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Message: [QUOTE="Finwad32, post: 1606091, member: 651"] Time of possession (TOP). I keep hearing references to the defense will be on the field longer, which I think is absolutely true, but, not to as great of an extent as you'd imagine. Essentially, I want to put to bed the rumor that this makes it "acceptable" to have a bad defense. Avg TOP 2015-16 National Rankings 92) Syracuse 103) Tulsa 104) BG 107) Oregon 114) Baylor 127) UNC All of these teams were somewhere close to 28 min. Per game, which means the opponent was around 32. Time of possession was always taught to me as a key stat, which with two pro-style offenses it absolutely is. It's meaningless in this system. The defense is on the field 4 more min. Per game than the offense, and roughly 5/6 more minutes, or, 1/12 of the game longer than the best ball control teams in the country.(there are a couple outliers (Stanford / Alabama) but the largest grouping starts at about 33 and change.) Over the courses of a season, the defense will play roughly one more game than the best ball control team in the country's defense. The middle of the pack defenses in the country give up roughly 400 yards per game, so essentially you've got to overcome 400 more yards of offense, or 33 ypg, roughly, over a 12 game slate. 33 ypg is roughly 10-20 slots of differentiation on the total team defense rankings by yardage. Long story short, yes it's true they're on the field more, but it shouldn't be a crutch to defend a horrendously terrible defense. They would still be terrible even if TOP evened out. Syracuse was 92 in TOP this year and 99 in Total Defense. BG 104/85. So if BG's defense is on the field as little as the top ball control teams in the country, it's fair to says they would still rank in the 60-75 range 60 and 75 being extreme ends. Probably closer to 65-70. [/QUOTE]

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