Almost every preseason preview and/or preseason ranking for us this year is qualified based on some improvement in our defense versus last year. There’s seems to be a sense that it can’t be any worse. jmo.
How much confidence, not faith (substance of things hoped for, evidence of things not seen), do you have in our defense improving this year?
Let’s start by addressing the big issue of 3rd downs. Last year we were 4th best in the conference at stopping teams on 3rd downs against the 8 unranked opponents on our schedule (behind Georgia, Auburn, & Alabama) and we were last in the conference against the 5 top 25 ranked opponents on our schedule. It could be argued that discrepancy could be a new system issue which might be more apt to be exposed against better teams, a talent issue, or maybe a defensive playcaller issue, or a bit of all of the above. Whichever it might be the failure to stop ranked teams on 3rd down likely exposed our depth issue which tended to be catastrophic against the better teams on our schedule. jmo.
We were 5th best in the conference for pass rush vs passing attempts. We led the conference in total passes defended but came in 6th for passes defended per attempt. We were also 6th in the conference for rushing yards allowed per attempt. Overall, we were 1st in the conference at forcing 3rd downs and last in the conference at allowing 3rd down conversions but again the culprit is our schedule. Against lesser teams we did fine but against top 25 teams, well, on average not so good. jmo.
We were 6-2 against unranked opponents (losses to UF & Purdue) and 1-4 against ranked opponents (win over UK). The combined score of our games against 8 unranked opponents was 365-171 and the combined score against our 5 ranked opponents was 146-207 (much closer than maybe should have been expected for last year).
We lost the turnover battle in 3 games (BGSU, Pitt, and Georgia) and went 1-2 in those games. The turnover battle was even in 5 games (OM, UA, UK, USA & VU). We went 3-2 in those games. We won the turnover battle in the remaining 5 games (TT, UF, MO, SC, & Purdue). We went 3-2 in those games.
Last year we won the Havoc rate in 7 of our games and went 6-1 in those games (lost to Purdue). We lost the Havoc rate in 6 of our games and went 1-5 (beat Kentucky). Overall last year we had the 5th best Havoc rate in the conference (behind only Georgia, Alabama, Texas A&M, and Auburn).
Our rushing defense was 3rd best in the conference in rushing yards allowed per attempt against our 8 unranked opponents, only behind Georgia and Alabama. We were 4th best in rushing yards per game against unranked opponents. We were 6th best in rushing yards allowed per attempt against ranked opponents but fell to 10th best in rushing yards allowed per game against ranked opponents, likely owing to our inability to stop ranked opponents on 3rd down. jmo.
We faced 3 top 10 passing offenses last year and arguably 5 top 20 passing offenses. It is my view that given the pass rush performance and passes defended performance of our unit last year that the sheer volume of passes attempted against us skews the overall assessment of the unit. Obviously it didn’t disturb the NFL all that much as they took two of our DBs in the April draft. jmo.
I’ve gone through our schedule this year opponent by opponent and based on the history of the coach and the QB for the respective opponent I’ve estimated on average how many passing attempts we will likely face this year. Just from a schedule composition standpoint I think we could face on average 5 less passing attempts per game this year than last. We’ll still face some good coaches and good QBs but the volume of passes we have to defend will I think be reduced by around 15%. I think that will make a bigger difference than some may realize, especially if we can improve on our already decent pass rush and passes defended numbers. jmo.
Last year we forced opposing offenses into 3rd downs 16.62 times per game. We allowed 7.00 of those 3rd downs to be converted, the most by any team in the conference. All other things being equal, all we need to do to get to 1st place in the conference for 3rd down conversion % on defense is to get 2 more stops per game. Piece of cake, right? jmo.
I’ve said I think our DL will be better this year and owing to that we likely will be more successful with a 4-man pass rush. Blakely was graded by PFF on 449 snaps for us last season and he received the lowest grade of anyone on our DL. His replacement will be Tyler Baron who graded out 10 points higher on 395 snaps. Byron Young will be more experienced and he already has a grade of 75.6 on 399 snaps from last year. Even though we lost Matt Butler I think Omari Thomas, Elijah Simmons, Latrell Bumphus, et. al. should man the interior quite well. I think we have great options to back up Baron & Young this year. jmo.
Based on the spring interviews with staff and players I think everyone knows we have to do a better job up front this year at maintaining our rush lanes inside and containment on the edges to limit the opportunities for QB scrambles. This is mental not so much physical. It’s a matter of discipline and I expect we see significant improvement this year. jmo.
At LB we’re still low on numbers but should at least be marginally better due to increased development and experience. We should have at least some depth this year as opposed to last year. jmo.
We have to replace Alontae and Theo in the back end. I think Charles replaces Alontae. Charles is super smart, speedy, and very athletic (also very well spoken). I think Brandon Turnage replaces Theo as he did in the South Carolina game, the game in which his performance won him SEC defensive player of the week. I think we also have some capable depth in the back end this year which should allows us to spell guys here and there when opposing coordinators are trying to get them winded by running them up and down the field before bringing in a fresh receiver to burn them. jmo.
My conclusion is since we performed well in most of our games last year with a first year staff and limited talent and depth, owing to a different mix in our schedule this year, increased development, increased experience, increased acclimation to the SEC for our playcaller, we should be in the top half of the conference on the defensive side of the ball this year. I’m thinking at least top 5. This puts our scoring defense at exactly where Bill Connelly forecasts according to his SP+ model. jmo.
So how does a better defense impact our wins and losses? Most people think we have 5 almost certain wins on our schedule this year and maybe as many as 5 toss-up or one-score games. I think this year with an improved defense we’re probably more apt to win more one-score games like the Pittsburgh, Ole Miss, and Purdue games of last year. I think of our 5 such games this year with an improved defense we may win them all. jmo.
Lyle vibes
