Michigan allowing 0.5 yards per play fewer than anyone else in the country

Only stat that counts

Wins 3 lost 1

As the MMB says, "De-Fense like a rock".

The defense had a lousy first half against Notre Dame and since, has allowed 36 points in the last 7 halves of football. They're starting to really get into a groove, gonna be fun to see what they continue to do.

It's important to remember, the 2016 defense struggled a little against UCF and Colorado at the beginning of the season as well 

The problem is what happens when we play teams with a pulse, i.e. the big boys of the BIG.  

What did it look like before this weekend? If it’s vastly different, it’s clear that the sample size makes this meaningless 

This list includes Washington State, Temple, and Kentucky in the top 5.

So schedule may have just a little bit to do with it.

If we are on this list after we play teams like Wisconsin and Penn State, then I'll celebrate.
 

Realistic me says we just played a really crummy Nebraska offense (and crummy W. Michigan team) and have padded our stats on them.  ND and SMU did okay and bring our out of this world stats back to earth a bit, which is still apparently the best. However, when offenses with a pulse show up on the schedule, things will really come back to earth as those teams will know better how to exploit our deficiences.  Penn St., Ohio St., Wisconsin, and maybe even Sparty.  Our stats look great and they are but what kills us are the timely plays that seem to reallly hurt (3rd and longs) and the good teams will keep hurting us with those....I fear.

This is horrible! If we allow 3.6 yards per play, teams will gain 10.8 yards every 3 plays giving them automatic first downs and eventually touchdowns! How can we possibly win this way?

Now that is some Perspective.  

Excellent numbers.  Imagine how much better they would be if we didnt give up those frustrating 3rd downs.

How about waiting until they stop a good offense before labeling them as elite?  Or at least stopping someone late in the game when it means something. They've had one opportunity this year and failed.  Please don't tell me they shut down ND in the second half-the damage had been done and ND was pretty vanilla after building up a lead.

They performed poorly against Wisconsin, Penn State, and OSU (let's not forget the bowl game as well).  These statistics are very misleading when they come against weak opponents.

Well, even in the loss to ND, Michigan allowed only 302 in total yards to the Irish, 100 or more of which came during the first quarter when they scored 14 of their 24 points. So, if you want to measure time in a bottle, look at what they've done since that point. Because that was the team's worst quarter of the year.

The reason why Michigan will be better on defense this year than perhaps even in some of its stingiest seasons, is because of the depth it has at every position. That point cannot be overemphasized. And you saw it on Saturday.

Those people that were saying Don Brown had been "exposed" after weeks 1 and/or 2 are COMPLETE IDIOTS.

Like, the top D's at BC then U of M that he's had for 4-5 years running, all of a sudden, the rest of the football world just got around to figuring it out this year? 

Not saying this dominance will continue against PSU and OSU, and maybe the D won't be as good this year.

But if you watched his D's the last two years, you're out of your mind (probably just an idiot) if you think he's some one-trick-pony that the world has just figured out.

To be honest, outside of ND, our schedule has been weak.

improve the safety play then you will have a near perfect D.  too many big plays given up, even when guys are in position to make the play.

We’re actually #2 in this category. This is a list of teams who have played 3 FBS opponents. Utah is actually allowing fewer yards per play than us though. 

Numbas don' lie - only people that cast them into indices or statistics to make broad assumptions and predictions. Let's look at them at the end of the year.