I'm not trying to defend or bash Torbush. I'm not trying to argue whether our defense sucked or not. After reading a few posts about the defense and others argue that changes need to be made, I was just curious and started looking up numbers.
Here are the official NCAA offensive rankings of the teams we played. We played 8 of the top 42 offenses in college football. We won two of those games (Middle Tennessee [#30] and Mississippi [#42]). Only Alabama (#40) is between them. The other five teams are #1 Houston, #12 Florida, #15 Georgia Tech, #16 Arkansas, #22 Auburn.
Just for the heck of it, here are our defensive results against the top five offenses we faced. And an editorial note of what could have caused either those numbers or the defeat.
Houston: 553 yards, just below their average. 31 points, second lowest for them. We had two fumbles and two interceptions.
Florida: 376 yards, below their 451 average, but they put up bookend offensive explosions at the beginning and end of the season. In their middle 8 games, this is about average. We threw three INTs.
Georgia Tech: Yeah, no need to post their offensive passing numbers. But how about our one INT and four fumbles.
Arkansas: 396 yards, a little below average. "Only" two fumbles in this game and not enough clock control.
Auburn: This game won't win any arguments. We did have two INTs but that wasn't what hurt us.
Kentucky (#91), LSU (#108) and Vandy (#109) were by far the worst offenses we faced. And we had three INTs against LSU, one being the pick 6. Still, we were a fingertip away from winning. Against Kentucky, it was Dixon and a better defensive effort in the second half. Vandy, well they're Vandy.
Again, this isn't to prove our defense was better than thought or as bad or worse as thought. It just shows that I have too much free time today.
AA - now, back to laundry
Here are the official NCAA offensive rankings of the teams we played. We played 8 of the top 42 offenses in college football. We won two of those games (Middle Tennessee [#30] and Mississippi [#42]). Only Alabama (#40) is between them. The other five teams are #1 Houston, #12 Florida, #15 Georgia Tech, #16 Arkansas, #22 Auburn.
Just for the heck of it, here are our defensive results against the top five offenses we faced. And an editorial note of what could have caused either those numbers or the defeat.
Houston: 553 yards, just below their average. 31 points, second lowest for them. We had two fumbles and two interceptions.
Florida: 376 yards, below their 451 average, but they put up bookend offensive explosions at the beginning and end of the season. In their middle 8 games, this is about average. We threw three INTs.
Georgia Tech: Yeah, no need to post their offensive passing numbers. But how about our one INT and four fumbles.
Arkansas: 396 yards, a little below average. "Only" two fumbles in this game and not enough clock control.
Auburn: This game won't win any arguments. We did have two INTs but that wasn't what hurt us.
Kentucky (#91), LSU (#108) and Vandy (#109) were by far the worst offenses we faced. And we had three INTs against LSU, one being the pick 6. Still, we were a fingertip away from winning. Against Kentucky, it was Dixon and a better defensive effort in the second half. Vandy, well they're Vandy.
Again, this isn't to prove our defense was better than thought or as bad or worse as thought. It just shows that I have too much free time today.
AA - now, back to laundry