Defensive Statistics

[newenglandhusker]

Does anyone know of a site that lists defensive stats beyond 2001? I'm trying to get a feel for previous Husker defenses, of course, but also previous Arizona Wildcat defenses. Seems everyone on goazcats.com notes the Arizona defenses from 1992-1998 as the greatest defenses in the history of the sport. They also noted in one of their threads the USC defenses of '06 and '07 were world-beaters and Nebraska this year is a run-of-the-mill one, which doesn't seem to be the case when you look at statistics.

[huzkerbob]

Hogwash! The Cats weren't even the best D in the state of AZ during that stretch, ASU was.

[newenglandhusker]

Hogwash! The Cats weren't even the best D in the state of AZ during that stretch, ASU was.

They think because they had Tedy Bruschi they were the greatest thing since sliced bread. Me? I wasn't even cognizant of anything aside from Nebraska at that point, so I don't remember. I just wanted to see if there was anything to back that up stat-wise.

 

Although if it turns out the defense of theirs wasn't that great then comparatively I suppose I shouldn't bother taking it to them. I showed the stats from the USC defenses listed above and their retorts were "USC's OOC was better" (viable comment) and "the offenses USC faced were better" (I haven't delved that far into it).

[newenglandhusker]

Hahaha. Almost simultaneously as I put up this thread there was a poster on the AZ site that listed the following stats:

 

1991-25.92 ppg allowed

1992-9.83 ppg allowed

1993-13.42 ppg allowed

1994-15.83 ppg allowed

1995-18.09 ppg allowed

1996-25.45 ppg allowed

1997-26.00 ppg allowed

1998-18.15 ppg allowed

____________________

 

total average-19.76 ppg allowed

[Nexus]

Try this one on them. This is a chart of our 10 best Defenses since 1990.

 

The chart using the same Top 10 total defensive performances since 1990--the measure we used initially--is below, this time with the total number of plays each defense faced. Using that, you can see Nebraska's plays and yards per field goal (used three points rather than one because an offense never scores less than a field goal).

 

 

The results aren't very close given the sheer number of plays the Nebraska defense faced this season. On average, the Blackshirts forced teams to go 18.58 plays and 75.8 yards for every three points scored. How often do you see an 18 play drive? And that's just for a field goal. Touchdowns required over 36 plays on average. Just as a basis for comparison, Boise State--the top scoring offense in the country this season--scored three points every 4.67 plays. Houston--the top total offense in the nation--scored three points for every 39.68 yards gained.

[MNBIGRED]

Try this one on them. This is a chart of our 10 best Defenses since 1990.

 

The chart using the same Top 10 total defensive performances since 1990--the measure we used initially--is below, this time with the total number of plays each defense faced. Using that, you can see Nebraska's plays and yards per field goal (used three points rather than one because an offense never scores less than a field goal).

 

 

The results aren't very close given the sheer number of plays the Nebraska defense faced this season. On average, the Blackshirts forced teams to go 18.58 plays and 75.8 yards for every three points scored. How often do you see an 18 play drive? And that's just for a field goal. Touchdowns required over 36 plays on average. Just as a basis for comparison, Boise State--the top scoring offense in the country this season--scored three points every 4.67 plays. Houston--the top total offense in the nation--scored three points for every 39.68 yards gained.

I really really really wish we had an offense this year....

[REDSTEEL]

The problem with some of the defensive stats in the 90's Nebraska had a lot of backups playing when the game was decided.

[Nexus]

Here you go. I compiled it from Huskerpedia.

 

1990 - 13.4 ppg

1991 - 18.9 ppg

1992 - 15.6 ppg

1993 - 16.0 ppg

1994 - 12.1 ppg

1995 - 13.6 ppg

1996 - 12.8 ppg

1997 - 16.4 ppg

1998 - 15.2 ppg

1999 - 12.5 ppg

 

Total - 14.65 ppg

[HuskerfaninOkieland]

You can also go here

 

NCAA Stats

 

These seem to only go back 10 years or so, so they may not be useful

[newenglandhusker]

You can also go here

 

NCAA Stats

 

These seem to only go back 10 years or so, so they may not be useful

I've already used that to compile the following:

 

-------Scoring---Rushing----Passing----Total

09 NU 2 (11.2)--11 (95.5)--25 (189)---9 (284.5)

07 SC 2 (16.0)--4 (84.2)---9 (189)----2 (273.2)

06 SC 11 (15.2)-13 (91.1)--64 (204.8)-20 (295.9)

 

AND

 

All of those comments are well and good, especially the OOC schedule one. We historically have had ADs that liked to schedule cupcake teams with maybe 1 viable game each year. I know the OOC for last year, this year and the next year have been pretty well set from the last AD and they are, aside from one team each year, laughable at best. USC's OOC in 2007 included such powerhouses as Idaho, Nebraska (), Notre Dame and Illinois. Those teams may have more name recognition than the OOC for Nebraska but they were all equally atrocious that year. National Rank is listed first ( ), then points/yardage and finally output against the target D in [ ]. So, discounting OOC the following stats can be found from NCAA.com:

