DiderotsGhost
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There's been a lot of discussion on the board on whether offense or defense has been our biggest problem. Obviously, defense was weak in our last game against Vanderbilt, and we struggled on D against Missouri the week before. Nevertheless, when you look at the "big picture", in spite of some rosy statistics, offense was a much bigger problem.
Here's why.
The Common Case for Offense. The common case for why our offense was "good" this year is that we put up 437 yards per game and scored 36.3 points per game (2nd in the SEC). This is misleading, however. For starters, 437 yards pg is only good for 8th in the SEC (bottom half). Nevertheless, the numbers are really much worse once you start looking at other factors.
Defenses With a Pulse. We tended to fare particularly poorly against defenses with a pulse. South Carolina held us to 297 yards. We put up 163 yards versus Bama. We only put up 319 yards on App State (in OT) and 330 yards versus a Virginia Tech team that repeatedly gave our offense the ball. Most of our gaudy yardage numbers came against weak defenses. We put up 609 yards on Mizzou, 600 yards on Kentucky, 684 yards on Texas A&M, and 471 against Tenn Tech. About the only "good" defenses we did well against were Florida (in the 2nd Half) and Vanderbilt (in the 1st Half). To me, this is troubling, because I don't think you can win an SEC Championship when you can only rack up numbers against weak defenses. This is like all those Mike Leach coached teams that put up 700 yards against bottom- and mid-tier teams, but then suddenly get clobbered by top-tier defenses.
Turnovers. We were one of the worst teams in the entire NCAA at protecting the ball. We had 25 turnovers on the season. That ranks us as the 117th worst out of 128 teams (and 13th out of 14 in the SEC). Other teams in our company: Kansas, UMass, Kentucky, Purdue, Indiana, Hawaii, Bowling Green. What's even more depressing is that this is probably higher than we should be ranked, because we had a very large number of fumbles that were recovered on offense. Without all of those recoveries, we would likely be in the bottom 5 of the entire NCAA in turnovers lost.
The Turnovers Impact Defense. Not only have the turnovers hurt our offense, but they make our defensive stats look worse than they really are. Consider that if the defense gives up 30 yards and 3.5 points on average for every turnover, that's about 63 yards per game and 7.28 points. Our defense ranked 11th (out of 14) in yards allowed in the SEC and 9th in points given up. However, you start adjusting for the turnovers and you can quickly see how with a less turnover prone offense, our D would've probably been closer to 5th or 6th best in points allowed and probably closer to 8th in yards given up. This isn't even accounting for the fact that turnovers tend to make the defense more exhausted in general, and likely lead to even more yards and scores given up later in the game. It's really all cumulative and our turnover-prone offense has forced our defense to be out on the field much more than they should be.
Penalties. We had the most penalized team in the SEC, with 74 penalties for 670 yards. This is particularly disturbing because two years ago when Coach Bajakian was OC, we were the LEAST PENALIZED team in the SEC. To me, this is the BIGGEST indictment of Mike DeBord. This team is not disciplined and the mistakes seem to be traceable to when DeBord took over as OC.
Our Offense is the Equivalent Of ... Our offense reminds me of a basketball player who scores 40 points in a game, but does it on 50 shots. Many people see the "40 points" and immediately think "that guy is good!", but they ignore the fact that he put up all those points with low-quality shots. Our offense is similar. Yeah, it's putting up a lot of points, but it's constantly giving points to the other team, as well, which makes it much less impressive.
Turnovers on Defense. While our defensive yardage stats don't look great, we actually had one of the best defenses in the nation at creating turnovers. We were ranked 20th (out of 128) with 23 turnovers created by defense. That's 4th best in the SEC.
Injuries. Injuries were huge for our defense, but not so much for our offense. Look at our defensive depth chart at the start of the season. Major injuries and losses include several key starters: Jalen Reeves-Maybin (LB), Darrin Kirkland Jr (LB), Cam Sutton (CB), Todd Kelly Jr (S). We lost a starting DT (Danny O'Brien) for disciplinary reasons. We lost critical backups in Shy Tuttle (DT), Kahlil McKenzie (DT), Quarte Sapp (LB). I'm missing a lot of people, too. Comparatively speaking, we didn't lose a ton of talent on offense this season. We lost a few Offensive Linemen, such as Jack Jones and Coleman Thomas. However, we never lost major skill players outside of Jalen Hurd and losing Hurd seemed to actually improve the offense.
Overall. When you really start digging into things, the defense's performance is actually better than people realize. When you add in the injuries, it's pretty amazing that we managed to hold together as long as we did. This isn't to say there aren't some major issues on defense, but Bob Shoop had one of the most difficult jobs in college football this year trying to keep that defense patched together in spite of an avalanche of injuries. Meanwhile, the offense's performance is actually much worse. Being 8th in yards and 2nd in scoring looks nice on paper, but in reality, it's not nearly as good when you're constantly giving the other team easy scoring opportunities. In the stats, this makes the defense look "bad" even when it's not the D's fault that the offense can't hold onto the ball.
DeBord Needs to Go. This is why I'm 100% convinced that DeBord needs to go. He's not been completely terrible in every way, but over the past two years, we've gotten worse on "all the little things." We are now the most penalized team in the SEC, rather than the least penalized. We are now the most turnover prone team in the SEC. We constantly have dropped passes and other mistakes as well. The evidence to me suggests that "the system works" but the execution is poor, and that execution is primarily the job of DeBord. Perhaps Mike DeBord can't prevent every dropped pass, but when turnovers, penalties, and dropped passes become endemic, you have to look at how the OC is preparing (or not preparing) the players.
