Our run defense wasn't bad. I've posted this MANY times but the reason our run defense looked bad was because our offense was TERRIBLE. Teams ran it down our throat because they were never playing from behind, they always were "in" the game or even worse, winning.
If you have a high powered offense your run defense rankings will be artificially low because teams are always playing catch up. Our defense overall was solid and in the top 10 despite having a bottom 5 offense to "protect it".
Sorry, but it went both ways and offensive success was invariably followed by the defense allowing an answering score. The offense scarcely played a game all year, regardless of what they scored, where the defense held down the opponent after the offense took a nice lead. The only time I can think of is against Geno Smith, which should hardly count considering he was so inaccurate in that game, he would have failed to score even if there were no defense on the field.