An In-Depth Look Don Brown's 2014 BC Defense
So one of the main criticism's of Brown I've seen so far is this was his first good year at BC, and his other two years his defense's were mediocre to bad. Since 2013 was his first year, I decided to look at BC's 2014 and see how their defense did in those games.
So to begin, here's a quick overview of BC's 2014 season and results.
2014 BC: 7-6 (4-4)
Games allowing 10 points or less:
7 Points @ UMass (30-7 W)
10 Points vs Maine (40-10 W)
7 Points vs Syracuse (28-7 W)
Games allowing 20 points or less:
14 points @ NC State (30-14 W)
17 points vs Clemson (17-13 L)
17 points @ Wake Forest (23-17 W)
20 points @ FSU (20-17 L)
Games allowing less than 30 points:
24 points vs Colorado State (24-21 L)
Games allowing more than 30 points:
30 points vs Pitt (30-20 L)
31 points vs USC (37-31 W)
31 points @ VT (33-31 W)
38 points vs Louisville (38-19 L)
31 points vs Penn State (31-30 L) (bowl game)
-------------------------------------------------------
So, that's 3 games with 10 or less, 4 between 11-20 including both Clemson and FSU, 1 between 21-29, and 5 with 30 or above.
Looking more in depth at the games with more than 30 points:
---------------------------------------------------------
BC vs Pitt
In the second game of the season, BC gave up 30 points to ACC foe Pitt. They were gashed on the ground by James Conner, who ended up being ACC player of the year, for 214 yards on 36 carries. They held the Pitt QB to 111 yards passing yards and give up nearly 6 YPC, which you will see was huge outlier.
---------------------------------------------------------
BC vs USC
In the third game of the season, BC gave up 30 points to USC. Cody Kessler threw for 317 yards and 4 TDs on 7.7 YPA. USC scored 17 TDs in the first half. These were those drives:
6 play 38 yard TD drive
4 plays -1 yard 52 yard field goal
3 plays 49 yards TD drive.
So clearly BC's defense got no help from the offense/special teams on these scoring drives.
---------------------------------------------------------
BC vs VT
BC won this game 33-31 despite giving up 345 passing yards to Michael Brewer on 7.2 YPA. VT scored 21 points in the 4th quarter, but on all three TD drives VT converted on 4th down plays, including one drive where VT converted 2, one by a fake punt. So although this isn't a great result, it's not nearly as bad as first glance. Brewer was also picking apart OSU's secondary in the first game this year before injury.
---------------------------------------------------------
BC vs Louisville
This was BC's worst defensive scoring game of the year, allowing 38 points to Louisville. In this game, BC's QB threw 4 INTs. Louisville had scoring drives of:
6 play 36 yard 23 yard field goal off a pick
4 play 44 yard TD drive
1 play 19 yard TD drive off a blocked punt
3 play 27 yard TD drive off a pick
2 play 37 yard TD drive off a pick
So 24 points were a result of turnovers, and 34 points were drives of less than 45 yards. Once again, not a bad result by any means.
---------------------------------------------------------
BC vs Penn State
BC lost in OT to PSU in this game. They gave up 31 points but only 24 in regulation. So 24 in regulation isn't bad at all.
---------------------------------------------------------
So, looking at these results more in depth, we can see while BC wasn't a great defense in 2014, they were a good one that was hurt by their offense and special teams often. They only gave up more than 24 points 4 times in regulation all year, and in two of the games (USC and Louisville) you can place most of that blame on the offense and special teams.
The biggest reason BC struggled in 2014 was their secondary. It got gashed in games against USC, VT and PSU. However, as people have tweeted out, Don Brown's defensive philosophy relies on putting his CBs and secondary on islands and having them win one-on-one man battles. While they didn't do this in 2014, BC's secondary greatly improved this year and helped make their defense elite.
At Michigan, especially next year, this strategy should work great. With Lewis, Peppers, Stribling, Clark, Thomas and Hill next year, Brown will have the talent, experience and pedigree to implement this strategy and be successful next year.
