Contrary to popular belief, MSU and Mizzou were, statistically, a better pair of defenses than UF and Ole Miss last year. That’s the case whether you look at scoring defense, passing defense, total defense, or even 3rd down percentage. Ole Miss and Florida might have been better teams, but they did not play better defense.

Meanwhile, we had better QB production against the two better defenses. 56/94 (60%) against MSU/Mizzou, 48/87 (55%) against UF/Ole Miss. 8.24 yards/att against MSU/Mizzou, 7.76 yards/att against UF/Ole Miss. 49% passing success rate against MSU/Mizzou, 43% passing success rate against UF/Ole Miss.

We also had better overall offensive production against the two better defenses - 0.447 points per play and 5.95 yards per play against MSU/Mizzou, and 0.422 points per play and 5.62 yards per play against UF/Ole Miss.

How much did the staff ask each QB to do? Against MSU and Mizzou, 86% of our offensive production came from the passing game. Against UF and Ole Miss, only 67% of our offensive production came from the passing game.

The passing charts really tell the story of how differently the staff called games between Brennan and Johnson. Prior to this year’s MSU game (so in 5 starts), Max Johnson had not attempted a single pass >20 yards over the middle of the field. In his 3 starts last year, Brennan was 6/7 for 230 yards and 3 TD’s on passes >20 yards over the middle of the field.

TL;DR: Brennan actually started against better defenses (excluding Vandy, which was actually on par with Ole Miss defensively last year anyway) and still had more production - despite being asked to carry a much larger load. If our defense hadn’t given up over 600 ypg (against two teams that averaged 371 ypg on the year) in his two starts we would have won both games handily, and the narrative would be completely different.