Comparing our 2015 Defense

Submitted by Asgardian on

Obviously we're off to a great start on defense, but it's early.  Here's to keeping it going and praying that this start does not turn in to a September statistical anomaly.

Here's a (non-advanced stats) look at some measuring sticks.  Yes this is arbitrary.  No I didn't go back and adjust them all for defensive scores.  But hey, my lizard brain finds this useful/fun.

Below the brackets denote 3 things: (the number of games a defense held it's opponent to 7 or fewer points / and the number of games a defense gave up 15 or more / number of games from 8-14 pts allowed)

So (Great / Bad / Good) format.

EDIT: ^ Per comment requests, now in "Great / Good / Bad" Order.  0-7, 8-14, 15+.  15pts allowed isn't "Bad" exactly, but you get the idea.^

2015 Michigan: (4 / 0 / 1)

2015 Northwestern: (3 / 1 / 1)

Don't look now, but that Stanford win continues to look more impressive:

http://espn.go.com/blog/pac12/post/_/id/92553/stanford-continues-its-re…

2015 Wisconsin: (3 / 1 / 1)

These former members of our conference have given up 0, 3, and 0 to Miami (OH), Troy & Hawaii.  They lost 10-6 to Iowa and gave up 35 in a loss to Alabama to start off the season.

2015 Michigan State: (0 / 1 / 4)

Results are in and as people have been saying, this is not the defense they used to have.  Other than holding CMU to 10 pts, they've given up at least 21 in every game so far this season.

2015 Ohio State: (1 / 2 / 2)

Shut out Hawaii (was also shut out by Wisconsin, tough start for the Rainbow Warriors), gave up 21+ to Indiana and VT.

 

Now for some prior year comps:

Hoke Era:

Michigan 2011: (3 / 3 / 7)

Michigan 2012: (1 / 5 / 7)

Michigan 2013: (0 / 2 / 11)

Michigan 2014: (0 / 5 / 7)

This Sugar Bowl run was our best defensive performance of the Hoke era by this measuring stick, with 2013 the worst.  2013 was arguably Peak "recruiting lull" age adjusted for Juniors/Seniors.

 

Michigan 2006: (4 / 4 / 5)

Interestingly, only 1 of our 8 best performances came from the non-conference schedule (Vanderbilt, 7pts).  CMU put up 17, Notre Dame put up 21, and as has been mentioned on this blog Ball State put up 26 /twitch.

Ignoring those and looking only at the conference performances is even more heartbreaking than I remember: (avert your eyes trigger warning):

Points given up in Big Ten play: 13, 14, 13, 10, 6, 3, 3, 42

 

Michigan 1997: (6 / 3 / 3)

Note the 3 "worst" performances were 16, 16, and 24.  Definitely a different era.  Exhibit A: This was BF: Before Ferentz.  Hayden Fry coached the Iowa team that scored the high water mark against this defense in a 28-24 Michigan victory.

 

Other Best In Modern Era Performances:

2013 Peak "MSU"/Narduzzi: (6 / 5 / 2)  Total PPG= 12.9

Also a defense that played better later in the year and/or against the Big 10.  The "MSU Defense" hype was truly built late in the season when they rolled through a stretch of Big 10 play without giving up a touchdown in five out of six games (Purdue=0, Illinois=3, Michigan=6 /flinch, Nebraska=28, Northwestern=6, Minnesota=3).

 

2013 "National Champs" Florida State: (7 / 3 / 4) Total PPG = 11.1

Loaded team NFL talent-wise.

 

2012 "National Runner Up" Notre Dame (5 / 3 / 5) Total PPG = 10.3

2012 "National Championship" Alabama (6 / 5 / 3) Total PPG = 11.6

We played both these teams.  Yay!

 

2011: "National Championship" Alabama (7 / 5 / 1) Total PPG = 7.7

2011: "National Runner Up" LSU (6 / 4 / 4) Total PPG = 11.2

Peak "SEC!!!"  The year that inspired the legend, when people looked up and said "hey this conference is having a pretty good run, thanks Urban we'll take it from here.  Infamous for LSU over Bama 9-6 in overtime regular season, followed by Bama over LSU 21-0 in the National Championship game.  Also spurred a counter-criticism "SEC offense is HORRIBLE".  Arguably a different era.

 

 

Key theme: It appears, "The Best Defenses" play in conferences with "The Worst Offenses".  It's usually both not one or the other.  Which makes sense.

Comments

Eye of the Tiger

October 5th, 2015 at 4:51 PM ^

...you provided the breakdown for the historical teams only through the first 5 games. That would be more comparable.

For example:

 

UM 2011: 3/1/1

UM 2012: 0/2/3

UM 2013: 0/3/2

UM 2014: 0/3/2

 

(Also, wouldn't "great/good/bad" make more sense?)

Asgardian

October 5th, 2015 at 5:00 PM ^

Looking back, Non-Conference scheduling is so unique, in my opinion it didn't really make it more informative to show just the first five games for seasons past.  Also a number of those great defenses had their "best" games later in the year / conference play.

I didn't want to imply "OMG we're off to a better start than MSU 2013".  Seemed like a hockey stick projection.

You definitely have to play the games.

Other Andrew

October 6th, 2015 at 7:43 AM ^

Defense was really only responsible for 7 of those 24 points. Others were:

  • Int return to 1 yard line then punched in against defense
  • Punt return for TD to end half
  • KO return to FG range followed by made FG

Perhaps a way to improve the methodology by taking out return scores. Technically that would only lower the Iowa defensive score by 7, but again 10 additional points were not their doing.

Isaac Newton

October 6th, 2015 at 9:42 AM ^

Perhaps many are too young, but the 1985 defense seems to get forgotten.  I believe it's right up there with 1997 as the top 2 Michigan defenses since the 1970s.

thru 5 games:  4/0/1

full season:      7/2/3

Three shutouts, and 8 games where they did not give up a touchdown.