Walking off the field Saturday night, all that could be heard was one chant echoing throughout a quickly emptying Lubbers Stadium.

“F-S-U, F-S-U, F-S-U …”

For Grand Valley State University, the Anchor Bone Classic versus Ferris State University became a classic for all the wrong reasons. It proved to be a classic example of this team’s struggles — and that’s putting it lightly — to remotely contain an opposing offense.

At the season’s halfway point, GVSU has the second-worst total defense in the GLIAC. Pair that with the worst rushing defense, one allowing 248 yards per game, and you’ve got the recipe for Saturday’s loss.

This team’s been playing with fire all season long. Take away a strong performance against Michigan Technological University and you’ve got a defense that’s actually allowed 290 rushing yards a game.

They’ve benefitted from an offense that seems to have the an almost invincible ability to score at any given time. The highest-scoring offense in the GLIAC was finally quieted, and one of the worst defenses was exposed loud and clear.

It’s pretty hard to get any worse, and Mitchell acknowledged the fact that a spotty defense finally caught up with the team on Saturday.

“We’ve been living a little bit with our offense and our special teams … our defense has not been very stellar and our defense let us down (Saturday),” Mitchell said. “It did kind of catch up to us, our poor defensive performance did catch up to us.”

Mitchell was disappointed with the defensive performance, and as a defensive coach that’s no surprise. This is a team that’s been plagued with injuries. It’s one lacking the kind of depth to get different defensive personnel on the field like a hockey team puts out a new line.

Those are valid reasons for the team’s struggles, but when the team needed to step up the most — at a time when the sometimes invincible-looking offense faltered — it couldn’t.

That’s the problem. This defense hasn’t given its offense any reason to believe they don’t have to score 50 points a game for them to win.

Ferris State quarterback Josh Vander Laan, a redshirt freshman, ran for 185 yards, many of those coming on a few variations of the same quarterback counter and quarterback power plays in the first half.

Halftime adjustments were made but it didn’t slow Ferris State — the first play of the second half was a 70 yard touchdown run by running back Korey Ringer.

Add three more 100-yard rushers to GVSU’s total this year, one that now stands at a whopping seven.

Sophomore quarterback Isiah Grimes finally looked confused running the offense on Saturday, but the GVSU front seven looked confused most times on defense.

Even after falling to Ferris State for the first time in 11 years, GVSU still sits atop the GLIAC, albeit in a three-way tie. This group still has games against a trio of teams ranked, or having been, in the AFCA Division II Coaches’ Poll in Hillsdale College, Wayne State University and Saginaw Valley State University, too.

They’re beaten and battered, and with another trip to the Upper Peninsula this week, have a long road to their next game. But Mitchell said it himself, it would be “fairly pathetic” if this loss defined the season for GVSU.

How the Lakers choose to define their season will start next week, and it might be best to figure that defense thing out soon or it could be too late.

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