Defensive Stats Per Play Through Bye Week

[BelligerentBobcat]

I was bored, and curious as to how we were doing defensively on a per play basis, and how this compared to the teams we played. As in, how different are we statistically compared to the teams we've been playing. I did leave Oregon out, because I didn't feel it to be a fair comparison. They're a different talent than what we are, and what we are playing. If I have time, I hope to do this for the offensive side of the ball as well. I think it's interesting because it's one thing to say we're allowing 4.3 YPP (which is fantastic), but it has more meaning when you know what the opponent typically does. If they're averaging 4.3 YPP, then you're just performing at par.

Montana State without Oregon Defensive Stats
Rushing: 446
Passing: 1230
Total: 1676
Plays: 386
YPP: 4.341968912

That's where we are overall against FCS opponents.

SDSU w/o MSU SDSU v MSU
Rushing 1119 Rushing 123
Passing 1467 Passing 174
Total 2586 Total 297
Plays 437 Plays 65
YPP 5.917620137 YPP 4.569230769 Difference: 1.348389368 YPP

So, SDSU is averaging 5.9 yards per play against all of their opponents except for us, and against us they averaged 4.5 YPP, making us 1.34 YPP better than what they've done against all of their opponents. Same format will follow for the remaining teams.

San Diego w/o MSU San Diego v MSU
Rushing: 912 Rushing: 66
Passing: 1275 Passing: 143
Total: 2187 Total: 209
Plays: 414 Plays: 52
YPP: 5.282608696 YPP: 4.019230769 Difference: 1.263377926 YPP

Mercyhurst w/o MSU Mercyhurst v MSU
Rushing: 759 Rushing: 58
Passing: 1571 Passing: 205
Total: 2330 Total: 263
Plays: 458 Plays: 59
YPP: 5.087336245 YPP: 4.457627119 Difference: 0.629709126 YPP

EWU w/o MSU EWU v MSU
Rushing: 1128 Rushing: 83
Passing: 1094 Passing: 124
Total: 2222 Total: 207
Plays: 388 Plays: 67
YPP: 5.726804124 YPP: 3.089552239 Difference: 2.637251885 YPP

NAU w/o MSU NAU v MSU
Rushing: 927 Rushing: 86
Passing: 1630 Passing: 210
Total: 2557 Total: 296
Plays: 408 Plays: 78
YPP: 6.267156863 YPP: 3.794871795 Difference: 2.472285068 YPP

ISU w/o MSU ISU v MSU
Rushing: 950 Rushing: 36
Passing: 1909 Passing: 368
Total: 2859 Total: 404
Plays: 421 Plays: 65
YPP: 6.790973872 YPP: 6.215384615 Difference: 0.575589256 YPP

So, overall, incredibly excellent. At no point has the defense performed worse than the average. At several points, significantly better than the average. On a per play basis, the worst games have been against Mercyhurst and Idaho State, which is funny because I viewed those as good defensive games (and still do), but we did not get very many sacks in those games. I can't remember how many we had against Mercyhurst, but I know we only had one against Idaho State. Anyways, I thought this was very interesting. Sorry for the formatting, I tried to just copy it over from excel.

[coloradocat]

Cool info! Not to give you even more work but it might be more useful if you add a percentage difference, or percentage of average (we held NAU to 60% of their average YPP which is really impressive against a ranked team). Also, how about YPP broken down between rush and pass? Are we a better relative pass defense or rush defense? That's a lot more work but maybe BN's resident stats guy could lend a hand.

On a related note, I wish the BSC and the NCAA stats in general had a FCS-only toggle so you could see which teams/players are at the top after dropping FBS and D2 games. Our stats would look even better if Oregon wasn't dragging us down.

[BelligerentBobcat]

Cool info! Not to give you even more work but it might be more useful if you add a percentage difference, or percentage of average (we held NAU to 60% of their average YPP which is really impressive against a ranked team). Also, how about YPP broken down between rush and pass? Are we a better relative pass defense or rush defense? That's a lot more work but maybe BN's resident stats guy could lend a hand.

On a related note, I wish the BSC and the NCAA stats in general had a FCS-only toggle so you could see which teams/players are at the top after dropping FBS and D2 games. Our stats would look even better if Oregon wasn't dragging us down.

I could do the percentage pretty easily, I can do the rush and pass stuff but not sure how relevant it is. Just for example, teams are typically going to pass a lot more against us than in games that they’re winning.

[BelligerentBobcat]

Alright, here are the percentages.

SDSU: held them to 77% of the YPP average.

San Diego: held them to 76% of their YPP average.

Mercyhurst: held them to 88% of their YPP average.

EWU: held them to 54% of their YPP average.

NAU: held them to 61% of their YPP average.

ISU: held them to 91% of their YPP average.

[TomCat88]

Alright, here are the percentages.

SDSU: held them to 77% of the YPP average.

San Diego: held them to 76% of their YPP average.

Mercyhurst: held them to 88% of their YPP average.

EWU: held them to 54% of their YPP average.

