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[QUOTE="Niastri, post: 5300720, member: 722"]
I'm not sure, but points per possession is probably more valuable... If still not perfect.

It's easy to look like a great defense when you have a time eating offense that doesn't turn it over, and you only have to play defense a handful of drives per game.

Conversely, it's much much harder to keep scoring averages low when your offense can't get first downs and turns it over constantly.

Short fields and fatigue don't get counted in points per possession, but that magnifies Syracuse's weakness.

We were 111th in defensive points per possession this year, giving up .478 per opposing drive. I have no idea if our incidence of pick 6 and punt blocks for touchdown is backed out of this stat, as they really shouldn't be counted against the defense.

By comparison, Ohio State led at .182 per opponent drive. 20th place allowed .311 and last place was .625 (allowing a touchdown almost every possession, yikes!)

Last year we were 54th
White's years we were 45th and 70th.

It's clear we had some growing pains on defense that were covered up by McCord's excellent offense for a lot of the year.

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/opponent-points-per-play?date=2022-01-11[/URL]

EDIT: I wrote this entire post, then discovered the stat I was analyzing was actually points per play, not points per possession.  It seems a crazy way to do it, but winds up meaning the same thing, so I'm not redoing it. :mad:
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