Whatever Happened to Defense in the SEC? Part 4

And now it is time for the gripping conclusion to my 4 part special on defense in the SEC. AND we find out once and for all, what happened to it, if anything.

First lets set the table with up to date SEC stats defensively and offensively. Teams are ranked by Total D or Total Offense and the Top 50 teams in scoring are highlighted.

Team	Points Allowed	Rank	Passing Allowed	Rank	Rushing Allowed	Rank	Total Defense	Rank
Florida	13	4	152	3	83.3	4	235.3	3
Alabama	11.3	2	191	21	87.2	7	278.2	8
South Carolina	22.7	39	202.7	29	142.8	44	345.5	23
LSU	22	34	196.3	24	152.5	56	348.9	29
Miss. State	23	42	220.5	51	144	46	364.5	41
Arkansas	27.6	72	221.4	53	146.3	49	367.7	44
Vanderbilt	26.5	64	221.5	54	168.5	75	390	58
Georgia	33.7	105	259.3	96	139.7	36	399	65
Ole Miss	27.8	74	212.3	41	186.7	91	399	65
Auburn	18.8	21	252.8	88	146.3	50	399.2	67
Tennessee	28	75	240.8	78	175.7	80	416.5	80
Missouri	23	42	293.2	113	126.2	25	419.3	83
Kentucky	29.3	86	224	60	213.3	108	437.3	95
Texas A&M	32	96	273.2	105	201.2	104	474.3	113
Team	Points	Rank	Passing	Rank	Rushing	Rank	Total Offense	Rank
Texas A&M	47.8	4	361.8	6	224.7	20	586.5	3
Georiga	37.5	27	311	19	206.3	34	517.3	11
Missouri	45.7	8	276.3	33	239.3	16	515.7	12
South Carolina	34.5	38	260.8	44	225.7	19	486.5	23
Auburn	34.3	40	187.2	103	287	7	474.2	28
LSU	41.4	15	271.6	37	194.1	43	465.7	34
Miss. State	30.5	58	243.2	61	214.3	26	457.5	36
Alabama	38.8	23	260.2	45	188.3	50	448.5	44
Ole Miss	29	71	258	49	175.5	61	433.5	55
Vanderbilt	33.7	43	272	35	153	80	425	57
Tennessee	31.7	51	164.2	111	211	29	375.2	87
Arkansas	23.3	94	154.6	113	216.3	24	370.9	91
Florida	21.8	102	189.3	101	178.5	58	367.8	93
Kentucky	20.3	103	201.5	94	150.8	83	352.3	101

The stats have changed as follows:

Average points scored by the SEC: 33.6

Average points allowed by the SEC: 24

Now in order to judge the SEC against the rest of the country I had to bring in most of the Top 25. I picked 15 teams that round out to roughly the Top 20 with the ranked SEC schools included and then I added Rutgers. Every conference had more than one representative except the AAC and I chose Rutgers because they have played the toughest schedule of any AAC team to date. I wanted to see how the rest of the country played against other Top 25 opponents and Rutgers was the only AAC team to have played not 1, but 2 Top 25 opponents. And to make sure I had a good enough sample size (since not all schools play Top 25 caliber opponents) I interpreted Top 25 opponents to mean any team that is currently ranked in the COACHES poll and any team that WAS ranked in the Coaches poll. 

So lets get some baseline stats on the rest of the country using my "Select 16".

