As we did a few weeks (months? hell, i dont even know) back with Offense, we'll do now with the D. I went back over to cfbstats.com (great site) and spent a little time looking at the defensive stats from the past 4 years comparing ND to Kelly's Cincy and CMU teams over that time period. While not a perfect comparison (upgraded talent at ND, etc), it helps us get a feel for the kind of defenses that Kelly has fielded versus what we've seen over the past few years.
I compared two main statistics, and I'll start with Total Defense. For this comparison, I used Total Yards Allowed/Game as the main stat.
Over the past 4 years, ND allowed the following yards/game on average across each season, followed by the squad's national rank:
2009-398 (86) - ouch
2008-330 (39)
2007-357 (39)
2006-340 (65)
Average: 356 (57)
Man, we struggled, especially last year. The sad/odd thing, is that ND had a good, solid offense in 2006, but a pretty bad (65th ranked) D. In 07 and 08, the ND offense was extremely young, and as we all painfully remember, they struggled a TON. But, the D was respectable, ranked 39th both years. Not amazing, but decent enough to come away with a good season if you have any offense. But, we didn't. Then, in 2009, the Offense finally took off again with a fairly mature squad, but the D absolutely sucked, ranking 89th. Charlie had good parts (great offenses in 05 and 09) at times, but just couldn't put an entire team together. If you take the D from 08 with the O from 09? You get a 10 win team. Just didn't work out.
Anyway, I digress. Let's look at the same stats for Kelly's squads (CMU '06, and Cincy 07-09):
2009-374 (67)
2008-322 (31)
2007-368 (50)
2006-343 (67)
Average: 352 (54)
So, Kelly's squads don't look much better. While the 352 yards is better than Weis' 356 yards/game, it's not a drastic difference, and Kelly averaged only 54th in the country. Not a confidence-building set of numbers, really. That said, Kelly did have to replace 10 starters on D in 2009 when they ranked 67th, and his 2006 number comes from CMU where the talent level was certainly lower. And he did field a D ranked 31 in 2008. But really, you can't say based on the stats that Kelly will clearly be a big upgrade over Weis defensively from this.
But let's take a look at Scoring Defense (average points allowed/game across a season), and see if the same story holds.
Weis and ND:
2009-25.9 (63)
2008-22.2 (42)
2007-28.8 (72)
2006-23.8 (66)
Average: 25 (61)
Kelly and Cincy/CMU:
2009-23.1 (44)
2008-20.1 (25)
2007-18.8 (12)
2006-22.3 (56)
Average: 21 (34)
Here the story gets much, much different. Weis' teams gave up 25 points/game, and averaged a ranking of 61. Kelly's teams average a full 4 points fewer per game, and had an average rank of 34. So while both coaches' teams gave up a lot of yards, Kelly's squads gave up fewer points, and average a Top 40 Scoring D. And this is where we can expect to see some difference on the Defensive side of the ball, at least based on stats (again, ignoring changes in talent, etc and what that means for a D).
Kelly's D's gave up a lot of yards, but not as many points. What's that mean? A few things most likely. 1) More disruptive plays. While ND tried to get TFLs/Sacks/Turnovers through the ultra aggressive Tenuta Attack, it just didn't work. Kelly's D last year was way up there in the rankings on TFL and Sacks. So they gave up yards, but they also made big plays to force turnovers via downs or picks/fumbles. 2) More discipline. ND had a ton of breakdowns on D under Weis at pivotal moments. Think of all those times in the past 4 years when ND appeared to have a team in a punting situation, only to have an ND player make a bonehead play - miss an easy tackle, jump offsides, take a stupid personal foul flag - to extend the other team's drive. Yeah, getting rid of those will change a lot of drives and result in fewer points.
So I don't think we should expect, all of a sudden, for ND to have a shut-down, stuff-em for nothing D. We can hope for it, but the stats suggest that this will be a bend-dont-break squad that will give up a decent amount of yards, but not as many points as the Defenses we've fielded over the past few years. Also expect more disruptive plays in the backfield and turnovers, and, I think, more disciplined play and better fundamentals.
