Coaches - please - stop saying our run defense was good in 2015

[Biggus Piggus]

Coach Bret Bielema and other staff members keep claiming that Arkansas's run defense was good in 2015. They use one statistic: Yards allowed per carry. They ignore the awful one: 25 rushing touchdowns allowed, worst in Razorback history. Opponents scored a TD on the ground for every 16 carries, or 15:1 ex-sacks. The average for Razorback defenses from 1970-2014 was better than 40:1. I have sack history back only to 1995, so the long-term numbers are comparable with the 16:1.

Average for FBS football in 2015: A little better than 22:1.

In 1998, Arkansas opponents scored one rushing touchdown for every 58 carries, ex-sacks. That's almost 4x better than the 2015 defense did.

Missouri screwed up the Golden Sombrero for the Arkansas defense in 2015. The Tigers were the only opponent that didn't score a rushing touchdown against the Razorbacks. In the previous six seasons (all I checked), the Hogs kept at least three opponents per year from scoring on the ground.

Looking at traditional measures of run defense, the Hogs did not look bad. They gave up 13 gains of 20 or more yards, a relatively good number. Excluding sacks, opponents gained 4.3 yards per carry, similar to 2014 and well below the team's 10-year average.

One thing I found, though - The Hogs look good on average because they did not give up many long runs. But the average conceals relatively few lost-yardage tackles and a too-high success rate for opposing runners.

If one looks at game-by-game results, an interesting pattern emerges.

Less than 4 yards per carry (ex-sacks) - UTEP, Toledo, Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Mississippi State.
4-5 yards per carry - Texas A&M, Tennessee, Missouri, Kansas State.
>5 yards per carry - Texas Tech, Tennessee-Martin, Ole Miss.

Arkansas held five pro-style offenses and one wing-T opponent below 4 yards per carry (depending on what you want to call MSU). Things were poorest against three spread passing offenses with pass-run quarterbacks.

Maybe the defensive strategy against the spread - passive - left defenders out of position against the run as well.

Something else I noticed: The run defense got worse, not better, inside the Hogs' own 40-yard line. Note the charts below. I have no way to adjust these for sacks, so compare with the unadjusted run-defense numbers.

Here is the really freaky stat. Outside the 40, Arkansas allowed 2.5 yards per carry and zero rushing touchdowns.

Inside its own 40 (when the field is shorter and everything should come harder), the 2015 Razorbacks gave up 4.1 yards per carry and 25 touchdowns on the ground. Ten in 2014, 25 in 2015.

That had to be worst in school history, because no Arkansas defense had ever even allowed more than 21 rushing TDs from any distance in one season.

This cannot be solely a personnel thing, can it? Something was bad wrong with our defensive scheme - inside the 40. Even UT-Martin rushed for three touchdowns.

[DeltaBoy]

I agree we gave up too much ground after they got inside our 40.

[presidenthog]

everyone just killed us with chunk yardage pass plays. no one had to run on us. then they got close and ran it in. the defense was terrible.

[a0ashle]

TDs are fluky stat to base any argument on... it does not account for how the offense got into scoring position... that doesn't mean you are wrong. Its better to worry about success rate and explosiveness of each type of play.

As you can see we were 56th in run S&P+... which is not good.



   
   

Team	Def. S&P+	Rk	Rushing S&P+	Rk	Passing S&P+	Rk	SD S&P+	Rk	PD S&P+	Rk	Success Rt+	Rk	IsoPPP+	Rk
Arkansas	29.0	71	102.9	56	83.6	118	90.8	102	93.7	89	89.9	103	93.1	92

Now, there are lot of interpretations into those numbers. For example, did we have to loosen up our grip on the run defense in order to give some semblance of pass defense? I dunno, but it certainly could have been that way.



