Bob Diaco- DC Analysis

[Husker Psycho]

So now that it's official I did a little digging to figure out what we are working with in Bobby D. I have to be honest I was very whelmed by his hire, and the initial info on this board did nothing but support that sentiment. Below is the research I did to see how well his defense performed and how many high profile recruits he brought in each year. Please note that "high profile" means I only counted 4* and up, and I only attributed defensive recruits to him assuming that he was at-least involved in each players recruiting process. The numbers associated with these stats are national rankings for that season.

Also of note is that I have included the teams Time of Possession (TOP) for each season which serves as a leveler of sorts when looking at the defenses rankings. Obviously a team with a low TOP ranking will have their defensive stats suffer as a result of opponent offenses having more chances.

• 2009- Cincinnati - 67th in Total Defense, 44th in Scoring Defense, 120th in TOP - Two 4* Recruits
• 2010- Notre Dame - 50th in Total Defense, 23rd in Scoring Defense, 105th in TOP - One 4* Recruit
• 2011- Notre Dame - 30th in Total Defense, 24th in Scoring Defense, 59th in TOP - Two 5* Recruits, Four 4* Recruits
• 2012- Notre Dame - 7th in Total Defense, 2nd in Scoring Defense, 23rd in TOP - Four 4* Recruits
• 2013- Notre Dame - 31st in Total Defense, 27th in Scoring Defense, 84th in TOP - Two 5* Recruits, Four 4* Recruits

LAblackshirt...

Thanks for taking the time to do that research.

All very important in understanding the coach we hired.

Great work. Very interesting.

 

[BigRedBuster]

So, if I understand the info in the original post correctly, 2009 was before Diaco went to Norte dame and 2010 is his first season there.

If true, I see a big jump in scoring defense and an overall improvement every year till a step back in 2013.

 

[LAblackshirt]

This line of defense has no weight. The 2 years prior to him coming to ND were heavy offensive classes. He has to work with he has, as talent got better so did his defense. Remember he was there to build these recruiting classes.

<p>

So now that it's official I did a little digging to figure out what we are working with in Bobby D. I have to be honest I was very whelmed by his hire, and the initial info on this board did nothing but support that sentiment. Below is the research I did to see how well his defense performed and how many high profile recruits he brought in each year. Please note that "high profile" means I only counted 4* and up, and I only attributed defensive recruits to him assuming that he was at-least involved in each players recruiting process. The numbers associated with these stats are national rankings for that season.

Also of note is that I have included the teams Time of Possession (TOP) for each season which serves as a leveler of sorts when looking at the defenses rankings. Obviously a team with a low TOP ranking will have their defensive stats suffer as a result of opponent offenses having more chances.

• 2009- Cincinnati - 67th in Total Defense, 44th in Scoring Defense, 120th in TOP - Two 4* Recruits
• 2010- Notre Dame - 50th in Total Defense, 23rd in Scoring Defense, 105th in TOP - One 4* Recruit
• 2011- Notre Dame - 30th in Total Defense, 24th in Scoring Defense, 59th in TOP - Two 5* Recruits, Four 4* Recruits
• 2012- Notre Dame - 7th in Total Defense, 23rd in Scoring Defense, 23rd in TOP - Four 4* Recruits
• 2013- Notre Dame - 31st in Total Defense, 27th in Scoring Defense, 84th in TOP - Two 5* Recruits, Four 4* Recruits

Ppg they were ranked 2nd in 2012

Considering all the number crunchers out there and all the stats that are kept so maticulously by the sports world and football in particular, it would seem like there would already be some very detailed data and 'factors' in place to determine things like this. These are excellent numbers in my view. I am wondering if adding some data on starting field position for the opponent's offense and average number of plays per opponent's possession, ending field position, number of first downs given up per possession, turnover margin, number of big plays yielded, etc could also be incorporated into a meaningful matrix to yield a 'defensive performance index' or something of the sort?

One might find that when taking into account the circumstances, some defensive success may be holding the opponent to just a field goal after taking the field to defend when they get to start in your own red zone. Points given up are an indicator over a long season but there ought be consensus that if you own team's offense is poor and turns the ball over too frequently or punts after a bunch of 3 and outs, the defense will not have a chance to produce superior gross numbers.

For example, I feel Nebraska's offense this year punted far too often after only a few plays and poor punts resulted in poor field position for our defense, putting us in a tough spot. Not defending Banker by this but am feeling that our defensive numbers might have been better had we had better offensive line push. Our pass rush was NOT good and we yielded too many big plays and gave up critical first downs when we managed to get our opponents in third and longs all too often. Admittedly there are so many factors that come into play but it would seem a system could be designed to look at down and distance, game circumstances, time of possession, whether ahead or behind, time remaining, etc etc etc.

Not being critical here - just asking if anyone is aware of any of this type of 'deep' statistical analysis being done and if not, why not? Seems quite logical to me.