Team	Points Allowed	Rank	Passing Allowed	Rank	Rushing Allowed	Rank	Total Defense	Rank
Louisville	7.3	1	161.2	5	68.3	2	229.5	2
Virginia Tech	15	7	165	7	91	12	256	4
Florida State	12	3	149	2	127.8	27	276.8	7
Miami	16	9	141.4	1	165.6	69	307	12
Oklahoma	16.8	12	172	11	137.7	33	308.8	13
Michigan	23.3	44	229.7	65	89.5	9	319.2	14
Ohio State	19.2	24	240	77	86.2	6	326.2	15
Oregon	13.8	6	201	27	137.7	34	338.7	18
Washington	19.8	25	182.2	16	162	67	344.2	20
Clemson	16.2	10	186.5	18	158.3	64	344.8	21
Texas Tech	17.3	15	231.7	66	113.2	17	344.8	21
Baylor	18	18	190.8	20	155.2	59	346	24
UCLA	18.2	19	206.8	35	141	40	347.8	27
Oklahoma St.	20	26	245.4	82	115.8	18	361.2	38
Stanford	22.2	36	256.3	93	123.3	24	379.7	48
Rutgers	27	68	306.8	116	84	5	390.8	59
Team	Points	Rank	Passing	Rank	Rushing	Rank	Total Offense	Rank
Baylor	63.4	1	414.2	2	301.2	4	715.4	1
Oregon	56.8	2	306.5	21	374	3	630.5	2
Florida State	53.6	3	320.8	18	228.2	17	549	4
UCLA	45.8	7	323.6	17	223.4	21	547	5
Texas Tech	41.8	13	408.8	3	135.2	97	544	6
Washington	35.2	35	278.8	30	248	15	526.8	8
Clemson	40.8	17	342	10	172.5	65	514.5	13
Louisville	41	16	329.2	14	176.2	59	505.3	16
Ohio State	46.8	6	212.2	78	280.7	11	492.8	19
Miami	45.2	9	274.8	34	213.8	28	488.6	21
Oklahoma St	38	25	300.4	22	144.8	87	445.2	49
Oklahoma	29.3	67	196.5	98	226.7	18	423.5	59
Stanford	36.2	31	205.2	89	199	42	404.2	70
Michigan	39	22	222.5	72	173.2	63	395.7	74
Rutgers	35	36	240.7	63	151.7	82	392.3	77
Virginia Tech	23.1	96	210.9	81	117.6	104	328.4	111

Here is the breakdown:

Average points scored: 41.9

Average points allowed: 17.6

It's immediately clear that with Oregon and Baylor in the mix that the Select 16 have no problems scoring and are out-scoring the SEC by 8.3 points a game. And how about that defense?? Led by Louisville and Florida State the Select 16 are holding opponents to 6.4 points less a game than the SEC defenses. Does that mean that the SEC is slipping? Are they really not as good as the rest of the country? Lets dig a little deeper and see how those averages stand up when we ONLY look at Top 25 opponents against these Top 25 opponents. First here's just the SEC (teams are ranked by win/loss against the Top 25):

	Pts Scored Ty	Pts Allowed Ty	SEC Pts Scored	SEC Pts Allowed	Top 25 Pts Scored	Top 25 Pts Allowed	Top 25 Record
Alabama	38.8	11.3	40.7	16.3	35	10	1-0
LSU	41.4	22	38	24.3	37	27	1-0
Ole Miss	29	27.8	24.8	32.8	44	23	1-0
Florida	21.8	13	22.75	12.75	16	21	0-1
Miss. State	30.5	23	23	41.5	3	21	0-1
Tennessee	31.7	28	24	32.5	14	59	0-1
Kentucky	20.3	29.3	14	35.7	13	27	0-1
Georgia	37.5	33.7	36.25	35.75	35	38	0-1
Arkansas	23.3	27.6	16.7	42.3	0	0	-
Texas A&M	47.8	32	42.7	40	0	0	-
Missouri	45.7	23	46	27	0	0	-
South Carolina	34.5	22.7	38	25.3	0	0	-
Auburn	34.3	18.8	25	25.7	0	0	-
Vanderbilt	33.7	26.5	29.3	41.7	0	0	-

Now, technically the SEC has played 35 games with Top 25 opponents, BUT 29 of those games were SEC on SEC I felt including all those games again would be redundant so for the sake of this segment I reduced the SEC Top 25 opponents to those OUTSIDE of conference. 

The first thing that pops out is that the SEC East struggles against Top 25 outside of conference. Could be a BCS factor later on.

The second thing that pops out is the difference in the averages.

Average points scored by SEC against Top 25: 24.6

Average points allowed by SEC against Top 25: 28.3

That's a 9 point difference between the yearly SEC scoring average and the average against non-conference Top 25. And a 4.3 point difference on points allowed, going in the wrong direction. 

But when compared to conference play:

Average points scored by SEC teams in conference: 30.1

Average points allowed by SEC teams in conference: 31

We see that the SEC defenses are holding stronger outside of conference and are scoring between the yearly average and the non-conference Top 25 average.

