In regards to the defense

[Shooter McGavin.sixpack]

I've seen a few mentions in the media, twitter, etc about us being last in the SEC in total defense. The current rankings in total D are as follows..

Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, LSU, Auburn, Kentucky, Florida, Arkansas, Mizzou, aTm, Vandy, #1 ranked Mississippi State, and USCe.

I'll give you Bama and Mississippi as the top 2 so far, but would you trade our defense for any of the others ranked ahead of us? I sure wouldn't.

 

[NewTweederEndzoneDance]

Our stats are skewed by the high number of garbage time minutes our defense has played in prevent defense. Same thing happened to that Ole Miss defense this past weekend after they got up big and went into prevent.

 

[msstate7]

Sec ranks:

Interceptions -- 2nd
TFL -- 1st
Sacks -- 1st
3rd down conversion rate -- 3rd
Red zone -- 1st

 

[bulldogbaja]

I guess you can cherry pick stats, and total yards against is a pretty convincing stat, but I wouldn't trade defenses with a single other team in the league right now.
To be honest, I'm not sure who I would take from OMs unit over anyone in ours. Perhaps that is homerish.

ETA: at this point in the season these stats are meaningless anyway. We have probably played the best offenses thus far, so that definitely slants the stats.

 

[DesotoCountyDawg]

Ole Miss' defense is badass. You've got to give them credit. I'd trade.

 

[Philly Dawg]

I thought both defenses played well in the game against Auburn, and both teams put up pretty decent numbers.

 

[FlotownDawg]

We have played two of the most explosive offenses in the SEC in Texas A&M and Auburn. You're not going to completely stop those offenses. You just have to control them and force them into turnovers and FG attempts. Both of those teams put up yardage against us, but combined for 7 turnovers and only scored a couple touchdowns once they got in the red zone, except for A&M's two TDs in garbage time after we were already up 31 points. The other game the defense "struggled" was UAB, which was treated like a preseason scrimmage with mass substitutions. LSU also put up over 400 yards against us, but well over 150 of those yards were in the last 4 minutes after we had put our backups in. Our defense is doing just fine, and those stats will improve in the second half of the season. Not one of the last 6 teams we play (UK, Ark., UT Martin, Bama, Vandy, OM) have explosive offenses like we have already played, and we might shut out both UT Martin and Vandy.

 

[Miss.Stake]

Seriously? You would seriously trade our defense for OM's?

 

[bulldogbaja]

Really? Wow.
To each his own. I would not trade. I've only watched a couple of OM games, but I have not seen them be any more dominant, especially in key situations, than ours has.

 

[dawgstudent]

We've only had one common opponent - A&M. Of course, we were at home and they were away.

Ole Miss had 338 yds of offense which shocked me. A&M had 455. 200 for A&M came in the last 10 minutes of the 4th after it was 35-7.

http://www.olemisssports.com/sports/m-footbl/stats/2014-2015/om-tamu.html

State had 559 yds of offense. A&M had 526. 150 for A&M came in the last 10 minutes of the 4th after it was 48-17.

http://www.hailstate.com/fls/16800/stats/fb/2014/ms1004.htm

 

[Shooter McGavin.sixpack]

I like those numbers a lot better. If we can keep that up, total yards given up won't matter all that much.

 

[DesotoCountyDawg]

At this point, yes.

 

[DesotoCountyDawg]

Their one weakness is stopping the run but their secondary is lights out and that's where the bread is buttered now with many of the offenses in the SEC.

 

[Shooter McGavin.sixpack]

I was surprised that Mississippi did put up more offensive yards as well.

I kicked around some numbers regarding the garbage time yards. Bear with me here... As stated earlier, LSU had 159 yards in garbage time, aTm had 106. Let's say we give LSU half of that 159. Say we recover that onside kick against aTm, that knocks off 43 from that total. And UAB..ugh UAB. They had plays of 88, 81, 75, and 53. Let's knock off the 75 (it was the last play of the game) and the 53. I'll save you the math, but that would put our D at giving up 385 yds/game.