DEFINITIONS from http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaadef

Success Rate: A common Football Outsiders tool used to measure efficiency by determining whether every play of a given game was successful or not. The terms of success in college football: 50 percent of necessary yardage on first down, 70 percent on second down, and 100 percent on third and fourth down.
IsoPPP: An explosiveness measure derived from determining the equivalent point value of every yard line (based on the expected number of points an offense could expect to score from that yard line) and, therefore, every play of a given game. IsoPPP looks at only the per-play value of a team's successful plays (as defined by the Success Rate definition above); its goal is to separate the explosiveness component from the efficiency component altogether. For more information about IsoPPP, click here.
Redzone S&P+: This measures drive-finishing ability by looking at the success rate and IsoPPP measures for only plays that come after a first down inside the opponent's 40-yard line. Coaches start adjusting their play-calling for a shrinking field closer to the 40 than the 20, and there is more separation between good and bad offenses if you look at plays in this range instead of plays inside the 20-yard line (as the redzone is commonly defined).
FP+: This is an opponent-adjusted measure of your ability to create field position advantages. This is based on drive data instead of per-play data. For an offense, it looks at field position you create for your defense (with help from special teams, which is not yet stripped out of these numbers); for a defense, it looks at the opposite.
Opponent adjustments: Each team's output for a given category (Success Rate, IsoPPP, and split stats like rushing, passing, redzone, standard downs, passing downs, etc.) is compared to the expected output based upon their opponents. This is a schedule-based adjustment designed to reward tougher schedules and punish weaker ones. In the tables below, the "+" designation is for measures that are adjusted for opponent.
Garbage time adjustments: The S&P+ figures used in the tables below only look at the plays that took place while a game was deemed competitive. Garbage-time plays and possessions have been filtered out of the calculations. The criteria for "garbage time" are as follows: a game is not within 28 points in the first quarter, 24 points in the second quarter, 21 points in the third quarter, or 16 points in the fourth quarter.

[theFlyingHog]

Anyone have any stats on QBs running it in more these days? Seems like Kelley had a couple last year on us

[Biggus Piggus]

Now, there are lot of interpretations into those numbers. For example, did we have to loosen up our grip on the run defense in order to give some semblance of pass defense? I dunno, but it certainly could have been that way.

If you go back and watch games, you will see too many instances where a back ran right through our defense in the red zone, practically untouched. We were on our heels. Also QBs took off on us, and we couldn't catch them.

I suspect the pass-D problems kept our defense from going all-out to stop the run in the red zone. Exactly why the run defense inside the 40 was so bad is something I can't peg. Opponents ran very successfully once they crossed the 50. Someone who should know told me it had something to do with safety and LB play, but the line wasn't making stops either.

[factchecker]

The longest run we gave up in 2015 was 38 yards (best in the SEC): http://www.cfbstats.com/2015/leader/911/team/defense/situational01/category01/sort05.html

We gave up 90 1st downs on rushes (5th in the SEC):
http://www.cfbstats.com/2015/leader/911/team/defense/situational01/category01/sort06.html

51 rushing plays went for greater than 10 yards (4th in the SEC):
http://www.cfbstats.com/2015/leader/911/team/defense/situational01/category01/sort07.html

13 rushing plays went for greater than 20 yards (4th in the SEC):
http://www.cfbstats.com/2015/leader/911/team/defense/situational01/category01/sort08.html

The majority of the TDs we gave up on rushing plays came within the redzone.  In fact 22 of the rushing TDs were in the redzone and the three other were from our own 39 To 21 yard line:
http://www.cfbstats.com/2015/team/31/rushing/defense/situational.html

I'm not sure on how to check if the red zone touchdowns came after a big pass play but spread teams were able to gash us over the middle hurry up and run it on a gassed d or use their mobile QB to run it in.

Regardless, 25 rushing TDs is not good.

[hawgfan4life]

For some odd reason, you cannot figure into stats how much over-compensating for pitiful pass defense affected the run defense's overall statistics and effectiveness.  I watched every game last year and can say our run defense was the only bright spot in general on defense for the season.  I don't know if I would label it as good, but I would say it was good enough.  Our problem was poor starting position by the other team because of too many returns after kicks and it was too many big plays in the passing game along with too many short and medium plays in the passing game.

I will go with it was good enough and should be better this year.  With a greatly improved pass defense, I expect our defense to be much better overall.  Not worried about last year anymore.