Here's the Select 16:

	Pts Scored Ty	Pts Allowed Ty	Top 25 Pts Scored	Top 25 Pts Allowed	Top 25 Record
Ohio State	46.8	19.2	35.5	27	2-0
Stanford	36.2	22.2	36.5	28	2-0
Oregon	56.8	13.8	45	24	1-0
UCLA	45.8	18.2	41	21	1-0
Texas Tech	41.8	17.3	20	10	1-0
Clemson	40.8	16.2	38	35	1-0
Miami	45.2	16	21	16	1-0
Michigan	39	23.3	41	30	1-0
Oklahoma	29.3	16.8	25	24.7	2 - 1
Washington	35.2	19.8	30	27.3	1 - 2
Rutgers	35	27	10	24	0-1
Virginia Tech	23.1	15	10	35	0-1
Baylor	63.4	18	0	0	-
Florida State	53.6	12	0	0	-
Louisville	41	7.3	0	0	-
Oklahoma St	38	20	0	0	-

Here's the breakdown:

Average points scored against Top 25: 29.4

Average points allowed against Top 25: 25

What a difference an opponent makes! That's a 12.5 point drop off on the points scored average and a 7.4 point jump in the points allowed average. The SEC differences were only 9 in points scored, and 4.3 in points allowed. So yes, when the competition gets tougher, the stats are not as good, it's universal, but the drop off in the stats favors the SEC big time over our Select 16.

Now there are 2 arguments that can be made against the SEC here.

1. They are scoring 4.8 points less against Top 25 opponents than our Select 16 and they are giving up 3.3 points more. So is the SEC really playing better against quality opponents?

2. The Select 16 has a 13 win 5 loss record against Top 25 opponents while the SEC is merely 3-5...Isn't the SEC supposed to be dominating outside of conference?

I am taking the side that there is nothing wrong in the world of SEC defense on this and my rebuttal to both of these arguments is this: Tennessee played Oregon, Mississippi State played Oklahoma State, and Kentucky played Louisville. Take those 3 games out and the SEC is 3-2 with a legit loss by Florida and the last one being Georgia falling to Clemson which could have went either way. And the Select 16 are helped by the fact that the hardest Top 25 opponents Ohio State played and beat are Wisconsin and Northwestern, and Oklahoma played and beat TCU and Notre Dame whom are no longer ranked.

Now I am not saying that all is well in the SEC either because when you break down Top 50 offenses and defenses in scoring and total yards by conference this is what you get:

Scoring D: 8 B10 team are in the top 50

                7 SEC and 7 ACC teams each in the Top 50

                6 B12 and 6 Pac12 teams each

                4 AAC

Total D: 9 ACC teams in the top 50

             7 Pac12 teams

             6 SEC and 6 B10

             5 B12

             4 AAC

Scoring offense: 8 in the SEC, 8 B10, 8 Pac 12

                         5 AAC

                         4 B12 and 4 ACC

Total offense: 8 SEC teams in the top 50

                     7 Pac12

                     5 B10 and 5 ACC

                     4 B12

                     3 AAC

What this shows is there is definitely some offense being played in the SEC this year as half the conference is Top 50 in points and in yards. This obviously has led to fewer Top 50 SEC teams in total defense and in points allowed. However, the B10 can boast 8 teams in scoring offense and 8 teams in scoring defense. The Pac12 is looking good with 7 Top 50 yardage teams, 8 high scoring teams and still having good yardage defenses. But if you really want to know what happened to defense in the SEC, some of it may have moved to the ACC. 9 teams are in the Top 50 in total defense and they are tied with the SEC in Top 50 teams in scoring defense. Virginia Tech and Florida State lead the charge, but Miami and Clemson aren't too shabby. But the offenses aren't as good in the ACC from top to bottom as they are in the SEC. (Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, and UNC I'm looking at you.)

The bottom line for me is this: The SEC continues to beat up on itself because the teams are of a higher caliber which makes the numbers look somewhat worse than say an Ohio State team that hasn't played anybody all year. (That's how you have so many teams ranked in scoring and points allowed, the B10 is one big puff piece.) The offenses have gotten better in the SEC and it is a conference with a fairly large gap between the Good teams and the Bad Teams (looking at you Tennessee and Kentucky). We are quick to judge teams and conferences through-out the season and the knee-jerk reaction to the SEC this year is that the defenses are suffering. I don't see it. I see a highly competitive conference with highly competitive teams that know how to play. The offenses are starting to catch up and the in-conference play is the best in the country. By the end of the season I wouldn't be surprised if I had another 4 part special on "Whatever Happened to All Those Teams That Were Going to Challenge the SEC for the National Championship?"