I am hoping that the increased level of talent (vs Cincy/CMU) and the relative level of experience on Defense will yield results even better than what Kelly has had over the past 4 years. But if we finish with a Top 50 D in yards, and a Top 35 D in points, I think we'll be in for a fine season given Kelly's penchant for SCORECRAZYPASSSCOREMORESCOREAGAIN Offensive philosophy.
By SDI June 30, 2010 - 12:06 pm
Good post Biscuit. Another possible explanation might have to do with conditioning. A well conditioned team may be better able to make a big play at the end of drive, even after giving up many yards, to cause a turnover or force a field goal. Whereas with ND last year, as soon as teams crossed the ND 40 yard line, you pretty much knew a TD was coming.
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By domer03 June 30, 2010 - 12:30 pm
stats are always deceptive. I think the main reason that ND “appeared” to have such stout defending in 07 and 08 is primarily attributable to the epochal offensive futility of those units and impact that this had on opposing coaches game planning.
When the offense continually turns the ball over in plus territory (or punts from their own endzone), as ND 07 offense did repeatedly, it makes for a shorter march for opposition. We gave up lots of short scores early in the game. Throughout the season we were outscored in the first quarter by a combined total of 80-31… let that sink in. We played from behind in almost every game. THis meant our Offense had to be aggressive, going for high risk/high reward plays. This lead to more turnovers, etc. The other team, conversely, was generally playing with a lead, which meant that they had very little pressure to move the ball. Knowing fully the extent of our offensive futility meant that they could happily run the ball three times, punt away, and still be confident that they would have the ball back shortly.
I think those defenses are a classic case of being “paper tigers.” Their stats look good mainly as a result of factors that were out of their control (things like coaching philosophy and offensive turn overs resulting in short-field scoring opportunities) rather than reflecting a serious assembly of talent.
Proof of this can be found in the fact that we still gave up almost 29 points a game. No one would consider that a respectable total.
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By The Biscuit June 30, 2010 - 12:57 pm
all good points, and i agree. i definitely try to caveat these posts to clarify that this isn’t definitive, but directional (hence the: this doesnt take note that this into account talent shifts, etc). there are definitely cross-unit correlations, but i just wanted to generally compare Weis to Kelly to see what we can expect.
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By dave parks June 30, 2010 - 9:51 pm
The most revealing stat is point differential. If Kelly can get us to a 13 point diff, we will win 10 games and go to the BCS. All this wasted talk on a running game or a stout defense is interesting but the most precise marker is outscoring your opponents by a statistically significant amount to warrant double digit wins. How you get there is debatable but beating the other team by a significant margin guarantees success.
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By dave parks June 30, 2010 - 10:00 pm
To expound on my above point, the probability of winning a game when leading the 4th quarter is significantly high (like 85% or greater). Therefore, what ultimately determines how well a team performs is the ability to lead with roughly 20 minutes remaining in the game. When you are ahead, your options increase exponentially and it’s diametric for the team behind. The larger your lead in the 3rd quarter, the greater your probability of winning and thus the greater margin of victory (MOV).
Get the lead and control the outcomes…
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By Brad July 1, 2010 - 7:10 am
Very nice post. First time posting here for me (I was a longtime poster on BGS pre-Diaspora). I think that the biggest statement that this data shows is that Kelly can has put together defenses every bit as good (and better) than Weis did, and all this at CMU and Cincy, with far inferior talent. If he can do that there, what can he accomplish with ND’s talent?
Another great point was the big plays Kelly’s Ds seem to make. Looking back through the years, his D’s seem to have a penchant for making tackles for loss, sacks, etc. as you pointed out.
In the last 3 seasons, despite the switch to a 3-4 Kelly’s Cincy D’s were 8th, 5th, and 6th in sacks. In tackles for loss, they were 4th, 14th, and 20th. Big plays seem to be the name of the game.
