The Williefication of our defense

I worked on this because I want to get Willie Martinez fired!!! No, not really. I was just curious about what's change with UGA's defense. Almost everyone I talk to acknowledges that something's different, but no one can quite articulate it. Especially when compared to BVG's prior defenses, something just seems off. Well, as far as 2008 is concerned, it's not that complicated: the UGA defense is just not getting it done.

	Scoring D	Total D	Pass D	Rush D
2001	20.4	379.6	267.6	112.0
2002	16.3	309.0	187.3	121.7
2003	16.9	323.0	203.6	119.4
2004	16.7	295.9	200.7	95.2
Avg.	17.6	326.9	214.8	112.1
2005	17.2	322.0	173.5	148.5
2006	19.7	272.8	157.3	115.5
2007	19.3	319.4	205.6	113.7
2008	24.7	308.4	217.1	91.3
Avg.	20.22	305.65	188.39	117.26

	Pass Eff.	Avg/Car.	FD/Game	Sack/Game
2001	127.51	3.15	21.33	1.67
2002	115.51	3.34	17.33	3.58
2003	105.54	3.06	17.50	2.50
2004	126.11	2.84	16.00	3.60
Avg.	118.67	3.10	18.04	2.84
2005	108.74	3.98	19.08	2.67
2006	102.15	3.51	15.55	2.27
2007	112.67	3.34	18.91	3.45
2008	137.10	3.20	17.43	1.71
Avg.	115.17	3.51	17.74	2.53

	Int/Game	Fum/Game	Trnv/Game
2001	1.00	0.89	1.89
2002	1.08	1.00	2.08
2003	1.42	1.00	2.42
2004	0.40	1.10	1.50
Avg.	0.98	1.00	1.97
2005	1.25	1.08	2.33
2006	1.64	0.82	2.45
2007	1.18	0.82	2.00
2008	0.86	0.43	1.29
Avg.	1.23	0.79	2.02

	TFL/Game	Opp Punt	"Big Play"
2001	6.00	5.56	9.56
2002	9.25	6.67	14.92
2003	6.67	7.08	11.58
2004	8.50	6.20	13.60
Avg.	7.6	6.4	12.4
2005	6.75	6.08	11.75
2006	5.45	4.64	10.18
2007	7.09	5.00	12.55
2008	5.14	4.38	8.14
Avg.	6.1	5.0	10.7

First, a little on the methodology. I removed any games against 1-AA opponents or teams that just sucked beyond belief. The only good team missing from these numbers is the 2001 BC Eagles b/c the stats from that game weren't in my data and I wasn't going to put forth any more effort. So essentially these stats are SEC games, bowl games, and then the Clemson, OK State, Colorado, Boise St., etc. games. Also, the "Big Play" is the sum of Sack, Turnover, and TFL per game. I figured these were the types of plays that either obviously stopped a drive, or put the opposing offense behind the sticks.

Basically, a few things jumped out at me.

First, WM defenses average giving up about 3 point more a game than BVG, but if you take out BVG's first year, that difference is a little bigger. More troubling is that WM's defenses are trending downwards.

Secondly, holy shit did Pollack make a difference in 2002. UGA's pass efficiency dropped by 12 points, sacks doubled, turnover increased, TFL increased by 3, we forced over a punt more per game, and had over 5 more "big plays" per game than 2001.

Thirdly, what the hell happened to our secondary in 2004? I had forgotten this, but we had four (4!) interceptions that whole year. For comparison, Eric Berry has 6 so far this season.

Basically, in almost category, this year's defense is the worst of the Richt era. That kills me to say, but I think it's almost totally attributable to the lack of pass rush. The DE's this year just haven't performed as highly as we're used to.

As it turns out though, the total defense, rushing defense and passing defense numbers aren't that different under BVG. The difference is in TFL, Opp Punt/Game, and the Big Plays. Obviously how much of a difference all this makes varies on a game by game basis, but the way I interpret this that BVG's defenses were able to get off the field more than WM's are. It sounds cliche to say, but football is a game of inches and seconds and I just think our defenses were more detail oriented under BVG and were able to make big plays when they needed to.

As for the rest of this season, yikes. I don't think our current levels will hold, especially with the teams we have left. The next two seasons up from this one as far as the least number of punts forced, Big Plays, and Sacks were 01 and 06, each of which were 4 loss seasons. I don't think we're a 4 loss team this year though, and once we finish up, those number's will probably even out to around the 03 or 05 season range.

the tri guy