If that was the case would you feel exponentially better about the defense? To me it doesn't matter all that much. This is a solid defense and I have full confidence they will only get better going forward.

 

[dawgstudent]

I did our stats going into the Auburn game here of our performance in the first 3 quarters of our games...

http://forums.sixpackspeak.com/show...ter**&p=1045225&highlight=quarter#post1045225

So we have played 15 quarters (5 games * 3 quarters) which amounts to 4.25 games. So the average is taking the total and dividing it over 4.25 games. Excuse me if the math/logic is wrong.

	Offense - Pts	Offense - Ydg	Defense - Pts	Defense - Ydg
USM	42	423	0	173
UAB	47	465	27	401
South Alabama	35	427	3	242
LSU	31	520	10	211
Texas A&M	41	523	17	379
Total	196	2358	57	1406
Average/Game	46.12	554.82	13.41	330.82

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[Hammer Down]

secondary.......and that's where the bread is buttered now with many of the offenses in the SEC.

I disagree with this. I think it's the DL that is so dominant in the elite SEC defenses.

In regards to Ole Miss, yes, they are good. They are head hunters and knock the piss out of people. But they've seemed soft up the middle. Very curious to see how Arkansas and we do against them.

 

[SandmanRebel]

Prior to the 2nd half of the A&M game, Ole Miss had given up only 3 touchdowns in 60+ drives against. Three. In 27 quarters. And yes, that includes a lot of time for 2nd and 3rd team players. That's good for 1st in FBS. If that isn't dominant to you, then you have absurd standards or you are Gene.

Run defense, at times, isn't as good as it can be. But it is still 3rd in ypg against and tied for 4th (MSU is 5th) in yards per carry against.

 

[bulldogbaja]

Did not say it was not dominant. I am very pleased with our D as well, however. Having faced the two best offenses in the league sans you guys, I have very little to complain about. We have been putting up points and therefore giving our opponents more drives, and as outlined in another post in this thread, we are top three in the SEC in nearly every category.

 

[cofreb]

On the Ole Miss offense

versus A&M, Wallace was 6/7 for 104 yards (almost 15 ypa) in the first quarter. By the time he took the field in Q2, Ole Miss was up 21-0. From that point on, he attempted only 10 passes for 63 yards (6.3 ypa), 5 in Q2 and 5 in Q3, with only one being a real shot down the field, the 33 yard TD to Adeboyejo after A&M cut it to 21-7. Freeze throttled it back big time once the lead was established and he saw how well the defense was playing.

 

[DawgsOnTheWing]

I would take Conner and Prewitt at the drop of a hat.

 

[SandmanRebel]

I think you could use Prewitt, Conner, and Golson immediately. You'd be better with Nkemdiche and Johnson as well.

I'd take Preston Smith, Jones, and McKinney in a heartbeat from State. We could use Smith's rushing ability off the end in a big way, and you can never have enough elite DTs and LBs.

 

[msstate7]

I would take Conner and Prewitt at the drop of a hat.

I'm sure everyone would. I'm ready to see cox get better and better now that he's getting healthy

 

[SheltonChoked]

Total defense is a yardage based stat. Almost useless. I'll start to worry about yardage given up when they stop awarding points for touchdowns and start awarding wins for yards.

Look up the advance stats like F/+ and S+P. They eliminate the garbage time stats. Then tell me where our defense ranks ( hint. It's not last in the sec.)

 

[Boardtown Remy]

Psycho D every time

How much play does TSUN get out of their 2s? Do I have to send Collins too? I'm not giving them up due to sheer fandom. If I am being objective, these are the questions that lean me towards our guys: depth and coaching.

 

[EAVdog]

Heard Auburn hadn't allowed a TD in 18 quarters before our game.

Prior to the 2nd half of the A&M game, Ole Miss had given up only 3 touchdowns in 60+ drives against. Three. In 27 quarters. And yes, that includes a lot of time for 2nd and 3rd team players. That's good for 1st in FBS. If that isn't dominant to you, then you have absurd standards or you are Gene.

