Let's look at the pass defense stats of the 4 state title teams and see how this year's pass defense stacks up.....
Pass Defenses of the 4 state title teams
2020 12 games 138 for 272 (50.7%) 2,020 yards (168 yards/game) 7.4 yards per pass completion 14 TDs and 15 INTs
2016 15 games 201 for 397 (50.6%) 2,766 yards (184 yards/game) 7.0 yards per pass completion 17 TDs and 17 INTs
2007 15 games 191 for 379 (50.4%) 2,359 yards (157 yards/game) 6.2 yards per pass completion 13 TDs and 24 INTs
2005 15 games 138 for 283 (48.8%) 1,405 yards (94 yards/game) 5.0 yards per pass completion 3 TDs and 24 INTs
Pass Defense of this years team after Week 11
2021 11 games 102 for 207 (49.0%) 1,319 yards (120 yards/game) 6.4 yards per pass completion 10 TDs 11 INTs
Admittedly, my view of this is/was skewed by the clear excellence/dominance of 1) 2005's defense; and 2) 2007's defense-- it's hard to argue (using your statistics of choice) that those weren't better defensive secondaries than this year's-- lower TD/game averages given up, and MUCH higher interception/game average; 2016's season results were skewed by the severe injuries that that team experienced during the early part of the season (admittedly, more on offense than defense, but when the offense is not sustaining drives and/or keeping the ball at all, and you're giving the other team far more opportunities, it tends to hurt defensive results-- and X got clobbered in a few games in the early part of that season).
Having said that, this year's team built some GREAT statistics in those first five games, in which only LW was competitive (and LW still had two TD passes, with an inept QB at the helm). If you looked at the last 6 games (before Elder last night-- which yielded 1 TD and 1 interception, so pretty much in line with this team's season averages, but a higher yards passing total than the season average), you saw an X team having more significant problems on pass defense than in the first five games-- hence, the statement that X's pass defense had been "found out": this problem had come on, and was building in the last 6 games. Certainly, it was evident in the Elder, Trinity and Ig games-- but even HAMILTON had a decent amount of success against X's secondary last week, in the middle of a rainstorm! (Again, the officiating on the big Hamilton receiver pushing off was, IMO, egregiously bad-- but he managed to bully X's defensive backs last week.) Most of the TDs and the bulk of the passing yards given up by X's defense happened in the second half of the season-- in those last 6 games, I know that Elder had 2 TD passes, Ig had 3 TD passes, Trinity had over 300 yards passing (but their TDs were all runs), while LaSalle and Hamilton had one TD pass each.
After a bad series last night, on Elder's lone TD (Elder went from 3rd and 11 on their ~30-yard line, in two pass plays, to tie the score), the X pass defense became MUCH more solid-- including some great breaks on the ball, in the last ~3 quarters-- if that is a sign of improvement and things to come, then I would be more optimistic about potential games against good passing teams. Elder's touchdown pass last night looked like bad defense-- but after that. for the rest of the game, X's secondary looked much improved.