Keep Shoop. Shoop has a great track record as DC. I'm willing to give him a bit of a pass for the train wreck at the end of the season given all the injuries and the strain the offense's mistakes have put on the defense.
Here's why.
The Common Case for Offense. The common case for why our offense was "good" this year is that we put up 437 yards per game and scored 36.3 points per game (2nd in the SEC). This is misleading, however. For starters, 437 yards pg is only good for 8th in the SEC (bottom half). Nevertheless, the numbers are really much worse once you start looking at other factors.
Defenses With a Pulse. We tended to fare particularly poorly against defenses with a pulse. South Carolina held us to 297 yards. We put up 163 yards versus Bama. We only put up 319 yards on App State (in OT) and 330 yards versus a Virginia Tech team that repeatedly gave our offense the ball. Most of our gaudy yardage numbers came against weak defenses. We put up 609 yards on Mizzou, 600 yards on Kentucky, 684 yards on Texas A&M, and 471 against Tenn Tech. About the only "good" defenses we did well against were Florida (in the 2nd Half) and Vanderbilt (in the 1st Half). To me, this is troubling, because I don't think you can win an SEC Championship when you can only rack up numbers against weak defenses. This is like all those Mike Leach coached teams that put up 700 yards against bottom- and mid-tier teams, but then suddenly get clobbered by top-tier defenses.
Turnovers. We were one of the worst teams in the entire NCAA at protecting the ball. We had 25 turnovers on the season. That ranks us as the 117th worst out of 128 teams (and 13th out of 14 in the SEC). Other teams in our company: Kansas, UMass, Kentucky, Purdue, Indiana, Hawaii, Bowling Green. What's even more depressing is that this is probably higher than we should be ranked, because we had a very large number of fumbles that were recovered on offense. Without all of those recoveries, we would likely be in the bottom 5 of the entire NCAA in turnovers lost.
The Turnovers Impact Defense. Not only have the turnovers hurt our offense, but they make our defensive stats look worse than they really are. Consider that if the defense gives up 30 yards and 3.5 points on average for every turnover, that's about 63 yards per game and 7.28 points. Our defense ranked 11th (out of 14) in yards allowed in the SEC and 9th in points given up. However, you start adjusting for the turnovers and you can quickly see how with a less turnover prone offense, our D would've probably been closer to 5th or 6th best in points allowed and probably closer to 8th in yards given up. This isn't even accounting for the fact that turnovers tend to make the defense more exhausted in general, and likely lead to even more yards and scores given up later in the game. It's really all cumulative and our turnover-prone offense has forced our defense to be out on the field much more than they should be.
Penalties. We had the most penalized team in the SEC, with 74 penalties for 670 yards. This is particularly disturbing because two years ago when Coach Bajakian was OC, we were the LEAST PENALIZED team in the SEC. To me, this is the BIGGEST indictment of Mike DeBord. This team is not disciplined and the mistakes seem to be traceable to when DeBord took over as OC.
Our Offense is the Equivalent Of ... Our offense reminds me of a basketball player who scores 40 points in a game, but does it on 50 shots. Many people see the "40 points" and immediately think "that guy is good!", but they ignore the fact that he put up all those points with low-quality shots. Our offense is similar. Yeah, it's putting up a lot of points, but it's constantly giving points to the other team, as well, which makes it much less impressive.
Turnovers on Defense. While our defensive yardage stats don't look great, we actually had one of the best defenses in the nation at creating turnovers. We were ranked 20th (out of 128) with 23 turnovers created by defense. That's 4th best in the SEC.
Injuries. Injuries were huge for our defense, but not so much for our offense. Look at our defensive depth chart at the start of the season. Major injuries and losses include several key starters: Jalen Reeves-Maybin (LB), Darrin Kirkland Jr (LB), Cam Sutton (CB), Todd Kelly Jr (S). We lost a starting DT (Danny O'Brien) for disciplinary reasons. We lost critical backups in Shy Tuttle (DT), Kahlil McKenzie (DT), Quarte Sapp (LB). I'm missing a lot of people, too. Comparatively speaking, we didn't lose a ton of talent on offense this season. We lost a few Offensive Linemen, such as Jack Jones and Coleman Thomas. However, we never lost major skill players outside of Jalen Hurd and losing Hurd seemed to actually improve the offense.
Overall. When you really start digging into things, the defense's performance is actually better than people realize. When you add in the injuries, it's pretty amazing that we managed to hold together as long as we did. This isn't to say there aren't some major issues on defense, but Bob Shoop had one of the most difficult jobs in college football this year trying to keep that defense patched together in spite of an avalanche of injuries. Meanwhile, the offense's performance is actually much worse. Being 8th in yards and 2nd in scoring looks nice on paper, but in reality, it's not nearly as good when you're constantly giving the other team easy scoring opportunities. In the stats, this makes the defense look "bad" even when it's not the D's fault that the offense can't hold onto the ball.
DeBord Needs to Go. This is why I'm 100% convinced that DeBord needs to go. He's not been completely terrible in every way, but over the past two years, we've gotten worse on "all the little things." We are now the most penalized team in the SEC, rather than the least penalized. We are now the most turnover prone team in the SEC. We constantly have dropped passes and other mistakes as well. The evidence to me suggests that "the system works" but the execution is poor, and that execution is primarily the job of DeBord. Perhaps Mike DeBord can't prevent every dropped pass, but when turnovers, penalties, and dropped passes become endemic, you have to look at how the OC is preparing (or not preparing) the players.
Keep Shoop. Shoop has a great track record as DC. I'm willing to give him a bit of a pass for the train wreck at the end of the season given all the injuries and the strain the offense's mistakes have put on the defense.
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