Run defense, at times, isn't as good as it can be. But it is still 3rd in ypg against and tied for 4th (MSU is 5th) in yards per carry against.

Didn't make much of a difference. I wouldn't trade defenses with OM, but I would trade Secondaries. I think our DL is a push (we're better at run stop, y'all are better at pass rush), I think our LB's are better, and y'all's secondary is better than ours. Both D's are really good.

 

[johnson86-1]

Their one weakness is stopping the run but their secondary is lights out and that's where the bread is buttered now with many of the offenses in the SEC.

We have a defense that has proven it can stop probably the best pass offense (A&M) and best run offense (Auburn) in the SEC. Their Defense is definitely good but I wouldn't hesitate for a minute to take ours. Nobody is going to wear our D out. UM is probably going to struggle stopping the run against Us, Auburn, and Arkansas. Who is our D going to struggle against in the SEC?

 

[msstate7]

We have a defense that has proven it can stop probably the best pass offense (A&M) and best run offense (Auburn) in the SEC. Their Defense is definitely good but I wouldn't hesitate for a minute to take ours. Nobody is going to wear our D out. UM is probably going to struggle stopping the run against Us, Auburn, and Arkansas. Who is our D going to struggle against in the SEC?

Thank God uab isn't in the sec***

Our defense is great. Om will struggle protecting bo against us

 

[johnson86-1]

I think you could use Prewitt, Conner, and Golson immediately. You'd be better with Nkemdiche and Johnson as well.

I'd take Preston Smith, Jones, and McKinney in a heartbeat from State. We could use Smith's rushing ability off the end in a big way, and you can never have enough elite DTs and LBs.

Both D's are chock full of players that would contribute on either team, even if it just ended up being a 1a/1b type situation. I think BMac, Chris Jones, R NKemdichee, Connor, and Prewitt would be starters on either team. I don't know enough about ya'll's LB's to say, but I find it hard to believe anybody would be better than B. Brown or Matthew Wells. CJ Johnson is clearly very good but because of size, I'd take Preston Smith. I'm guessing if you really wanted to line up your 11 best you'd put Smith at strong side and Johnson at weak. I don't know enough about y'all's corners to say but clearly Gholson is good. I don't know if any of our corners are elite (Redmond may get there soon), but I am very comfortable with all our corners. I'm guessing Gholson would start at one spot and one of our CB's would take the other depending on what skills you value most. Seems like it would be pretty close to even if you were picking starters.

 

[DancingRabbit]

They're either uninformed or pushing the Reb agenda to harp on this stat.

I thought these idiots would wise up about the UAB crap after we pretty much demolished 3 top ten teams. Guess not.

First lets get the most important numbers out of the way:

6-0 and #1 in the whole 17n country



Pass defense yardage is a reflection of garbage-time yards, playing 25 guys on defense, playing Auburn and aTm

SEC only stats:

Scoring defense: 8th (virtually tied for 6th)
Rushing defense: 5th
Pass defense efficiency: 7th
3rd down defense: 4th
Red zone defense: 2nd

 

[SandmanRebel]

How much play does TSUN get out of their 2s? Do I have to send Collins too? I'm not giving them up due to sheer fandom. If I am being objective, these are the questions that lean me towards our guys: depth and coaching.

We rotate 5-6 DEs consistently for 2 DE spots. CJ, Brown, Ward, Haynes (was a starter as a freshman), Thompson, Youngblood.

We rotate 5 DTs for 2 spots. Nkemdiche, Bennett, Gross, Hamilton, Hooks.

We rotate 5 LB for 2 LB spots. 2 Mike (Shackelford and Russell), 2 stinger (Nkemdiche and Bryant), and Keith Lewis, who plays both spots and comes in on passing downs.

We've played 4 corners consistently throughout the year (Golson, Hilton, Coleman, Webster) and Derrick Jones has played back and forth at CB and WR.

In other words, the 2nd and 3rd team players play alot, and play well.