Me too. I was surprised The U did not use more max protection schemes to help their overwhelmed tackles.
Pre-season games are used to sort the wheat from the chaff. Players are put in to see what they can do. It may be that they don’t do well. Doesn’t matter. Winning the game is not the object. Both teams are testing out various new players. Winnowing down the team and playing against real opponents gets the team ready for the actual ‘season’.
Actually, losing a pre-season game can often benefit the team more than winning.