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By domer_mq July 2, 2010 - 3:06 pm
Thanks for coming by and joining in the conversation to you and all other BGS refugees.
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By The Biscuit July 2, 2010 - 4:10 pm
this is nice. dig the new commenting format.
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By E-Man July 1, 2010 - 11:19 am
Sorry, you can paint all the rosy(ier) pictures you want now in the off-season with any sort of statistics you want to unearth, but I’m still in Missouri mode. Kelly & Co need to “Show Me”. I’m betting Tenuta had a lot of great statistics leading in to his ND tenure… look where that ended up. Anyone remember Davie and “The Wrecking Crew” pre-ND hype? Aside from the 2002 team which benefited Ty, did any of that pre-promise mature into anything?
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By Otorp87 July 1, 2010 - 11:58 am
What would be interesting would be to know number of possessions per game. With Kelly’s approach to offense, I would not be surprised to see more possessions by Kelly’s opponents.
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By Brad July 1, 2010 - 12:48 pm
I don’t know about “possessions per game”, but its a well known fact that Kelly’s teams have been in the Bottom 10 in terms of overall time of possession.
As far as what E-Man says, I think that all ND fans feel pretty much the same way in terms of the “Show Me” attitude. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t get excited as fans and hope for the best. I like the DCs upbringing under Hayden Fry, and the time he spent with Al Groh speaks volumes as well. Regardless of what you can say, those are two damn fine defensive coaches you are talking about.
I don’t need a lights out D for me to be happy. After all the crappy D play we’ve become used to over the years, I would just like to see some sound tackling, strong pursuit, control of the LOS, and overall disciplined, good fundamental play. If we can get that, I don’t care where we rank, cause that will take care of itself.
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By The Biscuit July 1, 2010 - 12:59 pm
E-man, I agree. It’s all about show-me. But in the off-season, we try to do what we can to frame things – get a feel from stats, reports, whatever, about what to expect. Because just sitting and waiting for Kelly to show us is just no fun. But of course, all this will be shown on the field come Fall.
Brad, welcome and thanks for commenting. Appreciate it, and the thoughtful comments. I think if we rank Top 40 in D, with a typical Kelly O, we get to 10 wins.
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By Brad July 2, 2010 - 6:36 am
Interesting quote from Kelly.
http://www.mlive.com/sports/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/07/brian_kelly_on_the_huge_show_f.html
Interesting that he notes he likes the Oline and RBs, but that this team does not seem as explosive on the perimeter as the teams he’s used to.
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By Brendan July 2, 2010 - 1:33 pm
Mark May on ESPN the other day: “I can’t believe I’m saying this but I think Brian Kelly gets Notre Dame to 10 wins this year.”
Are we in a parallel universe or something?
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By Brad July 6, 2010 - 6:50 am
Soon, Jimmy Johnson will be hired as an assistant coach.
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By miked9888 July 3, 2010 - 9:25 am
What does not come in to play is having TWO D
coordinators on the same team… How would
C( )W fit in on a team with TWO O coordinators.? Watch the Navada game and the big thing was how charles was going to be with the offence when the D was on the field? Seems to me that all fall camp he was with the O and not being the Head coach, what kind of dysfunction was really happening on the D staff between CB and Tet.. Compare Kelly’s staff ALL being on the same page, ALL know were they belong on the team..
Hey biscuit would like to see an post on the Talent to Opponent difference for each stop for Kelly..
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By The Biscuit July 3, 2010 - 5:19 pm
mike, good suggestion. i’ll try to whip something up before the season starts.
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By GB July 7, 2010 - 4:16 pm
The Biscuit
Another suggestion would be to compare and rank the talent of all ND opponents at each position.
Thanks
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By The Biscuit July 7, 2010 - 4:54 pm
i have a Youth Manifesto post underway looking at age/experience vs our competitors. I did it over the last few years when we were super-young (even last year we were younger than pretty much everyone else on our schedule).
Once i get through age/experience, i’ll take a look at talent.
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