The Noles' Defense

First, consider our national ranks in terms of scoring defense and total defense.  I've put in both our ranking vs. all opponents and vs. ranked opponents to show the improvement, just as I did with the offense.

Here are passing and rushing defense considered individually, against all opponents and against ranked:

So there is a significant improvement vs. ranked teams, just as there was with the offense.  But even given the significant jump vs. ranked opponents, a top 50 performance (vs. ranked) is unacceptable.  The offense is performing in the top 25 (vs. all opponents) and in the top 10 (vs. ranked).  There is simply no excuse, if we assume similar talent levels on offense and defense, for this vast differential. 

Here's another interesting stat -- the performance of QBs against our defense.  In this table we see that QBs have performed very well against us.  An average passer rating of 158.19!  That is just sick.

As I mentioned above in the offensive section (or is this entire article offensive?), Christian Ponder has essentially the nations best passer rating against ranked competition at 154.13.  But QBs routinely eclipse that mark against Andrews' & Buckley's secondary.  For comparison, Miami's opponents' have an avg. passer rating of 122.08, GaTech's opponent's register a 148.84, and USF's defense holds passers to a rating of 94.03.

Coaching or Competition?

So, if the talent levels are similar, then what explains the night and day difference? Maybe our defense has been facing consistently tougher competition than our offense has. If that is the case, then we should see our opponents ranked significantly higher in offensive vs. defensive performance. Here are the numbers:

(Note that I'm only including FBS opponents.) While the defenses we've faced have outplayed the offenses in terms of yards gained, the reverse is true in terms of points scored. The defensive units faced this year are not as good as the offensive units faced. So, perhaps we can attribute some of the difference between the performances of the Noles' D and Noles' O to the quality of the offenses/defenses we've faced.

However, this could be due to the strength of our opponents' schedules. So let's look at a different measure of our opponents' offensive and defensive prowess. The Fremeau Efficiency Index (FEI) is an advanced metric that takes into consideration the quality of one's opponents: teams are rewarded for playing well against good teams and punished for playing poorly against bad teams. How do our opponents offensive and defensive units stack up on the FEI? (I've included FSU so you can see our FEI numbers.)

Two things should immediately jump out at you. First, notice the disparity between FSU's offensive rank and defensive rank. The offense sits comfortably in the top 25, while the defense sits near rock-bottom -- 116 out of 120! Second, notice that the offense has faced defenses with an average rank of 50, while the defense has faced offenses with an average rank of about 30. That is a significant gap. Perhaps this mitigates some of the blame focused on Mickey & Co., but it doesn't seem to be enough to get them off the hook for their poor performance. Let's look at some additional numbers to see if we can clarify things.

In the following table, we see the FEI ranking together with the point totals scored or given up by the offense or defense, respectively.

While there does seem to be a nice correlation (esp. if you remove BYU) between the rank of the defenses we've faced and the # of points scored by our offense, the Noles' defense has been a Jekyll & Hyde. We held USF, ranked 22 in offensive efficiency, to a respectable 17 points, but we gave up 28 to Boston College -- one of the worst offenses in the country (a negative OE number of -0.118!!). But notice the points scored by the Noles vs. the points allowed by the Noles: 32 vs. 32. At first glance, you might think, "Hey, the offense and defense are even!" But this equality reveals a deep inequality. An excellent offense SHOULD score 32 PPG against good competition. But an excellent defense SHOULD NOT be coughing up 32 PPG against good competition!

Here's another angle on the numbers that is enlightening.  What if we looked at a quality opponent, like Miami, to see if their offense put up similar numbers on their other opponents.  If we held them to their season low in scoring, then maybe our D is better than people think.  Here are all of Miami's opponents, how many points their defenses gave up, and how many points their offenses scored against the Canes:

Sadly, the Seminoles' D surrendered more points to Miami's O than any other FBS team.  But what about the other side of the ball?  If our offense is as good as people say, then we should expect that Miami gave up more points to us than most other opponents.  That is exactly what we find.  Even if we subtract the defensive TD (interception return), we scored 27 points -- more than anyone except VaTech.  I think that's impressive.

Let's look at one other opponent:  Georgia Tech.  How do our offense & defense stack up against their other opponents?

Here we find similar results -- we scored more than anyone else on the Jackets and the Jackets scored more on us than anyone else they faced.  When we look at the other teams we've faced, we see a similar trend, with a few exceptions.  So it may be true that we have faced, on average, tougher defenses than offenses.  But this difference in competitiveness, which is moderate at best, is disproportionate to the difference between the performance of our O and our D.  The offense has been light-yearsbeyond the defense in terms of rankings, statistically, and in terms of how we've performed relative to our opponents' opponents.  So competition level is not a viable explanation for this massive performative disparity.

Conclusion

So I have argued primarily for two claims:  that our offense has vastly out-performed our defense, and that this difference is not due to the quality of opposing offenses/defenses we've faced.  Assuming similar talent levels on offense and defense, the best remaining explanation for the drastic difference in performance is inadequate coaching.

Questions:

1. Are there other variables that I have not taken into account that could explain the difference in performance?
2. Is there some other reason to think that our defense is better than the numbers suggest?
3. Is there some reason to think that the offense is not as good as the numbers suggest?
4. Why aren't more people (esp. in sports journalism) talking about Ponder's amazing season?