[EricH]

Defense wins qualifying rounds, offense wins championships. --Paul Copioli, FRC 217 mentor/strategist/drive coach, in 2005.

If you can't score a single tube, then all your opponent has to do is get one tube on and they win. A good opponent could probably get 2-3. A great opponent will probably get 4-5. If you can't stop every single one of those, your alliance partners had better be able to play defense.

Conversely, if it's a massive scoring game, some well-timed defense can slow an offense enough.

However, there is one thing to consider:

It's a whole lot easier to plan for offense and convert to defense than it is to plan for defense and convert to offense. I talked to a rookie team last year. Their kicker was not working well (at all?), but they played good defense. I went over and suggested that maybe they should focus on playing D and work on the kicker as they had time. They ended up picking the next day. OK, so they were knocked out in quarters, but that's what happens when good D meets great O that can score through good D.