[Pig in the Pokey]

ESPN says we gave up only 11 rushes of over 15 yards all year, #1 in the SEC. Also, we held the best 2 backs in the country to their lowest outputs of the season and under 100 yards.

I understand the argument and OP is mostly correct but we were solid against the run for the most part. There are many reasons teams threw on us so much, one of which was subpar DB play (those guys will show development). Another was subpar DB schemes (like the hated 8 yd cushion- addressed by an upgrade to Paul Rhoads). Yet another was 'the path of least resistance' because or run defense is pretty salty. And yet another, oft overlooked reason, is because our offense was scoring at will on most teams and they HAD to pass to keep up.

[GuvHog]

TDs are fluky stat to base any argument on... it does not account for how the offense got into scoring position... that doesn't mean you are wrong. Its better to worry about success rate and explosiveness of each type of play.

As you can see we were 56th in run S&P+... which is not good.



   
   

Team	Def. S&P+	Rk	Rushing S&P+	Rk	Passing S&P+	Rk	SD S&P+	Rk	PD S&P+	Rk	Success Rt+	Rk	IsoPPP+	Rk
Arkansas	29.0	71	102.9	56	83.6	118	90.8	102	93.7	89	89.9	103	93.1	92

Now, there are lot of interpretations into those numbers. For example, did we have to loosen up our grip on the run defense in order to give some semblance of pass defense? I dunno, but it certainly could have been that way.



DEFINITIONS from http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaadef

Those stats also include the many times that opposing QB's dropped back to pass but scrambled for big yardage when no receivers were open. Remove those and the stats look totally different.

[hawgfan4life]

If you go back and watch games, you will see too many instances where a back ran right through our defense in the red zone, practically untouched. We were on our heels. Also QBs took off on us, and we couldn't catch them.

I suspect the pass-D problems kept our defense from going all-out to stop the run in the red zone. Exactly why the run defense inside the 40 was so bad is something I can't peg. Opponents ran very successfully once they crossed the 50. Someone who should know told me it had something to do with safety and LB play, but the line wasn't making stops either.

It is because teams will run a wide-open offense past midfield with the idea of four downs to get a first instead of three.  This kept our defense from playing to our strength against the run and resulted in a defense not good at anything at times.

[a0ashle]

Those stats also include the many times that opposing QB's dropped back to pass but scrambled for big yardage when no receivers were open. Remove those and the stats look totally different.

If you have a source with the scrambles removed I would be very interested.

[Biggus Piggus]

The absolute number comparisons are distorted by the overtime games, which is why I fall back on the frequency stats. Rushes per TD.

Auburn scored overtime TDs on rushes of 2, 2 and 1 yard. In OT, Auburn ran 13 times for 60 yards, 4.6 ypc. Peyton Barber ran for 15, 8 and 2 TD on his first three carries. Did not get any prettier until Winston caught Barber for a 1-yard gain on first down in the fourth overtime.

Then Malzahn inexplicably passed three times in a row, game over.

[bigred223]

We struggled against spread offenses with mobile qbs. We did well against offenses that operated traditionally under center. We have to have better play from linebackers and safeties.

[a0ashle]

ESPN says we gave up only 11 rushes of over 15 yards all year, #1 in the SEC. Also, we held the best 2 backs in the country to their lowest outputs of the season and under 100 yards.

I understand the argument and OP is mostly correct but we were solid against the run for the most part. There are many reasons teams threw on us so much, one of which was subpar DB play (those guys will show development). Another was subpar DB schemes (like the hated 8 yd cushion- addressed by an upgrade to Paul Rhoads). Yet another was 'the path of least resistance' because or run defense is pretty salty. And yet another, oft overlooked reason, is because our offense was scoring at will on most teams and they HAD to pass to keep up.

Success rate is likely key here. It's not always about big plays, methodical running (as we are all familiar with) can also be damaging...

Success Rate: A common Football Outsiders tool used to measure efficiency by determining whether every play of a given game was successful or not. The terms of success in college football: 50 percent of necessary yardage on first down, 70 percent on second down, and 100 percent on third and fourth down.

