Football Defensive Statistics 2017 vs 2018

[Jeffreauxdawg]

Just a few thoughts here. Feel free to correct me when and where I am wrong, but I want to make sure in my own mind I have the right expectations of Shoop and the D next season.

First, the defense was night and day better than 2016. Eye test alone will tell you it was a very good defense most of the time, but I want to be sure how good. So here are a few stats.

FBS Ranks 2017 per NCAA website

Total Defense 10th
Yards Per Play 40th
Scoring Defense 26th
Red Zone Defense 36th
Rushing Defense 28th
Passing Efficiency Defense 27th
Passing Yards Per Completion 100th
Turnovers Gained 44th
3rd Down Defense 10th
1st Downs Surrendered 2nd
Sacks 22nd
Tackles For Loss 40th
Time of Possession 8th

The two worst numbers are turnovers gained and yards per completion. They seem easy to explain in that whether it was luck or execution, I have never seen a team so bad at picking up fumbles. If you grab a normal amount of those, I think it looks better. The yards per completion are a safety bust/blitzing issue. Shoop is a safety coach, so I am hopeful that improves.

I guess my big issue is the few outlier numbers that make the defense look top 10ish. The total defense, first downs, and scoring are all skewed down due to time of possession. Yards per play are all the way up to 40th, because of big passing plays.

Defense is about keeping the other team off the scoreboard, so is it all about scoring or does a ball control offense skew that number? I think so. In my mind this is a top 30 defense this year, I am not sure it's top 20, and definitely not top 10.

What should we look for stats wise next year to judge Shoop? I think the offense will be a lot more explosive and we could end up with a better D that has worse looking stats because the other team has more chances.

What say the board?

ETA. The same limited possessions that props up total D and scoring drags down turnovers, sacks, and tfl. I do feel the line was top 10.

 

[BulldogBlitz]

Little bit more than just keeping the other team off the board. Your team isn't helped if it has bend/don't break habits because eventually the offense can't continue driving down the full length of the field or keeping the other team off. Would like some more turnovers that would push things over for us.

 

[She Mate Me]

Defense is about keeping the other team off the scoreboard, so is it all about scoring or does a ball control offense skew that number? I think so. In my mind this is a top 30 defense this year, I am not sure it's top 20, and definitely not top 10.

To me, this ^^^^^ is right on the mark.

Lots of ways to break it down, but if you look at the stats, the two best scoring D's in the SEC were Bama and UGA (#1 and #6 nationally). They were also the two best teams in the country at the end.

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

Is anyone familiar with Shoop enough to know if he's a heavy blitz guy? My biggest concern would be the secondary being left on islands. I think we have the horses up front to get pressure from the front 4 more often than not.

 

[57stratdawg]

We were the 4-6th best defense in the SEC this year, IMO. I've got the bar pretty damn high for Shoop. We should be in the top half of the league across the board next year.

The talent level on MSU's defense next year is a once a decade (at least) unit. No pressure.

 

[kired]

I think our front 7 was very good, and our safeties were great in supporting the run defense. Our corners were the obvious weak point and I think they made our safeties look worse than they were against the pass. Our 3 leading tacklers were all safeties - which normally isn't a good thing, but it seemed to work this year. We'd easily have been a top 20 scoring defense if we had better CBs, maybe top 10.

I felt all season we were very lucky to not play many teams that could exploit our corners. Both LSU and A&M had WRs that could beat us, but they didn't have a QB that could hit them. Georgia and Auburn probably could have thrown for more than they did, but didn't need to - and we played them early when they were still breaking in new QBs. They were both very effective with the little passing they did. UMASS had that one WR we absolutely could not cover. We probably beat Bama if someone could halfway cover Ridley. And of course UM burned us deep a few times.

Louisville was the only good passing team that we shut down, and of course that was without Grantham. I will say the CB play against Louisville was no doubt the best we saw all year. There were more passes defended in one-on-one situations in that game than any other I can remember.

In regards to turnovers, what was so disappointing to me was the lack of INTs by our CBs. Braxton Hoyett had as many INTs as any of them. I think Dantzler, Peters, and Durr each had one. Two of those came against A&M (one of which was a tipped ball) and the other was Louisville.

Next year I hope to see more of the same in how we attack, except with better play from the corners - Dantzler and Peters I assume will be the starters there. We don't really lose much from the front 7 so you'd think they should only get better.

 

[HumpDawgy]

The key is to stop the run and force the QB into uncomfortable situations. The more the QB has to throw, the more chances he has to get hit or throw a pick. Grantham wanted the QB to be very uncomfortable and he used his guys for the most part to accomplish that (Simmons, Sweatt, Green, etc). Unfortunately our weaker area on D is at CB. To blitz often, you need to put the CBs on islands. Dantzler might turn into a top cover guy, but I'm not sure who else we have. Maybe Cole can move to corner and be good there. The only thing I remember about Shoop Defenses were their LBs were hard hitters.

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

Good point about the CB's hurting the safeties. A few plays jump out in my mind about the safeties biting on play fakes, but again those wide outs had already burned corners. I would still like to see less secondary blitzing though, because the more the merrier back there. I guess the 4-3 look will allow a little more blitzing from the LB level.