In 2017 in beyond this may be more of a concern, but if Brown can make his system work in three years at BC, he should be able to the same at Michigan. Probably sooner considering the higher talent level he will have to work with. And the fact that BC improved every year shows he has the ability to coach up his players, so development shouldn't be too large of a concern either.
All in all, I think this is a great hire and am very much on board.
December 20th, 2015 at 8:13 PM ^
December 20th, 2015 at 8:38 PM ^
It's a classic "now let's see what this guy can do with grade-A talent" type hire. He could be fantastic, but at the very worst should be very good. I suspect recruits will like the hire too, which is half the battle.
December 20th, 2015 at 11:56 PM ^
Early commentary/tweets are very positive by 'croots!
December 20th, 2015 at 8:58 PM ^
December 20th, 2015 at 11:34 PM ^
It's clear that the 17td's were on the offense and specials. Any typos. Special typos. Yeah.
This defense has the potential to be special. The experienced and deep secondary will help to cover for the blitzes. The LB's will mostly be very young, but one thing that might help is the aggression. "Get the QB through this hole" is frankly a way to limit mistakes in coverage that youth/inexperience can expose.
This could be a fun defense!
December 20th, 2015 at 10:12 PM ^
If USC actually put up 17 TDs in one half against Brown, we would be in trouble lol
December 21st, 2015 at 10:44 AM ^
Where they playing BYU?
December 22nd, 2015 at 12:51 AM ^
...in Provo or Chestnut Hill would be my guess.
December 20th, 2015 at 11:49 PM ^
Good research. I believe perception is reality and the same "cheering" of the DC pick would be out there if it was Aranda for example. "One of the greatest young minds in the NCAA - UM got a home run!!"... "Just wait until he gets all those 4*s!" So I like to be a devils advocate to a degree.
I do wish I did a DCC for Brown because I would have loved to see the comments section of that DCC diary pre announcement. Anderson with his 1 elite year of 2 at Stanford was seen as meh by most and Brown is similar with 1 elite year of 3. I imagine I'd get a lot of "hasnt done it on a big stage...60 yrs old? I'll pass.... meh BC played 2 FCS teams this yr" comments.
It sounds like a philosophy similar to MSU without the press quartes strategy. Ceate havoc up front with DL and LB. Elite DB play is going to be at a premium as all phasers are set to stopping the run. Elite DL also important which is a good bet in 2016 ...but 2017 we need to reload again. In the Big 10 this is actually a good strategy as I have said with MSU for 3+ yrs because you don't have the array of NFL QBs / plug and play spread QB systems in P12 and B12 (although it looks like Maryland rutgers and PSU OC hires are going to make the east way more "spready"). It is also a good system for ACC which also lacks elite offenses / QBs outside Clemson and FSU most yrs - B10 and ACC defenses dominate NCAA top 25 defense lists most yrs because of this. (NCAA ranks D on nothing other than yds given up)
And yes 2016 should be fine with this system... we need to get some elite talent to reload for 2017 to not get hit. But MSU won this year without elite DBs because their front 7, and esp front 4, were great and they obv had a good QB to offset pts they gave up.
It is interesting such a lauded person (today at least) never was offered by a top 25-30 program job in all these yrs however - the coaching fraternity is a close knit group so "elite" DCs usually are found before age 60.
My hope is he is "risk taking, press coverage Gregg Mattison" who was considered a good - not great - DC. The bend dont break irks me. MSU is basically "break dont bend" - you have to beat them with big plays because they sell out and usually stuff you. Difficult to put a 10 play drive up on MSU. But when they get beat - they get beat bad. I'd be ok with that philosophy esp in a league lacking a lot of good QBs.
December 21st, 2015 at 12:30 AM ^
I think it's disingenuous to only look at the last 3 years at BC on such a superficial level. We don't know much about their depth chart or talent level those years and some situations are worse than others. Additionally, he had very good defenses at his previous stops at UConn and Maryland. And having a defense that by advanced metrics rivals Alabama, Michigan, Florida, and Clemson with the talent diferential is huge.