[Bacon_Bitz]

Not enough TFLs or no gain/1 yd stops.  No penetration on run plays by the line or LBs.  But they didn't allow anyone to run right past them either. 

[fullfan]

Fournette says our run D stinks....wait,what??  He must have heard it from D. Henry.

[Bacon_Bitz]

Fournette says our run D stinks....wait,what??  He must have heard it from D. Henry.

This is a good point.  Texas Tech, Ole Miss w/ Kelly, UT-Martin, and Tenner in the first half all attacked the edges of our run D on the outside.  We were slightly better up the middle. 

[Biggus Piggus]

If you have a source with the scrambles removed I would be very interested.

You can completely take out everything but rushes by non-QBs. But that would not make much sense. You can't disqualify QB rushes.

QB rushing stats, game by game (including sacks):

UTEP - 9 carries, 7 yards
Toledo - 1-3
Texas Tech - 10-58 2 TD
aTm - 11-32
Tennessee - 7-7
Alabama - 7-17
Auburn - 4-(5)
UTM - 1-21
Ole Miss - 11-110 3 TD
LSU - 8-(44)
MSU - 15-46 2 TD
Mizzou - 7-17
K-State - 12-19

[Biggus Piggus]

ESPN says we gave up only 11 rushes of over 15 yards all year, #1 in the SEC. Also, we held the best 2 backs in the country to their lowest outputs of the season and under 100 yards.

That 11-rush stat is wrong, because the Hogs allowed 13 runs of 20 yards or more. That is still a good result (it was 11 in 2014).

Giving up long runs was not the problem. Giving up positive yardage too often was the problem. Arkansas ranked poorly in lost-yardage tackles and in the success-rate stat shown above in a0ashle's post. And as I isolated, the run D inside the 40 was unusually weak.

If you watched the games, you probably noticed the same thing - that something about the run D changed for the worse as opponents crossed the 50.

[Bacon_Bitz]

These stats, like the passing defense stats, suggest we need to take some, any, risks on D this year.  Reassess the risk-reward calculation and "take some chances" - increase the potential reward even if increases the risk of big plays, because big plays aren't the problem.  Stopping anybody at all from just moving down the field is the problem.  So take some risks - run blitz every now and then, play more press man coverage, run more stunts and blitzes on passing downs - so that we can get a negative play and end some drives. 

[GuvHog]

ESPN says we gave up only 11 rushes of over 15 yards all year, #1 in the SEC. Also, we held the best 2 backs in the country to their lowest outputs of the season and under 100 yards.

I understand the argument and OP is mostly correct but we were solid against the run for the most part. There are many reasons teams threw on us so much, one of which was subpar DB play (those guys will show development). Another was subpar DB schemes (like the hated 8 yd cushion- addressed by an upgrade to Paul Rhoads). Yet another was 'the path of least resistance' because or run defense is pretty salty. And yet another, oft overlooked reason, is because our offense was scoring at will on most teams and they HAD to pass to keep up.

They were probably just counting rushes by the RBs and the Hogs did pretty well stopping that. Heck, They almost STUFFED Fournette in Baton Rouge. QB's getting out of containment and running for long yardage is what really hurt the Hogs. That cannot be allowed to happen this year.

[Biggus Piggus]

If the Hogs did gimp the near-red-zone run D to shore up pass D, they got modest returns on that strategy.

Since integration, only four Arkansas defenses allowed more than 8 yards per pass attempt, and 2015 was one of those. The Hogs "held down" pass TDs to one in every 24 passes, which ranks in the 38th percentile (since 1970).

Seems like Bielema and Smith chose to sacrifice yards per catch in hope of limiting TD passes, and an unintended casualty was near-red-zone run defense.

[a0ashle]

Our power succes rate or...

Power Success Rate: This is the same as on the pro side -- percentage of runs on third or fourth down, two yards or less to go, that achieved a first down or touchdown.

...was one of the worst in all of NCAA. We might be getting closer to explaining some our issues with the run.


http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaadl

[jackflash]

I am a homer when comes to the hogs. But will say are defense is very poor.

[Biggus Piggus]

The run defense results for 2015, ex-sacks.

