Question for Todd and others saying Cheese did a good job....

[Coach34]

this past year as DC...lets examine the facts-

Offensively, we averaged 30:15 a game TOP...so we were on Offense more than D....that being said, some SEC finishes:

Scoring defense- 9th
Total defense- 11th
Rushing defense- 11th
Pass defense- 6th
Interceptions- 11th
Sacks by- 11th
opponent 1st downs- 8th
Red-zone D- 12th
400 yd average per game against teams with offenses ranked above 100

So, what exactly did we do this year that makes you guys think Cheese did a good job and "will be a DC again" ?

 

[Coach34]

this past year as DC...lets examine the facts-

Offensively, we averaged 30:15 a game TOP...so we were on Offense more than D....that being said, some SEC finishes:

Scoring defense- 9th
Total defense- 11th
Rushing defense- 11th
Pass defense- 6th
Interceptions- 11th
Sacks by- 11th
opponent 1st downs- 8th
Red-zone D- 12th
400 yd average per game against teams with offenses ranked above 100

So, what exactly did we do this year that makes you guys think Cheese did a good job and "will be a DC again" ?

 

[99jc]

[No message]

 

[uscreb]

your stats would suck. They never looked bad until the end of the third quarter. Frickin' Pegues was so worn out by the end of the season that he could barely remember his own name. Your defense was great, but it wasn't bad either. If Mullen can keep the offense on the field for about half the game, your DC should be able put together a serviceable SEC defense.

 

[Coach34]

out TOP (time of possession) was 30:15 per game- that means we were on offense more than we were on D

It was one of my 1st points in my post

 

[squirldawg]

biggest loss and it may have been. However, it was hard to tell watching our offense. Those stats certainly back up the claim, however, we were a good field goal kicker away from having to put up with Croom for at least another year. Thank goodness for Adam Carlson!

 

[Uncle Leo]

I wouldn't have guessed that...

 

[Frances Drebin]

...is an overrated statistic. As a guy who was at most of the games this year, I can tell you that in most of our games, we were better early in the games than we were late in the games. Our defense certainly wasn't one of the better ones in the league, but it wasn't terrible, either. Personally, my concerns about the defense were more along the lines of quality depth and conditioning.

Also, more proof that statistics lie: Coach's stats show that we were better against the pass, but anyone who witnessed a game saw that our corners were pretty bad, and we didn't exactly get a lot of pressure on the QB, either. We just didn't play many teams that passed the ball a lot.

 

[Coach34]

if one side is having to play alot more plays than the other and in our case- it isnt- we had 782 plays on O, 767 on defense...So it clearly shows the defense wasnt on the field more than the offense

"I can tell you that in most of our games, we were better early in the games than we were late in the games."

What does that mean? So is everybody else in the country Socrates. Bama gave up twice as many points in the 2nd half this season as they did the 1st half, and they are in the Sugar Bowl. Your point there means absolutely nothing.

 

[uscreb]

citing of TOP statistics, there is a reason that it is one of the biggest strawman stats in football. First, if you a playing a team that has a fast strike/vertical offense and a reasonably good defense, you may win the TOP battle while losing the war. Second, even if you are playing a team with a similar plodding style, your scoring efficiency is much more important. (You may want one of the other Bulldogs on here to explain this to you, but I will do my best.)

Your offense was miserable in the redzone this year. You only scored TD's 58% of the time that you got inside the 20 and another 12% of the time you scored FG's. Your opponents scored TD's 59% of the time and FG's on another 28% of their trip. What this means is that for every ten trips inside the 20, you scored 44 points, while your opponents would score 50 points... and that's only for trips inside the 20. Alabama scored 3 times from outside the 20. You really can't blame your defense for holding them three times and have your special teams allow the nine points from FG's. Auburn beat you by one lone score from outside the RZ. Six of LaTech's eight point margin came from FG after your lousy defense kept them from getting past the 35.

I don't care how you spin it, the wretched offense that Croom put on the field sapped any advantage or energy that might have existed on the defense.

 

[uscreb]

plays than their opponents in the same amount of time. Likewise, a pass happy offense will result in a clock stoppage approximately 40% of the time, particularly under the new rules in which the clock is restarted after marking a first down.

It does, however, seem to show that you continue to shoot from the hip whether it makes sense or not.

 

[MSUCostanza]

it would probably help if you broke that down by game. MTSU and SELA and Arkansas might be skewing that number. Check the plays in our 8 losses - the games where the offense was abysmal (and you reminded us of that fact every 30 seconds) and I bet you'll find a slightly different story.

