re: Tired of the bend dont break Defense

After the Ohio state championship game I remember one of their offensive players saying that Pelini was a beast for the way our guys played

quote:

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Sacks Under Bo:
2006: 39
2007: 37
2008: 28

Sacks under Aranda:
2016:36
2017:39
2018:34
2019:37

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The QB pressure aspect may be overstated, but A) Pelini wasn’t the DC in 2008 and B) when comparing guys that coached at LSU a decade apart, maybe it makes more sense to look at rankings rather than raw stats..

Year: national rank (SEC rank)

Sacks:
2005: 5 (2)
2006: 7 (1)
2007: 29 (2)

2016: 42 (4)
2017: 18 (3)
2018: 49 (7)
2019: 30 (2)

Yards per play:
2005: 4 (1)
2006: 2 (1)
2007: 5 (1)

2016: 14 (3)
2017: 33 (4)
2018: 21 (2)
2019: 28 (7)

Points per game:
PPG is an awful stat to compare defenses, with overtime games, special teams/turnover scoring, etc.. points per play would be better but I don’t know of a very good database that goes back to 2005..
2005: 3 (2) (3 periods of OT)
2006: 4 (1) (1 period of OT)
2007: 17 (2) (6 periods of OT)

2016: 5 (2)
2017: 14 (4)
2018: 26 (7) (7 periods of OT)
2019: 31 (8)

Opp. completion %:
2005: 3 (1)
2006: 1 (1)
2007: 2 (2)

2016: 17 (2)
2017: 18 (2)
2018: 3 (1)
2019: 2 (2)

Opp. passer rating:
2005: 5 (2)
2006: 3 (1)
2007: 3 (1)

2016: 17 (4)
2017: 9 (3)
2018: 9 (2)
2019: 10 (4)

TL;DR, when you look at national and conference rankings, Pelini’s defenses were nothing short of fantastic by pretty much all metrics. And stats like yards per play, opp. QBR, etc. tell a story that goes beyond the time of possession argument.

You can’t just throw out stats with no context. The number of passing plays in a game has increased therefore the number of sacks should increase.