As we roll into February, the college football season can be seen from the rear view mirror. There are many memorable moments that can be taken away from this past year. But I felt that it was time for it to be discussed from a different perspective. By the numbers…
If you know much of anything about sports, at some point I am sure you’ve heard the coined phrase, “Defense wins championships”. This is basically saying that having an efficient offense is important, but you can’t expect to win vital games if you’re unable to stop a fire hydrant from scoring. So I decided for my first article with Student Union Sports I would put this famous saying to the test with some of my own numbers. Over the past two weeks, I have been working on a statistic called fourth quarter pointed allowed or 4QPA. I figured what better time to test a defense than in crunch time. However, understanding how large D-I college football is, I decided to only conduct the study on Power 5 Conference teams. The teams with the best 4QPA from their respective conference may surprise you and go as follows:
#5 Pac-12 Washington’s Average 4QPA: 4.77
Finishing 3rd in their conference behind USC and Stanford, Washington played a seemingly soft schedule facing just one opponent ranked in the Top-25 before losing to my Nittany Lions in the Fiesta Bowl. However, they do deserve credit on the defensive end, as they were well known for their explosiveness and strength up front throughout the year. At no point in this season did the Huskies allow more than 14 points in the 4th quarter.
#4 ACC Duke’s Average 4QPA: 3.46
This is where the holes start to form in that theory of great defense corresponding with championship contention. The Blue Devils finished in the bottom half of the conference with an overall record of 7-6. However, they did show some bright spots this year as they closed the season out on a three game win streak and did not give up a single point in the 4th quarter of their last five contests. Obviously, interpretation of this statistic could be a little skewed considering Duke was on the losing end of some games that were decided early on; therefore, requiring the winning team to do very little offensively other than chew clock in the 2nd half. Nevertheless, I would consider the fact that they allowed 40 fewer 4th quarter points than Clemson speaks for itself.
#3 SEC Alabama’s Average 4QPA: 3.14
As is their standard, the Tide was rolling yet again this year. Coming off of another championship season, Nick Sabin has his club structured around playing solid defense and being able to tighten things up when things aren’t running so smoothly on the offensive end. It’s clear that without the play of the freshman quarterback, Tua Tagovailoa, Alabama probably does not win the National Championship. Although, no matter how much I would love to give all of the credit to him, I simply can’t do it. This is because Alabama’s defense held Georgia to zero points in the 4th and gave them the opportunity to win it in overtime.
#2 Big-12 TCU’s Average 4QPA: 2.43
Everyone ridicules the Big-12 for playing terrible defense and well, the numbers would tell you that it’s probably true. With that in mind, TCU stood out this season on the defense side of the ball. In a conference full of explosive offenses, they managed to go an impressive eight straight games without giving up a single point in the 4th quarter. Although this impressive number didn’t lead them to any championship victories, they did manage to come out on top in the Alamo Bowl against 13th ranked Stanford. The Horned Frogs finished their season with an overall record of 11-3.
#1 Big Ten Wisconsin’s Average 4QPA: 1.93
The Badgers experienced a disappointing end to an overall outstanding season. Wisconsin headed into their conference championship game trying to prove to the doubters that they belonged in the College Football Playoff. Ohio State wouldn’t allow it as they defeated the Badgers 27-21 and ended their undefeated season. With that being said, Wisconsin would bounce back and win the Orange Bowl against 10th ranked Miami and wrap up their season with a dominant 13-1 overall record. While doing this research, I was really caught off guard at what I saw from Wisconsin. I knew they had been a top tier defense all year against a weaker schedule, but I wasn’t expecting to see that they had only given up points in the 4th quarter to just four teams. And of those four 4th quarters, only once did a team put up more than seven on the stout Badgers.