I also find it quite hilarious that you are using our horrendous offense to rip our defense. You spent months ripping our offense as the reason Ellis Johnson left because we couldn't give his defense any help. Now that you've staked your precious internet cred on your belief that Cheese sucked (probably still stuck on the fact that he (gasp) coached an offensive position once in his career), you're grasping at reasons to blame the defense for our misery last year, instead of the West **** Offense of Croom. And it was that defense that kept us in several games this year for a half or more. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. Lack of depth killed us against the upper echelon of the SEC. Break it down by game, and if you really want to see what Drebin and others are talking about, break it down by half. Our defense was not the 1985 Bears this year, but they were decent enough to have taken us to a bowl game if we even had a bad offense. That will give you something do to between shifts at Rite Aid.

 

[Frances Drebin]

...cumulative numbers to back up an overly general statement. I have said many times that our defense wasn't as good as people have been led to believe, but they aren't as bad as you're saying either.

My main point is that time of possession is a misleading stat. We were destroyed in TOP against La Tech, Auburn, LSU, Alabama, and Ole Miss. We were pretty much even in TOP with Georgia Tech and UT, despite getting blown out in both. We got fat with a ten minute advantage in TOP against Vanderbilt, which skews your overall numbers.

My point is to look at individual games and how they play out to make your arguments instead of making overly general statements and pulling ******** numbers out of your *** to support your claim.

 

[patdog]

Missouri had 908 snaps this season. Their opponents has 1,010 snaps.

 

[uscreb]

of you sidewalk alums? Let's do it over the past three years.

In 2006 Missouri ran a total of 1112 against their opponent's 1036 on the season. This amounted to 85.5 plays per game against their opponent's 79.7. Mizzou's time of possession was 28.5 min per game, while their opponents managed 31.5 min per game. This works out to 3.0 plays per minute for Mizzou against 2.5 plays per minute for the opponents or a difference of 25%.

In 2007 Missouri ran a total of 922 against their opponent's 865 on the season. This amounted to 70.9 plays per game against their opponent's 66.54. Mizzou's time of possession was 27.5 min per game, while their opponents managed 32.5 min per game. This works out to 2.6 plays per minute for Mizzou against 2.05 plays per minute for the opponents or a difference of 26.5%.

In 2008 Missouri ran a total of 908 against their opponent's 1010 on the season. This amounted to 75.6 plays per game against their opponent's 84.2. Mizzou's time of possession was 26.2 min per game, while their opponents managed 33.8 min per game. This works out to 2.9 plays per minute for Mizzou against 2.5 plays per minute for the opponents or a difference of 25%.

So, actually my estimate of 60% over-rates Missouri's performance in the no huddle. Over the past three years, they have managed something closer to 25% more plays in the same amount of time. While I am not sure how this translates into points, what it does mean is that Missouri can let you have the ball for an entire extra quarter each game still be even.

 

[Todd4State]

Like I said we weren't awesome, but we weren't what I would call ******. I wonder what the numbers would be without GT and Ole Miss- both games that our defense basically quit in part because of our horrible offense and possibly in part because they had completely lost faith in Croom. I think that's only fair since you are into skewing stats to try to fit your arguement. And let's not forget- Ellis Johnson's defenses always had at least 1-2 games where they just didn't show up either.

It's not just our offense that hurt out defense, it was our ST's to. How many times did teams start at the 30-35 yard line because Carlson couldn't get it into the end zone and becuse Richards is a ******? How many times did the other team get good field position because of McShank? The short scoring drives by other teams and our short drives because of our ineptitude easily explain your "valuable" TOP arguement. You must be the only person in America who judges a defense by that stat.

But here's why I think he will get another shot as a DC- this was his first job, and it was at an SEC school. Good gosh, if anyone on our staff had an excuse to suck, it was Cheese, and maybe Reed Stringer. But he held his own with really only two guys that I think are surefire NFL players- Pegues and Bowman. Plus, he also had the added excuse of losing his top cornerback and a couple of defensive linemen who could have provided some valuable depth.

Now, let's break it down by something tangible. Points allowed!

La Tech- 22 to a team that ended up winning the Liberty Bowl. 3 of those were by the kicker who had a career long FG of 50+ yards and two TD drives of 10 yards or less thanks to ST's. That was without Pegues to.

SELU- 10 7 in the 4th quarter in garbage time.

Auburn- 3, and the defense actually scored 2 points for us.

GT- 38. I was at this game, and it seemed like the defense quit, probably because of the lack of offense. We actually did better than UGA did against them. This was when we changed from Carroll to Lee.

LSU- 34 7 of those are on Tay Bowser, who never played after this game.

Vandy- 14 to a bowl team that was hot at the time. 7 were basically given up because of a 14 yard punt that put Vandy in the red zone.

