Ranking Big Ten Defenses
I was surprised to see the top of the half of Big Ten Defenses are pretty solid across the board. Here are the current Big Ten Rankings in Total Defense (with Total Defense National Ranking in ()), and AP National Rank last. I'm surprised to see the opening line against NW given that we will see two top 5 defenses going against similarly mediocre offenses. But surprised to see that a team with both total offense and total defense rakings in the bottome have of the entire FBS still ranked as high as #4.
TOTAL DEFENSE:
1. Michigan (2) #18
2. Northwestern (5) #13
3. Wisconsin (t11) NR
4. Ohio State (14) #1
5. Penn St. (15) NR
6. Iowa (19) #22
7. Illinois (21) NR
8 Minnesota (26) NR
9. MSU (61) #4 <-- what?? (ranked 86th in total offense)
10. Rutgers (78) NR
11. Purdue (96) NR
12. Nebraska (101) NR
13. Maryland (109) NR
14. Indiana (114)
October 4th, 2015 at 4:44 PM ^
October 4th, 2015 at 4:47 PM ^
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October 4th, 2015 at 4:52 PM ^
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October 4th, 2015 at 5:00 PM ^
Purdue, the Juggernaut of Rushing offense, rushed for 150+ against them. MSU is allowing too many big plays this year. It is like their Safeties and LBs are not there to contain. I hope we hit a few deep passes that game. Then, I see our running opening up and pounding them out of Big House.
October 4th, 2015 at 5:37 PM ^
If you break out the Spartans' rankings on individual metrics, it's kind of a mixed bag but very little of it is the Spartans that we've seen over the last several years, at least on defense. Some highlights, per TeamRankings:
Points per game allowed - 20.8 (#31)
Yards per game allowed - 376.8 (#52)
Yards per play allowed - 5.2 (#53)
3rd down conversion percentage allowed - 40.30% (#75)
Pass completion percentage allowed - 60.71 (#78)
October 4th, 2015 at 6:00 PM ^
Mixed bag of crap.
October 4th, 2015 at 4:48 PM ^
so is their offense.
October 4th, 2015 at 4:50 PM ^
October 4th, 2015 at 5:04 PM ^
I can see them getting challenged in every game. If MSU does not pull out a miracle and fix their defense next week, I can see them having at least two losses (against M and OSU)
October 4th, 2015 at 7:18 PM ^
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October 4th, 2015 at 5:49 PM ^
last year, but it is far from a bad defense. I've watched their games and the defense is still a top 15-20 unit. What has hurt them is their inconsistency on offense. Cook has been up-and-down and their run game isn't as dominant as they thought it would be.
October 4th, 2015 at 6:02 PM ^
October 4th, 2015 at 6:47 PM ^
October 4th, 2015 at 6:03 PM ^
A top 15-20 unit ranked 61st in the country, against mostly crap opponents?
October 4th, 2015 at 8:34 PM ^
Purdue totally dominated them in the second half yesterday. MSU is not good. If nothing else they lose to us and OSU. Everyone talks about how good their front 7 is but they could not stop the run. Their offense is meh at best, their O-line is reeling and Cook is paying the price.
October 4th, 2015 at 11:52 PM ^
MSU's defense has dominated when it has needed to. Dantonio has been rotating third and fourth stringers into the game as early as the start of the second quarter so far this year while going into prevent mode. MSU has a very capable defense -- that's obvious to any reasonable person who watches them play. They just have a tendency to put the horses back in the stable extremely early. And while they have a lot of talent at the front of their depth chart, and they've picked up steam in recruiting a little bit, they still aren't deep enough to go full Tressel while their backups are on the field.
That's a dangerous defensive unit. They're nowhere near as good as they have been in recent times, but that will still be a very serious test.
October 4th, 2015 at 5:06 PM ^
I'm no scout, but to me Michigan's defense stands out because theres not much exceptional talent on it. Lewis probably counts, and Peppers has the talent but probably not quite the finish yet. Otherwise, I'd say we're just solid accross the board. Compare that to a ND, who has a few guys with eye popping talent but collectively aren't in our ballpark. DJ has been worth the hype so far.
October 4th, 2015 at 5:30 PM ^
October 4th, 2015 at 6:05 PM ^
October 4th, 2015 at 7:51 PM ^
October 4th, 2015 at 5:12 PM ^
Our competition han't been that bad either compared to others. We will miss Mario.
October 4th, 2015 at 5:36 PM ^
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October 4th, 2015 at 5:45 PM ^
October 4th, 2015 at 5:46 PM ^
Oregon State, UNLV, and Maryland are all pretty bad football teams.
October 4th, 2015 at 6:58 PM ^
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October 4th, 2015 at 5:19 PM ^
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October 4th, 2015 at 5:26 PM ^
October 4th, 2015 at 5:35 PM ^
And remember how everyone completely lost their sh*t here when he was hired? The panic mentality was if THAT was the best Nebraska could get, who the hell are WE going to hire?
This was pre-it's happening era, obviously.
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October 4th, 2015 at 5:59 PM ^
October 4th, 2015 at 7:49 PM ^
??? That sure as hell wasn't my response. I just laughed at them. What they did had no bearing on who we were going to get.
October 4th, 2015 at 5:48 PM ^
"Wait, you wanna hire HIM?!"
"Yeah."
"WHY?! He's had like 2 winning seasons out of the last 6!"
"Yeah, but he's a nice guy."
"..."
"I'll take that to mean you're on board."
The Nebraska coach-hiring process. Why the hell did their fan-base get excited over Mike Riley anyway? And why did the idiots on BTN, ESPN and whoever else think he'd do better in his first year than HARBAUGH?"
October 4th, 2015 at 5:39 PM ^
October 4th, 2015 at 5:54 PM ^
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October 4th, 2015 at 8:50 PM ^
Our defense has been great so far, obviously. But I worry that the loss of Ojemudia can really hurt. His spot on the line is the one where I trust the backups the least. Heck, maybe for the entire defense. Nothing personal against those individuals, but I trust the backup(s) at every position on the defense more than at WDE/Buck. Hopefully the backups can rise to the occasion and/or the defense can adjust accordingly. I worry that losing Ojemudia will have a bigger impact on this defense than people are thinking.
October 4th, 2015 at 9:12 PM ^
We technically have the best scoring defense; The stat doesn't account for the pick 6 against Utah, so we're actually at 6.2 points. (mlive)
October 4th, 2015 at 10:14 PM ^
October 4th, 2015 at 10:22 PM ^
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