in 2015. On Monday, the Journal took a look back at the last 52 years of ISU football. On Sunday, a breakdown of Idaho State’s offense and upcoming quarterback battle. Today, a look at the defense and the key role of several junior college transfers.

Idaho State put up bigger and better offensive numbers than anyone else in the Big Sky Conference last season. Despite averaging 43.1 points a game in league play, a Big Sky championship was just out of the Bengals’ reach. ISU’s defense gave up a combined 100 points in two conference losses at Eastern Washington and Montana State.

The Bengals did have their positive moments on defense. They nabbed five interceptions at Portland State and rose to the challenge against Cal Poly in the fourth quarter, staving off a late rally in the biggest win of the season. Their 26 defensive takeaways were second in the Big Sky and 24th in the nation.

But the raw numbers at the end of the season told the truth. ISU finished 110th in the country in total defense and 91st in scoring defense. North Dakota State and Illinois State, two teams that squared off in the national championship, were in the top 30 in both categories. Idaho State’s defense was better in 2014 than in any of Kramer’s first three seasons, but it wasn’t good enough.

The Bengals know how to score. Now they just have to figure out how to stop people.

2015 OUTLOOK

It’s impossible to gauge the performance of Idaho State’s defense based on the product in the spring. Linebacker Mario Jenkins, the Bengals’ leading tackler as a freshman last season, was out with an injury, and senior safety Taison Manu missed time with a lower-leg injury.

While the defense was an incomplete picture, head coach Mike Kramer seems to have a good idea what that side of the football will look like when the season arrives.

The single biggest thing Idaho State went after in the 2015 recruiting class was an immediate fix in the defensive line. The Bengals want to harass quarterbacks, and upgrading the linemen around senior nose guard Tyler Kuder was a top priority.

Idaho State hopes junior college transfers Spencer Hoff and Nikko Taylor and incoming freshman Robert Schwenke are part of the answer. Transfers Jake Pettit and Luis Navarro should help the Bengals with depth at linebacker, too. That’s at least five players in the defensive front seven who the Bengals are counting on to make a major impact when they open the season against Black Hill State in the first week of September.

As a whole, the defensive line and linebackers are an unproven group. But Kuder, Jenkins and junior linebacker Hayden Stout are proven playmakers. The secondary has depth at cornerback, and senior safeties Manu and Cody Sorensen are in full command of what the Bengals are trying to accomplish on defense.

“It’s important for us defensively that we have two safeties that will be seniors next year that know how to police it and get it going,” Kramer said. “We will be much more advanced defesensively with those two veterans returning.”

DEFENSE CATCHING UP TO THE OFFENSE

Kramer overhauled his coaching staff following the 2012 season when ISU opponents averaged 55.2 points and 356.6 rushing yards per game. Eight of ISU’s last nine opponents scored at least 50 points.

He fired secondary coach Daniel Drayton, defensive line coach Todd Bates and linebackers coach Rudy Griffin. The biggest decision might have been booting himself out as the defensive coordinator.

It was a risk. By reformulating his coaching staff, Kramer was taking a gamble his new hires would turn around a unit that had just slogged through a historically bad season.

Kramer hitched his defense’s future to co-defensive coordinators Spencer Toone and Roger Cooper (today, Toone is the sole defensive coordinator). He also hired Stanley Franks to head up the cornerbacks and Steve Fifita to lead the defensive line.

Toone arrived in Pocatello from Utah State where he had been a graduate assistant for two seasons. He brought the Aggies’ aggressive 3-4 defensive scheme with him and installed it in the spring of 2013.

While the defense has been in flux, Idaho State has deployed the same offense in all four of Kramer’s season. Under former offensive coordinator Don Bailey, it’s a group that’s thrived and improved year over year.

The turnover in both defensive strategy and coaches has, in Kramer’s view, hindered his defense’s maturation. But the coaching staff in place has earned Kramer’s trust. He believes it’s a matter of when, not if, the Bengals will wield a defense capable of winning a championship.