31-229 (7.4 ypc) 4 TD - Ole Miss
27-171 (6.3) 3 TD - Texas Tech
23-139 (6.0) 3 TD - Tennessee-Martin

20-93 (4.7) 1 TD - Kansas St
32-141 (4.4) 1 TD - Tennessee
22-97 (4.4) 0 TD - Missouri
18-78 (4.3) 1 TD - Texas A&M

33-127 (3.9) 2 TD - Mississippi St
25-96 (3.8 ) 1 TD - LSU
44-152 (3.5) 1 TD - Alabama
51-171 (3.4) 6 TD - Auburn (4OT)
24-81 (3.4) 1 TD - Toledo
33-64 (1.9) 1 TD - UTEP

Fix the results against the spread, and we're OK.

[Biggus Piggus]

Our power succes rate or...

...was one of the worst in all of NCAA. We might be getting closer to explaining some our issues with the run.


http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaadl

Pass downs sack rate - 4.4% - 114th.

Defensive power success rate - 80.5% - 123rd.

That is an odd combination. Makes the defensive line look like dogcrap.

[bphi11ips]

Arkansas finished the 2015 season 12th in FBS in rushing defense, giving up 116.5 yards per game.  That's good by any standard.

You can drill down with "advanced stats" all day long, but they won't be as useful for analyzing performances and predicting future outcomes as the old fashioned boxscores.  Eyes, experience, and common sense are useful as well.

Arkansas' s defense has been tailored under Bielema to stop the big running attacks of Alabama and LSU.  Unless you can beat them, you're playing for a decent bowl game.  See 2011.  Bielema wants a West championship, so I don't see him going all nickel on us.

We were "good" last year against the run, but we definitely need to improve in the red zone.

[Youngsta71701]

Our run defense was good in 2015, especially when comparing it to the pass defense. Also, did we allow a 100 yard rusher last year? If we did I don't remember.

[a0ashle]

Pass downs sack rate - 4.4% - 114th.

Defensive power success rate - 80.5% - 123rd.

That is an odd combination. Makes the defensive line look like dogcrap.

We knew this already, didn't we? We got 0 pressure early on. Even the coaches are changing up our DL to be lighter/quicker... to get back what made 2014 run defense actually great, which was getting in the backfield. Our stuff rate in 2014 was 25%... 1 in 4 times a RB touched the ball it was for 0 or less yards... man that was salty.

[Biggus Piggus]

I've long used the available-yards stat to measure offensive and defensive effectiveness. That's net yards gained on all possessions / total distance from the goal line on all possessions. Football Outsiders gives up season-total available yards % stats, which is terrific.

Arkansas's season-average yards allowed as a % of available yards was practically 50%, which is bad. Alabama, for example, was at 29%.

For comparison, Arkansas's offense gained - on average - more than 60% of available yards, which is fricking amazing. Sustain anything close to that, and return to 2014's defensive available yards % - which was 38% - and we have something really good in the works.

[Exit Pursued by a Boar]

I believe our DL broke contain on run-pass QBs quite a bit, thereby allowing them to run.  The instinct is to nail the QB, when with a spread offense with a good running QB, corralling the QB is often better.

EFBAB

[Seebs]

I believe this had more to do with the opponents arm getting tired from all of those completions. Had to run to rest his arm.

[Boarmonger]

everyone just killed us with chunk yardage pass plays. no one had to run on us. then they got close and ran it in. the defense was terrible.

D was so tired chasing the O down that they were tired by the time they got to the 40 and gave up easy scores.

[Boarmonger]

Our run defense was good in 2015, especially when comparing it to the pass defense. Also, did we allow a 100 yard rusher last year? If we did I don't remember.

Chad Kelly

[a0ashle]

D was so tired chasing the O down that they were tired by the time they got to the 40 and gave up easy scores.

There is something to what you are saying, our defense in 2014 greatly benefited from our offense eating up the clock thereby minimizing the number of times they had to take the field. I think we lost that benefit last year. That's not to say that our passing game last year hurt us overall, but we never established that grinding run the clock out running game. Why didn't we? One answer might be our injuries to the RB corp keeping us from wanting to put that kind of load on one RB.