Aranda had pretty bad defenses at Hawaii, took over a good Wisconsin D and stayed good his first year before regressing the second and then returning to the level he started at.
You gave other candidates you mentioned slack because there's a ceiling to how good your defense can be at Utah St. But the same should be true for BC and he blew through that.
December 21st, 2015 at 12:46 AM ^
I didnt give slack at Utah State - both Aranda (which you skipped in your comment in Aranda's history btw hawaii and Wisconsin) and Orlando had top 10ish Ds at Utah State via FEI. Giving slack is saying well they finished 40th in FEI D but Mountain West - what do you expect.
Aranda has put together a very nice 4 consecutive yrs @ 2 spots.
December 21st, 2015 at 1:04 AM ^
I skipped it because it was 1 year, and he certainly improved the defnese at Utah St. but at Wisconsin he didn't improve the defense from the level Ash left it. By the criteria you are judging Brown, the 59 to OSU and 33rd ranked defense in 2014 should be a red flag.
December 21st, 2015 at 12:52 AM ^
"And having a defense that by advanced metrics rivals Alabama, Michigan, Florida, and Clemson with the talent diferential is huge."
What are your thoughts on Tony Gibson as a DC?
FEI D 2015
- West Virginia: #4
- B.C. #5
December 21st, 2015 at 1:12 AM ^
I never really looked at him due to the perception of him when he left Michigan but he certainly appears to be a quality DC based on the metrics. Scores against WVU look bad but you have to account for him playing Oklahoma, OSU, Baylor, and TCU. My biggest concern would be that there's only 2 years of data on him and I don't know how the WVU secondary is which is the position he coaches.
December 21st, 2015 at 8:10 PM ^
Defensive stats and efficiency ratings are valuable tools, but they're hardly a silver bullet for evaluating a coach's ability. Brown's supremo 2015 numbers show that his defense performed, and probably support the idea that his defense was sound and well prepared. I'd like ot see other information, for example how many young coaches he worked with who went on to be successful.
We should not immediately fear that he's a mediocre coach based solely on a couple mediocre FEI seasons with lower level programs. FEI tells lies sometimes.
Case in point:
Bill Belichek's Defensive Efficiency rankings with the Patriots are absolutely mediocre:
- 9 in 2015
- 12 in 2014
- 20 in 2013
- 15 in 1012
- 30 in 2011
- 21 in 2010
- 14 in 2009
- 17 in 2008
Yet Belichek is not a mediocre coach. He's a middling spy, perhaps, but there's a couple Super Bowl years on that list.
My point is that Belichek is clearly one of the greatest coaches of all time, and a defensive genius. I'd let him coach Michigan's D.
Efficiency rankings and other statistics do tell you valuable things about a D's performance, and they are good tools to begin evaluating coaches. But they can't be the only measuring stick.
Does anyone know anything else about Brown's coaching background? Here are a few questions that interest me:
- Does Brown have any kind of coaching Tree?
- Do we have signature games where some new strategy changed the game (like the FSU performance)?
- Can he evolve his schemes to fit personnel, when what he has is not ideal?
I'm excited about Brown, and I also thought Durkin did a fantastic job at Michigan, especially when you consider how different our new approach to D was from the old. We've had a run of fine defenses since Mattison revived the program (way back when).
December 21st, 2015 at 11:37 AM ^
He spent the first decade of his coaching career in the ivy league; in 1992 between his 5th and 6th seasons as Yale DC he spent a spring as the interim Head Baseball Coach, going 26-10 and earning a bid to the NCAA tournament. 1992 remains the last year Yale won a game in the NCAA baseball playoffs.
The next fall ('93) he was at Plymouth State (Division III) where he spent three years getting his first head football coaching experience.
From 2000-2006 he was dueling it out with Chip Kelly's New Hampshire in the FCS Atlantic 10.
