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i thot we had a decent defense

what is our final rank?

In a different post, The Pony Grad states our defense ranks 73 and our offense 103. I have no reason to doubt him.

73rd total defense
62nd Scoring Defense
89th Against the Pass
53rd Against the Run

But tied for 13th in Take Aways

me@smu wrote:But tied for 13th in Take Aways

That's amazing. Let's keep that up next year. (I wonder how far we shot up the rankings with seven on our final Saturday...)

me@smu wrote:73rd total defense
62nd Scoring Defense
89th Against the Pass
53rd Against the Run

But tied for 13th in Take Aways

I would imagine we jumped up several spots in take aways after our last game.

Would have been tied for 63rd nationally with 20 takeaways if we hadn't had any during the last game.

We also would have dropped from 34th in turnover margin to 66th with a
-2 overall turnover margin

Since our offense did not stay on the field as much as we would have liked that gives the defense more plays and makes our defensive numbers look less dramatic. Here are some rankings based on average yards allowed per play vs. per game:

Rushing D #44
Pass D #63
Total D #58

I wonder what it looks like for just the conference games... taking out that A&M game would make quite a difference.

You can do the math but aTm had 714 yard. 309 Rushing and 405 passing. That is compared to our season average of 143 Rushing and 250 passing yards allowed.

just as in the business world, we can play games with numbers all day long. stats about yardage given up or points scored can be misleading. how many times did a defensive unit have to overcome turnovers that gave the opposing offense the ball on the short end of the field? how often did opposing offenses convert trips into the red zone into points...and were those on TDs or FGs. How often did a defense give up clock eating, length of the field type drives? Those things are more important than just the numbers.

There are plenty of ways to measure a defense. Ours was respectable. Better than our offense. That's all I know