[WooPig90]

Not sure on the stat but how many are 1 and 2 yard TDs because of the pass D letting them get there? Not sure you can blame those instances on the Run D.

[Biggus Piggus]

Not sure on the stat but how many are 1 and 2 yard TDs because of the pass D letting them get there? Not sure you can blame those instances on the Run D.

If the run defense weren't giving up nearly 2x as many yards per carry inside the 40 vs. outside, that might begin to make sense.

Take that in again - 25 rushing touchdowns, 19 passing TDs.

[a0ashle]

These kind of discussions and analysis are what I love about this sport. I mean, you can make a decent argument that injuries to our RBs hurt our run defense. Now if you take that too far and think any one thing is the silver bullet to our problems, you are missing the beauty of this sport and all its intricacies.

[Biggus Piggus]

We knew this already, didn't we?

This is the root of the whole question for me. We went into last season absolutely certain that our defensive line was near-elite. We had depth coming out of our ears! It was the one element everybody was absolutely certain would be right (other than the Oline, which...). And it wasn't even close to right.

I go back and look at these weird outlier-bad statistics + re-evaluate why we believe things will be so much better. This is college football, and teams/players are supposed to change a lot from season to season. I see signs that the team has recognized and addressed its weak spots. Sure.

The opposition doesn't stand still either. Mainly, last season rattled my confidence in extrapolating offseason information toward game outcomes.

[a0ashle]

If the run defense weren't giving up nearly 2x as many yards per carry inside the 40 vs. outside, that might begin to make sense.

Take that in again - 25 rushing touchdowns, 19 passing TDs.

I wonder if inside the 40 we played more man? Does anyone here know? If we manned up in passing closer to the endzone, then theoretically we could easily have been forced out of position by fake routes.


Something in how we played defense changed inside the 40, that much has been established. It could be stamina, or scheme.

[a0ashle]

This is the root of the whole question for me. We went into last season absolutely certain that our defensive line was near-elite. We had depth coming out of our ears! It was the one element everybody was absolutely certain would be right (other than the Oline, which...). And it wasn't even close to right.

I go back and look at these weird outlier-bad statistics + re-evaluate why we believe things will be so much better. This is college football, and teams/players are supposed to change a lot from season to season. I see signs that the team has recognized and addressed its weak spots. Sure.

The opposition doesn't stand still either. Mainly, last season rattled my confidence in extrapolating offseason information toward game outcomes.

Certainly, but it is the only thing we have right now. Gotta play the games!

[Hawgzinbowlz]

Our run D was OK against Leonard Fournette.

" GO HOGS "

[Youngsta71701]

Our run D was OK against Leonard Fournette.

" GO HOGS "

And Derrick Henry

[a0ashle]

Both of those things makes me believe that our pass defense is what hurt our run defense.

[azhog10]

Coach Bret Bielema and other staff members keep claiming that Arkansas's run defense was good in 2015. They use one statistic: Yards allowed per carry. They ignore the awful one: 25 rushing touchdowns allowed, worst in Razorback history. Opponents scored a TD on the ground for every 16 carries, or 15:1 ex-sacks. The average for Razorback defenses from 1970-2014 was better than 40:1. I have sack history back only to 1995, so the long-term numbers are comparable with the 16:1.

Average for FBS football in 2015: A little better than 22:1.

In 1998, Arkansas opponents scored one rushing touchdown for every 58 carries, ex-sacks. That's almost 4x better than the 2015 defense did.

Missouri screwed up the Golden Sombrero for the Arkansas defense in 2015. The Tigers were the only opponent that didn't score a rushing touchdown against the Razorbacks. In the previous six seasons (all I checked), the Hogs kept at least three opponents per year from scoring on the ground.

Looking at traditional measures of run defense, the Hogs did not look bad. They gave up 13 gains of 20 or more yards, a relatively good number. Excluding sacks, opponents gained 4.3 yards per carry, similar to 2014 and well below the team's 10-year average.

One thing I found, though - The Hogs look good on average because they did not give up many long runs. But the average conceals relatively few lost-yardage tackles and a too-high success rate for opposing runners.

