UCF with a top 10 Defense

[Longestday]

I did not realize that UCF had a top 10 defense. There is no game this year that can be overlooked.

 

[bke1984]

I agree they should not be overlooked, but look at the results. Sure doesn't feel like they had that great of a defense. Without digging into the stats, it seems like they stopped the teams they were supposed to stop to me

 

[LongforDodd]

.

 

[GTrob21]

No....

 

[Techster]

I touched on their DC a year ago. Great young defensive mind that schemes to the talent.

https://gtswarm.com/threads/ted-roofs-job.10483/page-38#post-261837

Remember, that was Scott Frost's first year at UCF after the debacle that O'Leary left behind. I would say and FEI in the top 10 is pretty darn good for a first year DC.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

UCF is definitely not a bad team. They are one of many teams that can beat us if we don't play well.

Having said that, I wouldn't read too much into these statistics, for a variety of reasons.

First, look at the FEI offensive rating (out of 128 teams) of some of UCF's opponents:
SC State: Unranked
UConn: #124
FIU: #118
Tulane: #112
Cincinnati: #109
Arkansas State: #87 (LOST)
Maryland: #65 (LOST)
East Carolina: #64
Houston: #52 (LOST)
Temple: #46 (LOST)
Tulsa: #16 (LOST)
Michigan: #11 (LOST)

Furthermore, the FEI efficiency ratings are (essentially) the value of each possession of their opponents adjusted for the strength of each offense faced. In other words, you could lose to everyone you play against all year, but as long as you hold the other team to lower points than they normally score per possession, your defense ends up looking like a rock star. When your offense (UCF) is ranked #107 out of #128, you're really wearing out your defense and putting pressure on them. There are other stats that make up defensive FEI as well, like what percentage of available yards you give up to your opponents on an average drive (ie if they start on their own 20, there are 80 yards available), what percentage of drives that end in a TD, that end in a TD or first down, that end in a turnover, etc.

I think generally, stats like this can be helpful, but you should always dig deeper. And look at that list - they essentially lost to anybody with a reasonable offense. I'm not sure FEI then offers much insight into UCF.

 

[AE 87]

UCF is definitely not a bad team. They are one of many teams that can beat us if we don't play well.

Having said that, I wouldn't read too much into these statistics, for a variety of reasons.

First, look at the FEI offensive rating (out of 128 teams) of some of UCF's opponents:
SC State: Unranked
UConn: #124
FIU: #118
Tulane: #112
Cincinnati: #109
Arkansas State: #87 (LOST)
Maryland: #65 (LOST)
East Carolina: #64
Houston: #52 (LOST)
Temple: #46 (LOST)
Tulsa: #16 (LOST)
Michigan: #11 (LOST)

Furthermore, the FEI efficiency ratings are (essentially) the value of each possession of their opponents adjusted for the strength of each offense faced. In other words, you could lose to everyone you play against all year, but as long as you hold the other team to lower points than they normally score per possession, your defense ends up looking like a rock star. When your offense (UCF) is ranked #107 out of #128, you're really wearing out your defense and putting pressure on them. There are other stats that make up defensive FEI as well, like what percentage of available yards you give up to your opponents on an average drive (ie if they start on their own 20, there are 80 yards available), what percentage of drives that end in a TD, that end in a TD or first down, that end in a turnover, etc.

I think generally, stats like this can be helpful, but you should always dig deeper. And look at that list - they essentially lost to anybody with a reasonable offense. I'm not sure FEI then offers much insight into UCF.

I agree that stats have limits, but a couple of things to be noted.

Winning and losing result from offense and defense (and st) so this result is meaningless in assessing a ranking of just one unit.

You rightly note that a bad O puts pressure on a D. That UCFs DFEI was so good when their OFEI was so bad actually argues in their favor.

 

[vamosjackets]

I agree that stats have limits, but a couple of things to be noted.

Winning and losing result from offense and defense (and st) so this result is meaningless in assessing a ranking of just one unit.

You rightly note that a bad O puts pressure on a D. That UCFs DFEI was so good when their OFEI was so bad actually argues in their favor.

I'm uncertain about your last point. It could also be possible that when a team is facing a bad offense, they are influenced to play more conservatively, scoring more slowly, ball-control because there isn't as much of a need for your offense to "keep pace" or to get into a "shootout". But, as you say a bad offense can also put the defense into bad situations with turnovers, field position failures, not giving the defense much rest, etc. So, there may be a bit of a conflation of factors in that.

 

[g0lftime]

Do they have a week off before our game and did they put Navy or Army on the schedule before we play them?

 

[AE 87]

I'm uncertain about your last point. It could also be possible that when a team is facing a bad offense, they are influenced to play more conservatively, scoring more slowly, ball-control because there isn't as much of a need for your offense to "keep pace" or to get into a "shootout". But, as you say a bad offense can also put the defense into bad situations with turnovers, field position failures, not giving the defense much rest, etc. So, there may be a bit of a conflation of factors in that.

