Clemson, Georgia Tech will push FSU in 2015 ACC race

[Sean311]

The best defense in the acc ??? Some of you guys really live in a fantasy world if you believe the defense is the best in the ACC.

Ok so Clemson had the best defense in the ACC last year but after that who really had a dominant D...nobody...it's ours for the taking

 

[BabyJacket1990]

I hope your right

 

[AE 87]

Ok so Clemson had the best defense in the ACC last year but after that who really had a dominant D...nobody...it's ours for the taking

What? CU, VPI, UVA, Lvl were all top 10 DFEI

 

[PBR549]

I believe consistency in coaching staff and scheme will help us to get better defensively especially with CTR. I really believe that consistency in staff is the best thing we have going for us on both sides of the ball. If we can compete for the ACC most years I'll be satisfied. The combination we have now IMO gives us that opportunity. I believed that at the beginning of the season and even more so now. I hate starting over like we have done too many times.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

I absolutely think we have improved on D. The tackling alone has continued to improve and is much better than even just 2 years ago. Outside of the Miami game we were decent against the run. I think Roof wants to stop the run first and I'm down with that against most teams. Bend but don't break gives up yards maddeningly at times but we were pretty good in the red zone later in the year. I think we can get better next year. I'm just not ready to proclaim that's a done deal.

 

[Eric]

VT will have a strong defense...return basically everyone. The whole DL is coming back..Maddy and Dadi are a tough combo.

Think they will have the best D.

Think we can have a good one though.

 

[DC Bee]

Even though we won the Orange bowl, we gave up 605 total yards.

The only people saying that are the SEC spin doctors trying to perform damage control for just how much GT stomped MSU. Everyone else in the country saw the game for what it was. An a$$-whooping. MSU ran the hurry up, absorbed many yards, and the GT D clamped down when it mattered or got the turn-over.

The big thing here is that we don't need the best D in the ACC. If we can rank consistently in the top 30 Ds in the country (i.e. if we can play an entire year like we did in the last 5 games), we should do just fine, thank you very much.

This. Nobody will ever remember how many yards the defense gave up while winning a NC. Ever. Only statistical websites will remember.

 

[Boomergump]

Ok so Clemson had the best defense in the ACC last year but after that who really had a dominant D...nobody...it's ours for the taking

Sean, I will throw this out there as a qualifier. IF, IF, IF we can generate a LEGIT pass rush with four AND avoid injuries like we did this year, THEN, I could see us among the top group of the conference. I share your enthusiasm for much of what is happening with our defense, especially the back end of it. I love our defensive backfield and think they will be very good. However, over the history of the game I have seen great backfields look pretty darned mediocre when their guys up front couldn't get pressure.

Once again in 2015, our defense should benefit greatly because of the history making domination of our offense. Our stats this year on offense were simply barrier breaking, like busting through the sound barrier good. Just stop for a minute and think what most likely would have happened to our defense this season had our offense not: held the ball for 35 minutes per game, converted 3rd downs at a national leading pace, scored with dizzying efficiency, and put opposing offenses under so much pressure, often after sitting on the sideline for extreme periods of time. Even with all that help, our defense was really pushed to their very limits depth-wise. Compare how many snaps our defense had to play this year against other teams. Reflect on how the games went. Now imagine that the 2014 defense had to play against as many snaps as most teams with the depth they had available.

TEAMS win, not offenses or defenses. Our team was really good this year. Top 10 teams are really good. We had the right combination of things going on to cause EVERY opponent we faced, or would have faced, MAJOR trouble. I really like our TEAM heading into next year, but I suspect our defense will play a similar role to the one it played in 2014. Who knows? It might just be good enough. We never lost by a wide margin and had a chance to win every game this season.

 

[PBR549]

Well said.

 

[slugboy]

Here's defensive FEI: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/feidef. Clemson, VT, and UVA are top 10 overall. FSU, Duke, and Miami come next. Then BC, us, Wake, and Notre Dame. Pitt, NCST, and UNC bring up the rear. We're above average if you add in the non-P5 teams, but we have a weak defense for a P5 team. We have a lot of room to improve. We're not close to Miami or FSU or Duke in terms of having a respectable defense yet. We'd need to move up 20 spots to be in the same range of Duke or FSU on defense.
Tulane's defense was higher ranked, btw.

 

[GT Man]

Nice recognition but analysis is lacking. Also no mention of D?

In other words, typical sports article from a lazy journalist. Real analysis happens right here on gtswarm anyways.

 

[Sean311]

Whitehead, Hunt-Days, Freeman, Gotsis.

 

[nod]

Louisville will be in the mix, top defense and their coach will establish a good QB / offense.

 

[slugboy]

I left Louisville out. I put together a table.

(if we can get the BBCodes for tables, let me know how I can post this with formatting)

DFEI DFEI RK Team FBS REC FEI RK DE DE RK
1 -0.928 1 Clemson 9-3 14 -0.71 1
2 -0.716 2 Virginia Tech 6-6 23 -0.411 12
3 -0.603 6 Louisville 8-4 22 -0.574 4
4 -0.549 9 Virginia 4-7 35 -0.255 26
5 -0.303 28 Florida State 12-1 7 -0.13 45
6 -0.26 32 Duke 8-4 26 -0.137 42
7 -0.257 33 Syracuse 2-9 71 -0.193 35
8 -0.256 36 Miami 5-7 37 -0.114 54
9 -0.122 50 Boston College 6-6 28 -0.123 50
10 -0.113 51 Georgia Tech 10-3 3 0.18 95
11 -0.111 52 Wake Forest 2-9 86 -0.179 37
12 -0.109 53 Notre Dame 8-5 38 0.015 66
13 0.083 70 North Carolina State 7-5 55 0.132 83
14 0.283 99 Pittsburgh 5-7 41 0.206 99
15 0.439 113 North Carolina 5-7 70 0.628 127

 

[GlennW]

I left Louisville out. I put together a table.