If one looks at game-by-game results, an interesting pattern emerges.

Less than 4 yards per carry (ex-sacks) - UTEP, Toledo, Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Mississippi State.
4-5 yards per carry - Texas A&M, Tennessee, Missouri, Kansas State.
>5 yards per carry - Texas Tech, Tennessee-Martin, Ole Miss.

Arkansas held five pro-style offenses and one wing-T opponent below 4 yards per carry (depending on what you want to call MSU). Things were poorest against three spread passing offenses with pass-run quarterbacks.

Maybe the defensive strategy against the spread - passive - left defenders out of position against the run as well.

Something else I noticed: The run defense got worse, not better, inside the Hogs' own 40-yard line. Note the charts below. I have no way to adjust these for sacks, so compare with the unadjusted run-defense numbers.

Here is the really freaky stat. Outside the 40, Arkansas allowed 2.5 yards per carry and zero rushing touchdowns.

Inside its own 40 (when the field is shorter and everything should come harder), the 2015 Razorbacks gave up 4.1 yards per carry and 25 touchdowns on the ground. Ten in 2014, 25 in 2015.

That had to be worst in school history, because no Arkansas defense had ever even allowed more than 21 rushing TDs from any distance in one season.

This cannot be solely a personnel thing, can it? Something was bad wrong with our defensive scheme - inside the 40. Even UT-Martin rushed for three touchdowns.

Disagree with the fact that our passing defense was a big reason why we gave up so many touchdowns while limiting the ypc. Yeah we gave up a lot of TD's but it would help if teams weren't throwing the ball and getting close to the goal line to make it happen.

[azhog10]

This is the root of the whole question for me. We went into last season absolutely certain that our defensive line was near-elite. We had depth coming out of our ears! It was the one element everybody was absolutely certain would be right (other than the Oline, which...). And it wasn't even close to right.

I go back and look at these weird outlier-bad statistics + re-evaluate why we believe things will be so much better. This is college football, and teams/players are supposed to change a lot from season to season. I see signs that the team has recognized and addressed its weak spots. Sure.

The opposition doesn't stand still either. Mainly, last season rattled my confidence in extrapolating offseason information toward game outcomes.

What "depth" coming out of our ears? We lost a lot of quality players on the DLine and our top LB. Anyone who thought we were in better shape defensively last year than the year before was either gollable or just uninformed to say the least.

[Jim Harris]

Coach Bret Bielema and other staff members keep claiming that Arkansas's run defense was good in 2015. They use one statistic: Yards allowed per carry. They ignore the awful one: 25 rushing touchdowns allowed, worst in Razorback history. Opponents scored a TD on the ground for every 16 carries, or 15:1 ex-sacks. The average for Razorback defenses from 1970-2014 was better than 40:1. I have sack history back only to 1995, so the long-term numbers are comparable with the 16:1.

Average for FBS football in 2015: A little better than 22:1.

In 1998, Arkansas opponents scored one rushing touchdown for every 58 carries, ex-sacks. That's almost 4x better than the 2015 defense did.

Missouri screwed up the Golden Sombrero for the Arkansas defense in 2015. The Tigers were the only opponent that didn't score a rushing touchdown against the Razorbacks. In the previous six seasons (all I checked), the Hogs kept at least three opponents per year from scoring on the ground.

Looking at traditional measures of run defense, the Hogs did not look bad. They gave up 13 gains of 20 or more yards, a relatively good number. Excluding sacks, opponents gained 4.3 yards per carry, similar to 2014 and well below the team's 10-year average.

One thing I found, though - The Hogs look good on average because they did not give up many long runs. But the average conceals relatively few lost-yardage tackles and a too-high success rate for opposing runners.

If one looks at game-by-game results, an interesting pattern emerges.

Less than 4 yards per carry (ex-sacks) - UTEP, Toledo, Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Mississippi State.
4-5 yards per carry - Texas A&M, Tennessee, Missouri, Kansas State.
>5 yards per carry - Texas Tech, Tennessee-Martin, Ole Miss.

