I decided to look a little further into the per possession numbers in the previous post. They provide a good picture, but I think it would be even more accurate to control for quality of opponent. Everybody did not play an equal schedule. For example, FSU’s defense did not face the conference’s 1st, 3rd, 5th or 6th best offenses. FSU’s defense compiled its stats against all 6 offenses in the bottom half of the conference, plus only 2 of the top 6. Meanwhile Maryland played the exact same schedule, except they did not face Duke (9th) or Maryland (11th), but did play FSU (1st) and GT (3rd). So maybe a comparison of absolute stats is not as accurate as it could be. Here is a look at how each offense and defense performed, compared to the averages gained or allowed by their opponents. We will start with the offenses.
Points Per Possession - Offense
|
Offense
|
Points Per Possession Scored
|
Average Points Per Poss. Allowed by Defenses Faced
|
Difference
|
|
FSU
|
2.6517
|
2.19
|
0.461
|
|
Clemson
|
2.5175
|
2.06
|
0.457
|
|
Miami
|
2.6173
|
2.17
|
0.447
|
|
GT
|
2.5301
|
2.14
|
0.390
|
|
VT
|
2.2970
|
2.15
|
0.147
|
|
UNC
|
2.2245
|
2.10
|
0.125
|
|
Wake
|
2.2188
|
2.10
|
0.119
|
|
NC St
|
1.8317
|
2.11
|
-0.278
|
|
Duke
|
1.7143
|
2.02
|
-0.306
|
|
Maryland
|
1.5758
|
1.98
|
-0.404
|
|
UVA
|
1.6344
|
2.17
|
-0.536
|
|
BC
|
1.4666
|
2.12
|
-0.653
|
So you can see there is some movement. Clemson jumps up from 4th to 2nd. GT is now 4th, however we are closer to first than we were before. In fact we are closer to 1st than we are to 5th, by a long shot. Basically, the conference’s top 4 offenses were all similar, and quite a bit better than the rest.
Here is the same data charted by average yards per possession, rather than points. This chart will remove some of the special teams bias (some teams start with better field position, some teams make a higher percentage of FG’s - so the special teams has some influence over average points per possession. Only the offense gains yards though...)
|
Offense
|
Yards Per Possession Gained
|
Average Yards Per Poss. Allowed by Defenses Faced
|
Difference
|
|
Miami
|
38.37
|
33.37
|
5
|
|
GT
|
37.76
|
33.20
|
4.56
|
|
Clemson
|
35.15
|
32.08
|
3.07
|
|
VT
|
36.48
|
33.82
|
2.66
|
|
FSU
|
35.38
|
34.14
|
1.24
|
|
Wake
|
31.33
|
31.91
|
-0.58
|
|
Maryland
|
31.72
|
32.31
|
-0.59
|
|
UVA
|
32.65
|
33.40
|
-0.75
|
|
UNC
|
32.38
|
33.44
|
-1.06
|
|
Duke
|
30.91
|
33.11
|
-2.2
|
|
NC St
|
26.89
|
32.63
|
-5.74
|
|
BC
|
26.04
|
33.18
|
-7.14
|
Not a big change, but this does suggest that Miami and GT might have had better pure offenses than FSU and Clemson, while FSU and Clemson had better combinations of defense and special teams (as just one example). At any rate, GT was 2nd and 4th in these two, very near the top in both categories, and well above the conference average.
Now, on to the defense.
|
Defense
|
Points Allowed Per Possession
|
Average Points Per Poss. Scored by Offenses Faced
|
Difference
|
|
FSU
|
1.51
|
1.95
|
0.44
|
|
UVA
|
1.79
|
2.18
|
0.39
|
|
NC St
|
1.74
|
2.10
|
0.36
|
|
VT
|
1.82
|
2.16
|
0.34
|
|
Clemson
|
1.87
|
2.12
|
0.25
|
|
BC
|
2.12
|
2.18
|
0.06
|
|
UNC
|
2.11
|
2.17
|
0.06
|
|
Miami
|
2.14
|
2.01
|
-0.13
|
|
Wake
|
2.25
|
2.03
|
-0.22
|
|
GT
|
2.39
|
2.05
|
-0.34
|
|
Duke
|
2.80
|
2.21
|
-0.59
|
|
Maryland
|
2.82
|
2.18
|
-0.64
|
Again you see some slight changes. GT is about the same as before on this one. Still really bad. FSU is still the best but the margin is substantially smaller. UVA and NC State were underrated defenses last year. Clemson falls off a little bit as well. In the previous post, I insinuated that Clemson’s offense and defense were about equal last year. Maybe not. When you control for quality of opponents faced, it appears Clemson’s offense is better than its defense by a decent margin.
|
Defense
|
Yards Per Possession Allowed
|
Average Yards Per Poss. Gained by Offenses Faced
|
Difference
|
|
NC St
|
26.01
|
32.80
|
6.79
|
|
FSU
|
26.87
|
31.63
|
4.76
|
|
Clemson
|
29.32
|
32.72
|
3.4
|
|
UVA
|
31.49
|
33.74
|
2.25
|
|
UNC
|
30.47
|
32.69
|
2.22
|
|
VT
|
31.25
|
33.30
|
2.05
|
|
BC
|
34.30
|
33.28
|
-1.02
|
|
GT
|
35.53
|
33.07
|
-2.46
|
|
Wake
|
34.94
|
31.87
|
-3.07
|
|
Duke
|
38.94
|
33.80
|
-5.14
|
|
Maryland
|
38.09
|
32.95
|
-5.14
|
|
Miami
|
40.01
|
32.91
|
-7.1
|
Again NC State’s defense shows very well. They jump up and now have a significant margin over FSU, indicating to me that NC State’s special teams were not as good as FSU’s (probably). Miami is absolutely atrocious on this stat, somewhat surprisingly. And how about GT? We move up to 8th place, still bad, but not nearly as bad as before. Suggesting again that our special teams really hurt us. When you isolate the defense’s performance as much as possible, we get a little bit better relative to everybody else (and this is also true for the offense).
So, our offense is very good, our defense is bad, and apparently our special teams do not help us much. Not that this is exactly news, but just so everybody can see exactly the extent of what is going on. Here’s hoping we see some improvement to the defense and special teams Monday night...
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