Football now, the defense

Continuing the review of the 2007 season, let's take a look at how our defense performed. First, its always good to look at what my general impressions were. We struggled a lot, especially against the run. However, in our stretch run, against teams like Kent and Buffalo and Toledo, we gave up pretty big numbers but we got enough stops to win the game. Of course, winning the game is the objective. Still, you worry. It would be nice not to have to light up the scoreboard every week to win. And, we're looking for a MAC Championship this year---the defense has to be good enough to make that happen.

Let's look at the stats (conference only):

Scoring:

You might argue that this is what truly matters, and I would guess that would be right. If it is, we had an average defense, as we were 6th in the MAC in scoring defense. But make no mistake...that was only 1 PPG better than the year before, and the reason we went 8-4 was because the offense got better.

Total Defense/Yards Per Play:

This is the second most effective measure, because it rates the defense as a whole. The interaction between run/pass isn't as hard to tease out. We gave up 405 yards per game, 8th in the MAC. This was 5.6 yards per play, which was above the 5.4 for the last two seasons. (Just for the record, this was almost exactly the profile Central Michigan had).

Rushing:

Rushing was clearly the defense's achilles heel. Teams ran the ball 361 time against us, by far the highest in the MAC. Teams ran the ball 62% of the time against us, the highest in recent memory. And they had success. 4.5 yards per carry is .4 yards per carry more than last year, and 11th in the MAC.

We had a lot of injuries in the front 7 last year. Bunch of guys started on the line and at LB. John Haneline was the best tackler in the MAC when he got injured. On the other hand, Glen Stanley helped bail us out....and he's gone. Phil Steele feels the line and linebackers are looking to be much improved this year. Let's hope he's right. Five teams last year held their opponent to under 4 yards per carry (including Central Michigan, our target). Be great if we could do that, too.

Passing:

This was the stronger part of the defense---but not an unqualified strength. We were technically second, when you look at it by yards per game, but given the play mix above, that's not too surprising. We have up a 59.9% completion percentage, which is better than last year, but the 7.5 yards per catch was worse than last year. Our six INT's were only average. When you look at pass defense efficiency, which combines all of the above, we were ninth. And, in this case, the front 7 can't be blamed, because we were second in sacks.

One of the hard things about statistical analysis in football-as opposed to for baseball--is that things are more organic and less discrete. For example, as teams ran the ball against us, we would have naturally began to fill the box, opening up passing lanes for bigger plays. Question is, if the front 7 is better, will that put our experienced and talented D-backs in better positions to make plays?

Turnovers:

As noted before, we were +1 in turnovers. That's good, because we were 8-4. (There's a school of thought that a good season built on an obscene turnover margin is tough to maintain--hello Ball State and Eastern Michigan). Anyway, our 14 turnovers gained was fifth in the conference, which is actually pretty good.

First Downs/Third Downs/Getting Off the Field

Another school of thought is that the key to successful football is getting off the field on 3rd down. I am, in fact, a subscriber to this school. Success on third down is, of course, related to success on first and second down. Even so, you gotta get off the field.

Yeah....

We were 11th in first downs, giving up 176. (The MAC only counts total first downs so, surprise, the teams with 8 games tended to have more first downs allowed than teams that played seven games. I don't have the energy to do the math). That's 22 per game which is still a lot. Remember, that's an average!

On third down we were 11th at 43.7%. That's about 4% worse than the past two seasons. Without any real backing, I just think that teams that can run effectively can set up favorable 3rd down situations.

Here's a really odd stat. We had the second fewest penalty yards per game. We had only 46 penalties in 8 games. But, we gave up 18 penalty first downs. WTF!!! 39% of our penalties--for the team--gave the opponent a first down. I can't believe I am seeing that. I'm think pass interference, but I don't have any back up for that.

Red Zone

Anecdotally, our defense bailed us out with some really strong red zone play, especially in the Kent game. This is the kind of profile that we have....lots of yards, not so many points. We were second in the MAC in red zone% at 66.7%. One third of the time a team got to our redzone, they got nothing at all. (4 missed field goals, 6 on downs, 2 INT and 1 fumble. The six on downs is the most in the MAC). Only two years ago, our % was 85%.

On points per possession, we were also strong. We gave up only 3.2 points per red zone opportunity. I cannot imagine a time when it was lower, in fact.

Of course, we gave up almost 5 redzone opportunities a game, which was second in the conference.

A question here: I know Phil Steele often talks about the turnover-turnaround paradox. Is this one, too? Certainly those 4 missed FG's were luck and can't be replicated. But how many of the other 9 were earned. Certainly the 6 on downs. The INT and the fumble are hard to tell.

Summary:

Our defense was about in the middle of the pack in the MAC, and primarily suffered from all the problems you would associate with a team that cannot stop the run. If the front-seven gets better this year (and that's a challenge), than the entire portfolio looks to improve. And it needs to, for us to win the MAC.