(if we can get the BBCodes for tables, let me know how I can post this with formatting)

DFEI DFEI RK Team FBS REC FEI RK DE DE RK
1 -0.928 1 Clemson 9-3 14 -0.71 1
2 -0.716 2 Virginia Tech 6-6 23 -0.411 12
3 -0.603 6 Louisville 8-4 22 -0.574 4
4 -0.549 9 Virginia 4-7 35 -0.255 26
5 -0.303 28 Florida State 12-1 7 -0.13 45
6 -0.26 32 Duke 8-4 26 -0.137 42
7 -0.257 33 Syracuse 2-9 71 -0.193 35
8 -0.256 36 Miami 5-7 37 -0.114 54
9 -0.122 50 Boston College 6-6 28 -0.123 50
10 -0.113 51 Georgia Tech 10-3 3 0.18 95
11 -0.111 52 Wake Forest 2-9 86 -0.179 37
12 -0.109 53 Notre Dame 8-5 38 0.015 66
13 0.083 70 North Carolina State 7-5 55 0.132 83
14 0.283 99 Pittsburgh 5-7 41 0.206 99
15 0.439 113 North Carolina 5-7 70 0.628 127

I saw some stats that showed that our defense put up some pretty amazing numbers starting after the North Carolina game, in particular the 2nd halves of the games. I believe, and someone should check up behind me, we only gave up a total of 2 TD's the 2nd half of every game after North Carolina COMBINED, until we played the Bowl game.

So either the lights came on after Carolina, we changed our Defense and we became a heck of a lot more effective after Carolina, or a combination of the two, but in particular, our coaching staff has been making tremendous adjustments after halftime which we hadn't done in years.

 

[slugboy]

We changed our defense after Carolina--we played tighter coverage and blitzed more. We also had strong ball control offense and good special teams, which covered for our defense. The FEI stats are adjusted for the opponents and the number of drives.

I think Roof did a good job this year, but he started behind the 8-ball, and our defense wasn't in the top half of our conference. The back half of the year was better, but the first half was awful.

 

[Eastman]

I left Louisville out. I put together a table.

(if we can get the BBCodes for tables, let me know how I can post this with formatting)

Sean, I will throw this out there as a qualifier. IF, IF, IF we can generate a LEGIT pass rush with four AND avoid injuries like we did this year, THEN, I could see us among the top group of the conference. I share your enthusiasm for much of what is happening with our defense, especially the back end of it. I love our defensive backfield and think they will be very good. However, over the history of the game I have seen great backfields look pretty darned mediocre when their guys up front couldn't get pressure.

Once again in 2015, our defense should benefit greatly because of the history making domination of our offense. Our stats this year on offense were simply barrier breaking, like busting through the sound barrier good. Just stop for a minute and think what most likely would have happened to our defense this season had our offense not: held the ball for 35 minutes per game, converted 3rd downs at a national leading pace, scored with dizzying efficiency, and put opposing offenses under so much pressure, often after sitting on the sideline for extreme periods of time. Even with all that help, our defense was really pushed to their very limits depth-wise. Compare how many snaps our defense had to play this year against other teams. Reflect on how the games went. Now imagine that the 2014 defense had to play against as many snaps as most teams with the depth they had available.

TEAMS win, not offenses or defenses. Our team was really good this year. Top 10 teams are really good. We had the right combination of things going on to cause EVERY opponent we faced, or would have faced, MAJOR trouble. I really like our TEAM heading into next year, but I suspect our defense will play a similar role to the one it played in 2014. Who knows? It might just be good enough. We never lost by a wide margin and had a chance to win every game this season.

This is spot on. Without our offense, this defense, especially the thin defensive line everyone was worried about, may have been on the field say another 5 minutes or more per game. That's a lot more time on the field, not only to wear down the line, but also have injuries occur. We benefitted this year from having significant injuries precisely where we had quality depth, such as A-back and b-back.

 

[vamosjackets]

We changed our defense after Carolina--we played tighter coverage and blitzed more. We also had strong ball control offense and good special teams, which covered for our defense. The FEI stats are adjusted for the opponents and the number of drives.

I think Roof did a good job this year, but he started behind the 8-ball, and our defense wasn't in the top half of our conference. The back half of the year was better, but the first half was awful.

We also started Gamble at SDE which helped too. That and the decision to challenge the passing game more with tighter coverage at times (rather than JUST always keeping everything in front of you) made a big impact the last portion of the year.

 

[slugboy]

Good point about Gamble.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

We also started Gamble at SDE which helped too. That and the decision to challenge the passing game more with tighter coverage at times (rather than JUST always keeping everything in front of you) made a big impact the last portion of the year.

Yes, indeed. Infact, on MSU's first possession in the OB, Milton's interception was forced by Demond attacking the pass on 3rd down. How many times have we seen our db's 10+ yards off the ball even on 3rd and short, willing to concede the catch to have a better chance at making the tackle?

Great play by both Demond and Chris, yet most only remember Chris on that play.

:08



edit: If you want to see a perfect example of how valuable our Abacks are in the run game and with zero fanfare, watch Dennis Andrews on JT's now famouse "juke" run. (2:06 mark in the vid above) DA gets a critical block on the safety 15 yards downfield. Even I didn't notice that awesome play till TODAY.

So many things happen that make a play work, not just the obvious things that everybody sees when you follow the ball.

Kudos to our Abacks and wr's blocking this year, I'm afraid that will be the biggest fall off early in the coming season. I hope not.