Tracking Odd-Front Defenses: Week 1 Results

After yesterday's Navy-Maryland game, most of the odd-front teams we are tracking this season have completed their opening week games (Louisiana-Monroe's opener is next weekend), and it is time to take a look at the results. I have separated the results into two sections, 3-4 teams and 33 Stack teams, then we'll look at the combined results for all odd-front defenses.

3-4 Defenses

33 Stack Defenses

The results here seem to flow all over the map, with some differences being accounted for by competition (Michigan, BYU, Notre Dame, and SMU all played BCS opponents, Tulsa played a conference opponent), and some being accounted for by inexperience and the system they were operating against (Texas Tech's first game in the 3-4 was against SMU's run-n-shoot offense). What is interesting to note is no 3-4 teams were able to pitch a shutout, while two 33 Stack teams (San Diego State, West Virginia) were able to accomplish this feat. The teams running a 3-4 defense gave up a total of 1579 rushing yards, or an average of 113 yards per game. These numbers were inflated somewhat by Georgia Tech, Army, Navy, and Houston, all of whom gave up more than 150 yards rushing. Army and Navy both gave up 250+ yards rushing in their games. The 3-4 defenses gave up a total of 2228 passing yards, or an average of 159 passing yards per game, which is certainly stellar. These stats are compressed downward by the performances of Army (31 yds) and Navy (11 yds), who gave up most of their yardage on the ground. The teams combined to give up 231 points, or 16.5 points per game. Giving up an average of 272 yards per game total offense and 16.5 points isn't too shabby.

When looking at the 33 Stack teams, we are looking at a smaller sample. Since only 5 teams in D-IA run the Stack as their base defense, we're talking about roughly 4% of all teams in D-IA. The Stack teams gave up 444 total yards rushing, or an average of 111 rushing yards per game, and 794 yds passing, or an average of 198.5 ypg. The Stack teams gave up a total of 61 points, which averages out to only 15.25 points per game, but that number is skewed by two shutouts and the 51 points Tulsa gave up in their conference loss to East Carolina. The Stack teams gave up an average of 309.5 yds total offense, but that number is inflated by the 538 yds Tulsa surrendered to the Pirates.

For all odd-front defenses, that is a total of 2023 rushing yards given up  (average of 112.4 ypg per team), 3022 passing yards given up (167.9 ypg per team), an average of 280 ypg total offense, and 292 points given up (average of 16.2 ppg per team); these average numbers range from solid to good, but not spectacular.

Overall, we're seeing some good results from these odd-front defenses, but we have to remember that we only have one game to base this on so far this season, and we'll know more once we have more games to work with, and can begin comparing them to team performances from last year.