UT- 34 14 of those were on INT returns by UT. seven more were in garbage time. So, our defense was responsible for 13. And we were down 6-3 at the half on the road.

MTSU- 22 Fairly sloppy game all around.

UK- 14 to another bowl team. aGAIN victimized by offense and ST's.

Bama- 32 to a BCS bowl team on the road. 2 were because of a safety on a blocked punt. Seven were to Arenas because of a horrible punt. And seven were on a time consuming 2 yard drive. So, we held Bama to 16 points on the road. You can say that their offense is bad, but that's fewer points than Ole Miss, Auburn, and Florida. And I'm not even counting the seven garbage time TD they had late in the game.

Arkanas- 28 Arkansas scored 14 quickly, but we made adjustments (a sign of a good coach) and then held them to seven. The other seven points were scored after our stupid o-line ran on the field for some reason during a punt where Arkansas jumped offsides, and we likely would have salted away the game. We were also further kept on the field because of the worst attempt to recover an onside kick in the history of mankind. Thank God our defense held and bailed us out.

Ole Miss- 45. Three of Ole Miss offensive drives were of 50 yards or less. One was of 54 yards. The other three were 35, 39, and 42. Much of this was because of turnovers. I also imagine that our defense's will was broken by the second quarter. Anyway that comes out to 28 points on short drives and only 17 on sustained drives.

Not bad for a WR coach.

 

[Coach34]

those were our SEC ranks...and if you think being at the bottom of the SEC is doing a good job, then not much I can say to you.

 

[msudawg12]

The difference in TOP

One of MSU's scoring drives (fictional) : 11 plays 75 yds

One of Opponent's scoring drives (fictional): 3 plays 75 yds

Everything else was 3 and out for both sides

 

[Coach34]

Rebel, you said our defense was tired because they were on the field 80% of the time.
I clearly showed this to be false through TOP and the fact we ran 20 more plays on offense than defense for the season.

So, there are no skewed stats. We were not very good on defense by SEC standards- which is the conference we play in. We were ****** in total defense AND scoring D.</p>

There is nothing I've seen that supports Cheese doing a good job.</p>

 

[uscreb]

no people between you and the other people there? What's that? You are not invited to parties. Geeze, I can't imagine why not.

I would assume that anyone with a pea-sized brain would have recognized that using the 80% figure was nothing more than a rhetorical device. More importantly, the thread was about whether or not LAST YEAR'S defense underperformed. The argument from everyone else in the thread has been that the quality (and therefore the quantitative output) of the defense was tied to the offense. I pointed out that the redzone futility of offense turned over the ball without a score more often than any other team in the SEC.

The interesting thing is that looking at the season stats for the SEC, neither total yards, points scored, nor total defense are correlated with wins or losses. In fact, the only thing that is truly predictive of losses is wins.

 

[cowbell9]

nm

 

[Todd4State]

those were our SEC ranks...and if you think being at the bottom of the SEC is doing a good job, then not much I can say to you.

My opinion is that Cheese did a good job. Your opinion is that he didn't. That's fine. Mine isn't going to change because you coached at Coffeeville. And a time of possession stat isn't going to change it either. Clemson seemed to hire Cheese pretty quickly, so there is obviously some respect out there.

I also broke the season down for you drive by drive. Not much I can say to you. I'd like for you to find a stat of how many times the OTHER team started inside the 50 and how often the other team scored. I still stand by my opinion that our defensive stats were because of a poor offense and ST's. Using the same stats you found, we were 9-12 in the SEC in EVERY special teams category and our offense was last in points scored per game and in the bottom half of the conference in almost every category. Even if our defense was that bad, they didn't get a lot of help.

 

[FlabLoser]

Defense is about emotion, hustle, and heart. Those things are hard to keep up when the offense shows time and again that it is incapable of winning, even when the defense holds the opposition to 3 points. As a coach, you surely cannot argue that a team's offense and defense exist in a vacuum and that one isn't somehow dependent or motivated by the other. These problems were paramount to a defense which admittedly was having a "rebuilding year". We were just plain less talented than the year before. Or....should cheese have coached up the next Titus Brown or Anthony Johnson on this squad. If there are any of those players in hiding, show them to me because I don't see them.

Secondly, our conditioning was suspect this year. That fact was the biggest surprise to me this year. In previous Croom years, no matter how bad we sucked, we were at least in pretty good shape and played hard to the end. It looked like we wore down after 3 quarters. On the other hand, perhaps it looked that way because the coach was losing his team as well as the game.

Next year, I expect both of these problems to disappear. We may not be real talented on offense but at least we won't go out there and trip over our shoelaces. I also expect based on Mullen's talk that he'll have our team in shape.