 

2009 Nebraska Conference Opponents

Scoring O: (56) 28.4 [12]

Total O: (51) 391 [284]

Passing O: (37) 261.6 [198]

Rushing O: (79) 129.4 [86]

 

2007 USC Conference Opponents

Scoring O: (59) 28.1 [17]

Total O: (62) 390.5 [252]

Passing O: (57) 236.4 [166]

Rushing O: (62) 154.1 [86]

 

2006 USC Conf Opponents

Scoring O: (59) 23.7

Total O: (57) 343.5

Passing O: (50) 213.7

Rushing O: (64) 129.8

 

I used averages in all those numbers. Interestingly enough medians skew the results in favor of Nebraska moreso. I didn't do output for USC '06 due to a significantly lower offensive output of PAC-10 teams that year for scoring. 2 of the 4 categories are completely a wash and the other two are almost identically skewed to favor either, as should be expected. Nebraska gave up more passing and thus more total yards than USC in '07, however was much better at holding offenses to actually scoring less. Also what is interesting is, at least from the perspective of scoring defense, it seems each team's OOC schedule held the same weight, i.e. USC's scoring defense for the entire year was 16 ppg while Nebraska's was 11.

 

Yes, I have too much time on my hands. I also am not trying to prognosticate the outcome of the game. I know you are all sick of hearing about Ndamukong Suh and how "Nebraska's defense is the greatest thing since sliced bread." I don't think I'm going to go into an analysis of the stats of the defenses faced throughout the year, either, because that'd take me a little more time, partly because I just ate some beef stew and partly because I'm going to finish reading the paper here in a minute. I thought this warranted a little more attention because of those two comments and also the other thread about the Desert Swarm being >>>>>>> 2009 Nebraska D. I would love to dig up those stats but the most I could back to on NCAA.com was 1998.

[newenglandhusker]

Of course, there is already someone on there who has said

And Arizona played against the best offenses in the country in the Pac-10 while Nebraska played in the Big 8 and the early Big 12 which was awful. Believe me, I saw those Nebraska defenses firsthand and they were no comparison to the '92-'94 Cats.

 

I wonder if it is even worth my time (aside from gaining the knowledge myself) to post this stuff on there. Stats never tell the whole story but they can give you a generally good indicator of a team's overall performance in certain areas.

[BlackShirt1340]

Of course, there is already someone on there who has said

And Arizona played against the best offenses in the country in the Pac-10 while Nebraska played in the Big 8 and the early Big 12 which was awful. Believe me, I saw those Nebraska defenses firsthand and they were no comparison to the '92-'94 Cats.

 

I wonder if it is even worth my time (aside from gaining the knowledge myself) to post this stuff on there. Stats never tell the whole story but they can give you a generally good indicator of a team's overall performance in certain areas.

The Wildcat fans are your typical "live under a rock" fans. They don't care about their team until there is a big game (most, that is). They won't give respect where respect is due because they believe that one good season deems their team the best team of all time, even though they have no National Titles to show for it. I, personally, could give a damn if they had better defenses then us in the 90s.... who has 3 National Titles and who doesn't?

 

Exactly.

[Nexus]

Of course, there is already someone on there who has said

And Arizona played against the best offenses in the country in the Pac-10 while Nebraska played in the Big 8 and the early Big 12 which was awful. Believe me, I saw those Nebraska defenses firsthand and they were no comparison to the '92-'94 Cats.

 

I wonder if it is even worth my time (aside from gaining the knowledge myself) to post this stuff on there. Stats never tell the whole story but they can give you a generally good indicator of a team's overall performance in certain areas.

 

Tell them that our defense was good enough to get us into the NC game in '93 and won it in '94. At least we had something to show for it.

[newenglandhusker]

Of course, there is already someone on there who has said

And Arizona played against the best offenses in the country in the Pac-10 while Nebraska played in the Big 8 and the early Big 12 which was awful. Believe me, I saw those Nebraska defenses firsthand and they were no comparison to the '92-'94 Cats.

I wonder if it is even worth my time (aside from gaining the knowledge myself) to post this stuff on there. Stats never tell the whole story but they can give you a generally good indicator of a team's overall performance in certain areas.

Tell them that our defense was good enough to get us into the NC game in '93 and won it in '94. At least we had something to show for it.

That's a good point. One guy was arguing how Nebraska's defense had nothing to do with our success with NCs in the 90s. Funny enough, he supposedly "went to school here." I don't think they'd be able to comprehend that after the 1992 season TO and CB went to FSU to learn what made their defenses tick, then the next year we were playing them in the NC!

[newenglandhusker]

They also have a full on erection for USC, too.