The inability to determine a coach's differing motivations is a weakness of drawing conclusions from any stat.

I was commenting on points raised by @bwelbo.

 

[Coloradojacket]

UCF is a mediocre team and surely you never want to overlook any one. But, they do not have the talent we have nor have they played CPJ and our offense.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

I'm uncertain about your last point. It could also be possible that when a team is facing a bad offense, they are influenced to play more conservatively, scoring more slowly, ball-control because there isn't as much of a need for your offense to "keep pace" or to get into a "shootout". But, as you say a bad offense can also put the defense into bad situations with turnovers, field position failures, not giving the defense much rest, etc. So, there may be a bit of a conflation of factors in that.

Yea, and there are other idiosyncracies too. Think about Michigan - they got up like 31-0 midway through the 2nd quarter. Michigan had tons of possessions for the rest of the game that didn't really matter. They probably had subs in, the game was long away out of the question, and so on. So you can only take these types of statistics but so far. In general, I think these FEI stats provide value. BUT, when you look at who UCF played and notice that they lost to every even halfway reasonable offense but 1, that's not good. In all those cases the stats seem to show that UCFs defense held those teams to fewer points per possession than they usually get, but to what end?

 

[AE 87]

Yea, and there are other idiosyncracies too. Think about Michigan - they got up like 31-0 midway through the 2nd quarter. Michigan had tons of possessions for the rest of the game that didn't really matter. They probably had subs in, the game was long away out of the question, and so on. So you can only take these types of statistics but so far. In general, I think these FEI stats provide value. BUT, when you look at who UCF played and notice that they lost to every even halfway reasonable offense but 1, that's not good. In all those cases the stats seem to show that UCFs defense held those teams to fewer points per possession than they usually get, but to what end?

FEI doesn't count garbage drives, so it's possible that the UM beat down didn't hurt their D ranking as much as it could (should?) have.

They lost to teams not offenses. It's cool if you don't think looking at units independently matters, but don't dismiss it.

 

[slugboy]

It also factors in strength of schedule, so it already downplayed performances against weak teams.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

FEI doesn't count garbage drives, so it's possible that the UM beat down didn't hurt their D ranking as much as it could (should?) have.

They lost to teams not offenses. It's cool if you don't think looking at units independently matters, but don't dismiss it.

I'm not trying to dismiss it, but think about that now. How many drives did Michigan have which were counted as garbage? Probably 10 if we're being honest. So does someone sit there and discard all drives once a lead has grown to a certain amount? I mean at some point we're screwing the statistics over so much through manual tweaking that it doesn't even matter. To me, looking at the fact that they lost to all good offenses and nearly all mediocure offenses says it all. They beat one offense ranked around the 50th% (ECU, 64/128) and after that the only offenses they beat were in the bottom 20%.

 

[dmurdock]

It could also be possible that when a team is facing a bad offense, they are influenced to play more conservatively, scoring more slowly, ball-control because there isn't as much of a need for your offense to "keep pace" or to get into a "shootout".

I have long felt that teams facing us in the Gailey years took this approach, a conservative offensive gameplan, playing for field position, and not taking many chances against Tenuta's aggressive defense. Afterall, 3 field goals is enough to win the ACC Championship against Gailey's offense, so why take risks?

Completely flip that approach when facing us now. Opposing coaches understand that they will probably only get 8-10 possessions the entire game. Having to punt 3 times means they probably lose. There is a sense of urgency for our opponents, they understand that every possession matters. Opposing OC's thus open their playbooks for us, taking more risks than they normally would. Our 2015 defense was opportunistic in taking advantage of those risks, but otherwise we haven't been able to make opponents pay for the extra offensive risks.

 

[Coloradojacket]

Hey look at it this way, Vandy quote had a really good defense....38-7 VT which we know is always good.....31-20

 

[alagold]

I think the stats say that ucf is a decent team that could certainly give us trouble or even beat us IF we were flat that day. --- kind of the way uga looks at us without JT hmmm

 

[iceeater1969]

They have 6 sr and Jr in current defense depth chart. Not sure who else is returning. NT is senior but does not appear to be a tank
I think our ol's athleticism and more complicated blocking will give them fits.

 

[AE 87]

I'm not trying to dismiss it, but think about that now. How many drives did Michigan have which were counted as garbage? Probably 10 if we're being honest. So does someone sit there and discard all drives once a lead has grown to a certain amount? I mean at some point we're screwing the statistics over so much through manual tweaking that it doesn't even matter. To me, looking at the fact that they lost to all good offenses and nearly all mediocure offenses says it all. They beat one offense ranked around the 50th% (ECU, 64/128) and after that the only offenses they beat were in the bottom 20%.

Again, you fail to respond to the point I've made twice. You lose to teams not offenses. Ws and Ls speaks to strength of team not D nor O.

Your point seems to be the flipside of the questioning of our O because of w-l records.

Regardless, it's hard for me to believe that your not being dismissive when you say, "I mean at some point we're screwing the statistics over so much through manual tweaking that it doesn't even matter."