Arkansas held five pro-style offenses and one wing-T opponent below 4 yards per carry (depending on what you want to call MSU). Things were poorest against three spread passing offenses with pass-run quarterbacks.

Maybe the defensive strategy against the spread - passive - left defenders out of position against the run as well.

Something else I noticed: The run defense got worse, not better, inside the Hogs' own 40-yard line. Note the charts below. I have no way to adjust these for sacks, so compare with the unadjusted run-defense numbers.

Here is the really freaky stat. Outside the 40, Arkansas allowed 2.5 yards per carry and zero rushing touchdowns.

Inside its own 40 (when the field is shorter and everything should come harder), the 2015 Razorbacks gave up 4.1 yards per carry and 25 touchdowns on the ground. Ten in 2014, 25 in 2015.

That had to be worst in school history, because no Arkansas defense had ever even allowed more than 21 rushing TDs from any distance in one season.

This cannot be solely a personnel thing, can it? Something was bad wrong with our defensive scheme - inside the 40. Even UT-Martin rushed for three touchdowns.

Opponents all had a year to get a read on what a Robb Smith Arkansas defense might call in certain situations over what they knew in 2014. Inside the Arkansas 40, the onus is on the defensive coordinator with average talent/speed to call a better game than even the most conservative of offensive coordinators, who have the advantage on the plus side of the field.
And, of course, this will tick people off who had the negative, but I really believe Bielema decided he needed to take over more of the defense and instituted some bass-ackwards schemes that conflicted with what Smith had already installed. The result was the secondary playing more quarters like they did in 2013, at least that's what former D-backs who watched it closely were telling me. Secondary play and alignment in general was almost a carbon copy of Bielema's first season here, when he had no linebackers. The answer was to spread out so thin that Arkansas couldn't cover anything. They did a better job last year of not letting as much over their head (well, with the exception of Ridley at Alabama and some breakdowns vs. Miss State) but all that short stuff couldn't be defended with the space they were allowing. They couldn't even get in a hit to hold up the play enough for tackling a lot of the times. Yeah, some of that was talent, especially at linebacker. Not totally an indictment of the specific LBs, but the fact that there weren't enough of them. Brooks Ellis played way way way too many plays last year. And I'll still say this: the defensive line, at least certain players who obviously went backward from their 2014 seasons, were too heavy to be effective at anything, whether it was pass rush, stopping the run, anything.

Your statistical summation is fantastic. I am still amazed we see such little of this in the daily rags. But those note packages are gripping stuff.

[Jim Harris]

There is something to what you are saying, our defense in 2014 greatly benefited from our offense eating up the clock thereby minimizing the number of times they had to take the field. I think we lost that benefit last year. That's not to say that our passing game last year hurt us overall, but we never established that grinding run the clock out running game. Why didn't we? One answer might be our injuries to the RB corp keeping us from wanting to put that kind of load on one RB.

what were the total (meaningful, as in game in doubt) plays, 2014 vs. 2015? I guess I could look it up, but I figured BP might know that off the top of his head.

[Biggus Piggus]

And, of course, this will tick people off who had the negative, but I really believe Bielema decided he needed to take over more of the defense and instituted some bass-ackwards schemes that conflicted with what Smith had already installed. The result was the secondary playing more quarters like they did in 2013, at least that's what former D-backs who watched it closely were telling me. Secondary play and alignment in general was almost a carbon copy of Bielema's first season here, when he had no linebackers. The answer was to spread out so thin that Arkansas couldn't cover anything. They did a better job last year of not letting as much over their head (well, with the exception of Ridley at Alabama and some breakdowns vs. Miss State) but all that short stuff couldn't be defended with the space they were allowing. They couldn't even get in a hit to hold up the play enough for tackling a lot of the times. Yeah, some of that was talent, especially at linebacker. Not totally an indictment of the specific LBs, but the fact that there weren't enough of them. Brooks Ellis played way way way too many plays last year. And I'll still say this: the defensive line, at least certain players who obviously went backward from their 2014 seasons, were too heavy to be effective at anything, whether it was pass rush, stopping the run, anything.

This is very interesting + the kind of stuff I could never come up with. Thanks.