NAU: held them to 61% of their YPP average.

ISU: held them to 91% of their YPP average.

The SDSU and NAU games are both very impressive. Two toughest games with two of the three (basically a tie between SDSU and USD) best percentages.

The EWU percentage is good but slightly skewed by one bad play on bad snap. USD is skewed a little by late, meaningless TD drive.

ISU had the two huge plays on both TD drives. Also had big yards on play that was fumbled away. It’s impressive that MSU held them to 91% despite giving up those three plays. That was about 140 of their 404 yards that day and they probably added 2.0 yards to their ypp.

[4KornerKat]

I think it's also interesting if you include Oregon in this. I think we held Oregon just under their average passing yards, and just over their average rushing yards. Obviously points we were off a bit.

[Catsrgrood]

I don’t expect you to actually do this, I know it’s a lot of work, but it’d be interesting to see this same info on last years team for the whole season.

There is a lot of talk about this defense being better than last year, and I’m leaning that way myself, but it’d be cool to see what last years defense did against their opponents vs their avg.

[TomCat88]

I think it's also interesting if you include Oregon in this. I think we held Oregon just under their average passing yards, and just over their average rushing yards. Obviously points we were off a bit.

I think MSU has outperformed or been in the same ballpark as about three teams vs Oregon this year.

Statistically, only NDSU comps with MSU. SDSU has tailed off a bit in recent weeks. UND seems to be improving as the year progresses. I like their chances at home vs SDSU and NDSU. They’re probably a South Dakota or UCD from last season. If UM or UCD could string together a couple convincing wins they might pop up there.

[BelligerentBobcat]

I think it's also interesting if you include Oregon in this. I think we held Oregon just under their average passing yards, and just over their average rushing yards. Obviously points we were off a bit.

One of the main reasons I wasn’t going to include it is because Oregon was not schematically trying against us. They played everything very basic, and it’s just not a fair comparison for either team.

[TomCat88]

I think it's also interesting if you include Oregon in this. I think we held Oregon just under their average passing yards, and just over their average rushing yards. Obviously points we were off a bit.

One of the main reasons I wasn’t going to include it is because Oregon was not schematically trying against us. They played everything very basic, and it’s just not a fair comparison for either team.

Perhaps not for the entire game. They were definitely trying at the start with good reason. They also challenged a call in the fourth quarter up 52-6. Maybe they were practicing challenging calls? Idk.

[BelligerentBobcat]

I think it's also interesting if you include Oregon in this. I think we held Oregon just under their average passing yards, and just over their average rushing yards. Obviously points we were off a bit.

One of the main reasons I wasn’t going to include it is because Oregon was not schematically trying against us. They played everything very basic, and it’s just not a fair comparison for either team.

Perhaps not for the entire game. They were definitely trying at the start with good reason. They also challenged a call in the fourth quarter up 52-6. Maybe they were practicing challenging calls? Idk.

Schematically, compared to their other games, they were not doing as much. Just their basic base defense and offense. I’m not talking effort, I’m not talking challenging plays or not, but scheme.

[TomCat88]

I think it's also interesting if you include Oregon in this. I think we held Oregon just under their average passing yards, and just over their average rushing yards. Obviously points we were off a bit.

One of the main reasons I wasn’t going to include it is because Oregon was not schematically trying against us. They played everything very basic, and it’s just not a fair comparison for either team.

Perhaps not for the entire game. They were definitely trying at the start with good reason. They also challenged a call in the fourth quarter up 52-6. Maybe they were practicing challenging calls? Idk.

Schematically, compared to their other games, they were not doing as much. Just their basic base defense and offense. I’m not talking effort, I’m not talking challenging plays or not, but scheme.

I was mostly thinking they didn’t want a repeat of the 2024 Idaho game so they probably threw the whole kitchen sink at MSU at the start. Maybe not. Idk

[4KornerKat]

I think it's also interesting if you include Oregon in this. I think we held Oregon just under their average passing yards, and just over their average rushing yards. Obviously points we were off a bit.

One of the main reasons I wasn’t going to include it is because Oregon was not schematically trying against us. They played everything very basic, and it’s just not a fair comparison for either team.

Perhaps not for the entire game. They were definitely trying at the start with good reason. They also challenged a call in the fourth quarter up 52-6. Maybe they were practicing challenging calls? Idk.

Schematically, compared to their other games, they were not doing as much. Just their basic base defense and offense. I’m not talking effort, I’m not talking challenging plays or not, but scheme.

I was mostly thinking they didn’t want a repeat of the 2024 Idaho game so they probably threw the whole kitchen sink at MSU at the start. Maybe not. Idk

I mostly just found it interesting that while we definitely got blown out in that game, the defense essentially held Oregon to season averages. I'd argue the games against Ok State and Rutgers, and to some degree Northwestern and Oregon State were similar in that they jumped on opponent and coasted for a quarter or more. Also shows that giving up short fields on punting issues/offensive issues can result in a lopsided score without giving up the yards.