2006 was perhaps the high point, when Head Coach Brown took UMASS all the way to the FCS Championship game, losing to Appalachian State (upon their victory, App State ceremonially retired the football program and has never been heard from since).
The next two years were perhaps a bit of a let down then, 10-3 in '07 but getting bounced in the 1st round of the FCS playoffs and 7-5 in 2008.
2009 could've finally been his launching point, but he hitched his chariot to Ralph Friedgren whereupon Maryland did this to his boss:
"Before the 2009 season, many analysts projected the Terrapins to finish last or second-to-last in the Atlantic Division of the ACC, and expressed particular concern with the inexperienced offensive line. The prognostications proved accurate, and Maryland finished 2–10 for their first ten-loss season in program history. Maryland rebounded in 2010 to finish with a 9–4 record, including a win in the Military Bowl, and ranked 23rd in the AP Poll. The ACC named Friedgen Coach of the Year, while freshman quarterback Danny O'Brien became the first Terrapin ever named ACC Rookie of the Year. Citing lack of fan support, the athletic department bought out the final year of Friedgen's contract for $2 million."
When you buy out the Conference Coach of the Year in order to hire Randy Edsall, you deserve pretty much exactly what Maryland has gotten for the past 5 seasons.
December 21st, 2015 at 12:00 AM ^
I'd also like to hear from the football guys who look at systems closely to see if this is a departure from the 3-4 we were talking about the past week... everyone was getting excited by a 3-4 coach and system flexibility and ability to play spreads ...and Brown runs a 4-3. But I know 3-4 vs 4-3 is not that simple as "over"/"under" matters more.
December 21st, 2015 at 12:24 AM ^
Brown has coached the 4-3, 3-4, and even the bear defense. He has adjusted to his talent and opponent in order to find success.
December 21st, 2015 at 4:31 AM ^
Thanks for that link. It helps to explain the "mad scientist" characterization made by a commentator.
December 21st, 2015 at 12:27 AM ^
Added FEI O ranks for this list you compiled to see firepower of those offenses faced. Surprisingly Clemson's offense sucked in 2014.
CSU offense was surprisingly good (McElwain) as was Pitt's. So those 2 games and the FSU were the 3 standout performances. 14, 20, 24 vs 3 very legit offenses - you pat D on back for tat.
USC and Pitt perfomances I'd consider neutral outcomes - you give up a lot of pts to good offenses, it is what it is. We did the same to OSU and Indiana this year w/ more talent than BC as. As was holding a bad Clemson offense to under 20 and a horrid Cuse offense to 7.
The PSU debacle was not good. And VA Tech result bad. Giving up multiple 4th downs is still the defense's fault. Esp to that bad of an offense. 2 of the D's worst performances were against 2 of the 4 worst offenses they faced... strange stuff.
Louisville game was mediocre outcome vs a meh offense but as you noted a lot of short fields.
So I'd say of the 10 "real games" the D had 3 very good performances, 4 "as expected" (gave up good # of pts to good offenses and stuffed bad offenses) and 2 poor ones. And Louisville was in its own category due to short fields.
- 7 Points @ UMass (30-7 W) -- #76
- 10 Points vs Maine (40-10 W) -- FCS team
- 7 Points vs Syracuse (28-7 W) -- #112
- 14 points @ NC State (30-14 W) -- #21
- 17 points vs Clemson (17-13 L) -- #78
- 17 points @ Wake Forest (23-17 W) -- #124
- 20 points @ FSU (20-17 L) -- #12
- 24 points vs Colorado State (24-21 L) -- #11
- 30 points vs Pitt (30-20 L) -- #16
- 31 points vs USC (37-31 W) -- #27
- 31 points @ VT (33-31 W) -- #116
- 38 points vs Louisville (38-19 L) -- #66
- 31 points vs Penn State (31-30 L) (bowl game) -- #110
December 21st, 2015 at 8:07 AM ^
I'm confused about how you're classifying these. I assume that you cut UMass and Maine, but which other game did you cut to get to 9 + Louisville?
