It makes sense, whether it takes one game, two or three. Somewhere in there a defensive coordinator will have gained a firm grasp of the personnel for that season, what the cornerbacks and safeties can do, the defensive ends, the nose guards, the linebackers inside and out outside.
It’s requisite to game planning and calling and making adjustments in a game, to the week-to-week success of a unit that might take on a power running team in one game and a spread attack in the next.
Or as for Fresno State in 2016, a Power Five opponent in Nebraska, then a FCS school in Sacramento State.