there have been a lot of posts lately about our defense and what they did last year, how improved they were and how they rated better than Alabama's defense.
I gave this a few moments thought and came up with a metric that I think should be the be all end all when it comes to ranking defensive performance. First I eliminated stats from games like FAMU and Ark st. These are glorified scrimmages and should not be considered in any statistical analysis. What I measured was scoring drive percentage and TD drive percentage. In looking at the numbers I removed end of half kneel downs and game ending kneel downs which also skew stats. The results were very telling in this analysis. No longer is a team rewarded for allowing death by paper cuts. Also teams are rewarded for standing up in the red zone and forcing field goals. This takes a little time so I just stuck with Alabama and Miami since so many people have been bringing them up lately. Here are the numbers:
Miami played defense for 122 series and gave up 32 TDs and 12 FGs. This means opponents scored on 36% of their drives and scored TDs on 26% of their drives.
Alabama played defense for 158 series and gave up 22 TDs and 23 FGs. This means opponents scored on 28% of their drives and scored TDs on only 14% of their drives.
Now, I'm no brain surgeon but these numbers tell me a very clear story. Number 15 defense is a smoke and mirrors stat based on yardage. Last I checked yardage doesn't win you games it is points. Bama's opponents score on fewer of their drives and when they do score they give up more FGs than TDs.
Soooo, I won't use names but you know who you are, explain this away.........
I gave this a few moments thought and came up with a metric that I think should be the be all end all when it comes to ranking defensive performance. First I eliminated stats from games like FAMU and Ark st. These are glorified scrimmages and should not be considered in any statistical analysis. What I measured was scoring drive percentage and TD drive percentage. In looking at the numbers I removed end of half kneel downs and game ending kneel downs which also skew stats. The results were very telling in this analysis. No longer is a team rewarded for allowing death by paper cuts. Also teams are rewarded for standing up in the red zone and forcing field goals. This takes a little time so I just stuck with Alabama and Miami since so many people have been bringing them up lately. Here are the numbers:
Miami played defense for 122 series and gave up 32 TDs and 12 FGs. This means opponents scored on 36% of their drives and scored TDs on 26% of their drives.
Alabama played defense for 158 series and gave up 22 TDs and 23 FGs. This means opponents scored on 28% of their drives and scored TDs on only 14% of their drives.
Now, I'm no brain surgeon but these numbers tell me a very clear story. Number 15 defense is a smoke and mirrors stat based on yardage. Last I checked yardage doesn't win you games it is points. Bama's opponents score on fewer of their drives and when they do score they give up more FGs than TDs.
Soooo, I won't use names but you know who you are, explain this away.........