I'm fine with dropping UMass and Maine. Of the remaining 11 games, I see 5 very good/good (Syracuse, NC State, Clemson, FSU, Colorado State), 4 expected (Wake Forest, Pitt, USC, Louisville), and 2 bad/very bad (VT, PSU) performances. For this being a worrisome year that requires more scrutiny, that's not bad at all. If only Michigan's great defensive "debacle" of recent years was 24 points against in regulation.
December 21st, 2015 at 2:43 PM ^
Oops I forgot wake forest. Was thinking 12 games, but it was 13 with the bowl. Yes I meant to just cut out the 2 FCS teams so should have been 11 games as pool of "real games".
I put "good" as holding down good offenses below par, neutral for doing "as expected" (give up decent amount of pts to good offenses, and stuff bad offenses) and "bad" as giving up lots of pts to bad offenses. Then I sort of put Louisville in its own world.
"Neutral" was the wrong term - it should be labeled "as expected" ...when 'Cuse comes in with the 112th ranked offense you sould be expected to stymie them just like the offense say Oregon State brought into AA. So that's a "good" performance in total but "as expected".
I mean some of these are hard to judge - do we say UM D had a "neutral" game (i.e. "as expected") vs Indiana or a bad one? It was a good offense - you expect to give up pts. Those are tough to put in a category and we all watched it, we didnt watch these BC games.
To that end I was reading a post someone linked to on ND blog and they say their offense ad a good game (420 yds) vs BC but the QB ad 3 INts - so they drove all day on BC but turned the ball over. And they claim they were bad decisions by ND QB for tre INT. BC fans prob say great D to get the 3 INT. So I mean each fan base has their own views.
December 21st, 2015 at 9:38 AM ^
You list FEI numbers in the body of your work and then list points given up at the bottom. Points given up is an "MLive" way to look at things.
So many factors go into the performance of a defense in a particular game or season to use points given up as a data point is pretty meaningless.
If you look at Michigan this year you can see how so many factors go into each game.
How was Michigan's run defense before Glasgow's injury?
How different was Indiana's offense when Michigan faced them vs when OSU got to play backups?
How different was MSU's run game when Michigan got to play them vs when OSU got to play them?
Weather?
Etc..etc...
To really get anything out of these numbers you really need to dig into these games and understand the circumstances of each game or stick with FEI or SP that account for most of the factors besides injury.
Maybe a good analysis would be to take FEI and grade the injury situation for each game to adjust up or down.
December 21st, 2015 at 2:47 PM ^
Tell Bambi to get off Mlive then!!!!
I just copy and pasted his OP data and then put the FEI next to it to get an idea of type of offenses they faced. i.e. I assumed Clemson had a top 25 offense before I did that and Pitt had a bad offense. But it was the opposite.... so it gives you an idea of level of play of opponent. So I dont think its useless to overlay the 2 things.
Obviously scores can come from short fields, turnovers etc so its not an absolute to rely only on final score. I was just trying to see the ferocity of each offense they faced really.
December 21st, 2015 at 3:41 PM ^
Well actually the inspiration for this diary was your post here.
Obviously advanced stats tell the bigger/better picture, but I wanted to look specifically at 2014 because that seemed to be a point of contention for the nay sayers. When doing that I can't look at individual games and their FEI ranks or FEI ranks as the season progresses, at least to my knowledge, but I can look at each individual game and try to explain why BC gave up x amount of points to team y.
December 21st, 2015 at 11:24 AM ^
So first off, let me say that I think it's dumb you're getting downvoted. These are some valid concerns, and just because you're not all sunshine and roses dowsn't mean you're wrong.
Now on to your post:
From what I can tell, you split the games up like this:
Bad performances:
PSU and VT
Expected Performances:
UMass, Maine, Clemson, Wake, Syracuse, USC and Pitt (You only had 4 here but didn't assign any moniker to UMass, Maine or Wake. I think they all fall under the expected performance category though.)