Yeah, TOP is often times an element of great defenses. It is definitely not the best indicator though. Another great statistic for more in depth defensive performance analysis is the "Team Efficiency" that ESPN does. "Team efficiencies are based on the point contributions of each unit to the team's scoring margin, on a per-play basis. The values are adjusted for strength of schedule and down-weighted for "garbage time" (based on win probability). The scale goes from 0 to 100; higher numbers are better and the average is roughly 50 for all categories." - That's the description from ESPN. Here are the Defensive Efficiency rankings for Diaco at Cincy and Notre Dame.

2009- 56th

2010- 19th

2011- 23rd

2012- 10th

2013- 49th

 

[HuskerNation1]

I was neither overwhelmed or underwhelmed. I was just whelmed.

I like that word...lol. I feel the same way as you. I definitely want him to succeed and hope he can bring in some more defensive recruits these past few weeks, but I didn't see enough consistently in his results as a DC, and I was underwhelmed with his record as a head coach. But it's good to see Riley is willing to make a change for the better, AND willing to try a new defensive approach he has never done before.

 

[LAblackshirt]

Interestingly Enough the Football Outsiders have there own Efficiency Index rankings that are even more detailed than ESPN's. They include elements of the ESPN index but add in field position and other things. Here is a link to the description - http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/fei2009. These are Diaco's rankings as a DC:

2009- 14th

2010- 23rd

2011- 15th

2012- 10th

2013- 23rd

That's pretty damn good. That makes me feel a lot more optimistic.

 

[lo country]

Interestingly Enough the Football Outsiders have there own Efficiency Index rankings that are even more detailed than ESPN's. They include elements of the ESPN index but add in field position and other things. Here is a link to the description - http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/fei2009. These are Diaco's rankings as a DC:

2009- 14th

2010- 23rd

2011- 15th

2012- 10th

2013- 23rd

That's pretty damn good. That makes me feel a lot more optimistic.

I appreciate you doing all of these analytics. Do you have a comparison of NU? Be interesting to see our perception, vs statistical reality.

Regardless, those stats look pretty good. ND seems to have a pretty tough schedule every year as well.

 

[HuskermanMike]

We need to be well disciplined to run this defense and we need to play fast. I believe the one weakness of this defense will be the TE's being open across the middle in zone coverage, it looks to be solid against the run and big plays. I say this defense will be an upgrade and it will do a lot better against the better teams we play.

Another thing I want to see out of our defense is forcing turnovers, after the Wisconsin game when did we force a lot of turnovers? The first 8 games we were good and the last 5 we basically did nothing, it seemed on defense to cause turnovers. I want to see some press coverage as well because I am tired of our great secondary playing off of receivers which causes them to be timid at times. More turnovers, more aggressive defense and more key stops and less big plays are going to determine how great this defense will be.

 

[ColoradoHusk]

Interestingly Enough the Football Outsiders have there own Efficiency Index rankings that are even more detailed than ESPN's. They include elements of the ESPN index but add in field position and other things. Here is a link to the description - http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/fei2009. These are Diaco's rankings as a DC:

2009- 14th

2010- 23rd

2011- 15th

2012- 10th

2013- 23rd

That's pretty damn good. That makes me feel a lot more optimistic.

I appreciate you doing all of these analytics. Do you have a comparison of NU? Be interesting to see our perception, vs statistical reality.
Regardless, those stats look pretty good. ND seems to have a pretty tough schedule every year as well.

The Football Outsiders generally adjust their rankings to match the strength of schedule, but either way those numbers are pretty good for Diaco.

 

[LAblackshirt]

Interestingly Enough the Football Outsiders have there own Efficiency Index rankings that are even more detailed than ESPN's. They include elements of the ESPN index but add in field position and other things. Here is a link to the description - http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/fei2009. These are Diaco's rankings as a DC:

2009- 14th

2010- 23rd

2011- 15th

2012- 10th

2013- 23rd

That's pretty damn good. That makes me feel a lot more optimistic.

I appreciate you doing all of these analytics. Do you have a comparison of NU? Be interesting to see our perception, vs statistical reality.

Regardless, those stats look pretty good. ND seems to have a pretty tough schedule every year as well.

No problem, Diaco vs. Pelini

2009- 14th - 20th

2010- 23rd - 19th

2011- 15th - 31st

2012- 10th - 19th

2013- 23rd - 46th

At first when I saw Pelini's 2009 defense ranked 20th it made me second guess these rankings. Then I recalled going to the Oklahoma game that year and watching Suh time and time again make big plays to stop drives. They actually moved the ball somewhat against us, but when they got in scoring range Suh would force a pick, or sack Landry (they finished with 325 yards offense and 3 points). That was a great defense to be sure, but Suh was the centerpiece and made it look better than it was.

Banker this year was 59th for the record.

 

[Mavric]

CoachingSearch.com had a pretty extensive list of stats from his time as DC:

Obviously they were really good in 2012. Overall it's kind of a mixed bag.

Average ranking for each of those categories over those five years:

PPG - 24th

YPP - 33rd

YPR - 43rd

Comp% - 75th

3rdDwn - 47th

RZTD% - 37th

TFLs - 70th

So PPG is pretty good, Comp% and TFLs not very good. Kind of average on the rest.