Good performances:
FSU, CSU and NC State
Outlier:
Louisville
I also think it's worth noting that even in these bad performaces, only once did BC give up more than 31 points all year, and that was in the Louisville outlier game. So even when they were bad, they never get gouged by a team.
Now lets look at us from this year: The rankings are all FEI offense rankings.
- 17 Points @ Utah -- #82
- 7 Points vs Oregon State -- #104
- 7 Points vs UNLV -- #94
- 0 points vs BYU -- #35
- 0 points @ Maryland -- #90
- 0 points vs Northwestern -- #109
- 21 points vs MSU -- #23
- 26 points @ Minnesota -- #65
- 9 points vs Rutgers -- #56
- 34 points @ Indiana -- #25
- 16 points @ Penn State -- #81
- 42 points vs OSU -- #26
So based on how you did it above, I would say we had:
Good performances:
BYU and MSU
Expected Performances:
Everyone else
That's pretty much how Iwould break it down, but that's also pretty generous towards Michigan. Calling Indiana and OSU expected performances are pretty lenient towards Michigan. Both are top 25-ish offenses so they were expect to do well, but 34 and 42, especially the 42 vs OSU, are hard to argue as expected performances.
Minnesota is in the same vain. We gave up 26 to the #65 offense, but were 1 yard and and overturned call away from it being 33 or 34. Once again, that's hard to call as expected vs the #65 offense.
So while I'm saying it was 2 good and 10 expected, it could also be 2 good, 7/8 expected, and 2/3 bad. In which case BC's 2014 doesn't look nearly as bad, especially since they never got absolutely domianted by any team like OSU and Indiana did to us, and especially when you factor in their talent level.
December 21st, 2015 at 2:42 PM ^
Just went through and upvoted all of Alum's comments. Dude's a board all star.
December 21st, 2015 at 3:05 PM ^
Yes I was making similar pt above before I read your comment. Indiana is a tough one - I would prob call that "neutral" as it was 34 in regulation (better label = "as expected") . OSU I would label "bad" as it was not a top 5-10 offense. We gave up too many pts to a #26 offense. (and yes they played great and we had injuries but again UM should not be giving up (((WAY))) more pts than Ill and Minn did to OSU.)
Looking at that table from afar I'd put BYU, MSU, rutgers as "good", OSU as "bad" ...Indiana as a tough one to call, and the rest "as expected" (neutral is the wrong them) It's tough to call a shutout "as expected" (unfair bar) even to garbage offenses but I guess within context of this it is. 10 pts or less should be expected vs a 100-127 FEI O.
I think larger picture (your point of the OP) we can say BC 2014 was decent not "poor" or anything. I think FEI D was 60s ? UM 2010 was poor (>100s) - BC 2014 was much better than that.
And it was yr 2 with some awful recruiting classes worse than WMU's classes under Fleck so you can adjust for that. And with a bad BC offense (short fields, I bet they got killed on TOP) - 2015 is very elite.
December 21st, 2015 at 4:05 PM ^
I think you rely too much on advanced statistics sometimes, if we're being honest. For example, calling Rutgers a " good" outing might be statistically true, since we held them to 9 points and they were the #56 FEI offense. However we played Rutgers at home without Leonte Carroo. That offense without Leonte Carroo is not the #56 offense. In their 4 games without Carroo, they put up 3, 10, 14 and 27 points, with the 27 coming against Kansas. That Rutgers offense without Carroo was as bad as any we faced, so saying I don't think holding them to 9 points can be anything other than as expected.
Similarly, Indiana is another point of contention for me, although not a major one. I completely understand the argument for saying it was as expected, but if we're going to call giving up 42 to OSU bad, I would probably argue 34 to Indiana is bad as well. Especially since they were dominating us on the ground and we looked clueless against them in the second half.
You also didn't address Minnesota, which may have been an oversight, but I don't think 26 against the #65 offense, which was one yard away from being 33, is as expected. No one came out of that Minnesota game thinking our defense played as expected.
I get what you're saying that it's hard to call shutouts as expected, but what's the real difference between 0 and 7 points? A game like UNLV wasn't really changed by one garbage time TD, so should that really effect our interpretation change that much becaue of one garbage time TD? Similarly, NW missed a FG against us but that had nothing to do with our D. If they had made it, would our game have been less impressive? That's why I called Maryland and NW as expected.
"I think larger picture (your point of the OP) we can say BC 2014 was decent not "poor" or anything. "
My point is honestly more optimistic. I think that BC defense was good, not just decent. They were #11 in total defense, and #36 in S&P. FEI didn't like them obviously, but they seem to be the outlier here. And looking at all the other contributing factors, I thik a ranking of 35 is much more accurate for that BC defense than 70.
December 22nd, 2015 at 12:22 AM ^
Only thing I'd bring up is Indiana played us with both their starting RB and QB who they were missing for big parts of the season and didn't have both healthy against MSU or OSU who they scored 26 and 27 against. So they certainly put up a lot of points against other top 15 units.
December 21st, 2015 at 3:16 PM ^
Like I said in another thread if we get Bob Shoop clone - with better ability to slow down OSU - I will be tickled pink. Funny how these 2 guys have a similar Ivy league background. Both are aggressive and when at best have disruptive chaos up front with tons of TFL.
Shoop had his 1st breakout in a P5 conf with a program that lacks recruiting chops @ Vandy b4 he went to PSU so that might be a very close parallel to the step Brown is about to take (Vandy--->PSU, BC--->UM)
December 21st, 2015 at 4:08 AM ^
of this thread, but why did BC's offense do a nosedive in 2015, compared to 2014?
December 21st, 2015 at 9:56 AM ^
First-time starter in 2015 Darius Wade broke his ankle against Florida State and BC had absolutely nobody ready behind him.
December 21st, 2015 at 9:15 AM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
December 21st, 2015 at 9:49 AM ^
their 2014 defense suffered from the same crap that we did that year due to a terrible offense/special teams combo. Their defense did not suffer from that even with a worse offense. Now give Brown more talent and a better offense. That's why I'm so excited about this hire.
December 21st, 2015 at 1:48 PM ^
Well, his defensive stats might also be benefiting from the"no offense" issue too. When you know the offense can't score, you tend to play a much slower, conservative gameplan.
Think of how many times we got to halftime, and mailed it in on offense after that.
December 22nd, 2015 at 11:33 AM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
December 21st, 2015 at 9:59 AM ^
I'm just glad Georgia Tech doesn't have to go up against his defense in Ireland in the opener next season.
December 21st, 2015 at 12:26 PM ^
FEI is only about efficiency, and there's more to the game than that. S&P incorporates efficiency but also accounts for field position, explosiveness, finishing drives, and turnovers.
The following is a table summarizing S&P+ defense rankings for the years prior to Don Brown's arrival followed by those under his command.
| Team | Year Before DB | DB Y1 | DB Y2 | DB Y3 |
| Maryland | 75 | 44 | 36 | |
| UConn | 63 | 34 | 38 | |
| BC | 80 | 80 | 36 | 3 |
Executive Summary: the general pattern here is 1) immediate impact, and 2) progress. This will be very difficult given we are currently the #2 S&P+ Defense, but I'm still excited.
This hire is a home run by both qualitative and quantitative analysis.
December 21st, 2015 at 5:31 PM ^
Do the FEI rankings produce a different narrative? Didn't see those numbers anywhere else for all 3 stops.
That kind of thing is what I'm looking for. There's no evidence of any backslideing over multiple years. The one (ONE!) time he didn't improve the D ranking was 2nd year at UConn where he basically stayed neutral. The other neutral time was 1st year in BC.
If we can stay neutral overall (while improving against OSU) I think that's all anyone can ask of Brown.
January 4th, 2016 at 10:37 PM ^
| Team | Year Before DB | DB Y1 | DB Y2 | DB Y3 |
| Maryland | 63 | 64 | 20 | |
| UConn | 40 | 23 | 22 | |
| BC | 81 | 98 | 68 | 5 |
Comments