Analytics, Basic Stats, and Recent Historic Context: The ABC’s of Penn State Football – The 2022 Defense Year-In-Review
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Introduction
Throughout all the ebbs and flows of James Franklin’s eventful tenure at Penn State, the one constant year after year has been the Nittany Lions steady and strong defense (2020 notwithstanding, cough). No different in 2022. Despite all the off-season upheaval (losing 5 defenders in the NFL Draft, losing folksy-sounding DC Brent Pry to Virginia Tech, and bringing in a complete outsider in Manny Diaz) this year’s Penn State defense did more than maintain the status quo. They set a new standard of excellence.
Dominant but in a different way, Diaz’s defense leaned on arguably the best secondary in program history so that the front seven could unleash absolute chaos at the line of scrimmage. The result? A savage Saturday symphony of sacks, strips, and swats. Man, it was beautiful, wasn’t it? But don’t just take my word for it…the basic and advanced defensive stats from this season back all of that up. Let’s dive in.
Yardage
Before we serve the entrée, let us first nibble on some basic statistical appetizers like yardage allowed, shall we? Any halfway decent statistical analysis of a team’s defense requires several numbers to build a comprehensive picture. Average yards per play allowed is a good starting metric because it boils down team-by-team comparisons to the most root sample size – one play.
In 2022, the Penn State defense was one of the best in the country in YPP allowed (3rd in FBS to be precise) – an impressive showing that somewhat surprisingly was only the 3rd best performance by a Penn State defense since 2009. For every play this year the Nittany Lions defense allowed 1 full yard less than the FBS average – that’s pretty damn good.
If we broaden our scope and analyze yards allowed per possession, our charting once again illustrates that the 2022 PSU defense was much improved compared to the still-stellar 2021 squad (25.8 for 2022 versus 30.4 in 2021). Throughout the years, Penn State consistently fares better than average in this metric, but it is worth noting that yards/possession CAN be misleading, at times. For instance – as you’ll notice in the chart below — the final yards/possession metrics for the 2022 PSU D and 2020 PSU D reside in the same neighborhood…which, at first glance, makes zero sense. No one in their right mind is going to argue that the 2020 team was as good as 2022. So how can they be so comparable in this stat? Well, if you recall, the 2020 PSU offense was a turnover machine, especially in the nightmare-inducing initial 5 games of the abbreviated season. Turnovers set opponents up on short fields, hence the misleading yards/possession totals.
Scoring
The 2022 team allowed 18.2 points per game (including a couple of offense-generated scores vs Purdue and Ohio State) which was good for 9th nationally and 5th in the Big Ten. This number is only slightly worse than the 2021 performance of 17.3 and markedly better than the 2020 team (highlighting the yardage issue mentioned above). For Manny Diaz’s first year, he took over a young but talented squad and got the most out of them very quickly. In fact, if you take away the two pick sixes against in 2022, the 2022 points/game allowed would be identical to 2021.
Allowing points – or not allowing points, I guess — in the Red Zone is often what separates a good defense from a great defense. When examining Points Allowed per Red Zone Attempt, we see that the 2021 PSU team (with its well-deserved Bend-Don’t-Break identity) was historically great in this metric. But, with that said, the 2022 team wasn’t too far behind.
When it comes to Points Allowed per Red Zone Visit, anything lower than 4.2 points falls in the top-10% nationally. Well, as you can see, both the 2021 and 2022 PSU D’s were elite in this metric, surrendering 3.4 points (good for 9th best in FBS) and 4.1 points, respectively. Actually, though the 2021 D finished 9th in the nation in this category, their RZPPA number was the 14th best in FBS since 2009 (so, 14th best out of 1,771 defenses).
Overall, the 2022 Penn State defense allowed 13.3 Red Zone points per game – so roughly two Red Zone TDs per game or one Red Zone TD and two Red Zone FGs if you wanna be all ‘Well, actually…” about it. The FBS average is 18.2 Red Zone points allowed per game, meaning Diaz’s Nittany Lions gave up nearly a full TD less per game than a typical team. Out of context, that number might not seem that impressive, but when you’re in close games like the season opener at Purdue, it can mean the difference between winning and losing.
Next, if we examine Percentage of Scoring Drives Allowed, we see the major difference between the 2020 PSU defense and the 2022 PSU defense – a stat that explains away the misleading yards/possession metric from a few paragraphs ago. The 2022 Penn State defense only allowed opponents to put up points on 26% of their drives. This was tied for 4th best for Penn State since 2009 We previously labeled the 2021 team as a “bend don’t break” defense and that tag is clearly validated in these graphs. They allowed yards but fewer points. The 2022 team was more dominant in both limiting yardage production and scoring.
HAVOC
During the 2022 bye week, I hopped on a statewide syndicated radio show to discuss Penn State’s historically good midseason defensive HAVOC ratings. While gushing over the numbers, I also added the caveat that this group would likely regress in this statistical category as the season progressed. And they did…but not much.
As you know, Pass Breakups (PBU) are one of the statistical ingredients (along with TFL, Sacks, and Takeaways) that make up HAVOC. Well, as you probably also know from simply watching the games, Penn State was a tour de force in PBUs this season. The 2022 Nittany Lions finished with 99 PBUs – tied for 1st in FBS with Middle Tennessee. The Penn State defense faced 476 pass attempts in 2022, which was the 15th most of the year. They had a PBU rate of 21% , which was highest in the country (MTSU faced 510 pass attempts) just ahead of Illinois at 20%. Not coincidentally, both Illinois and Penn State had some of the top CBs in the country this year – patrollers of no fly zones.
An area where Penn State has struggled over the past couple of years since fan favorite DL coach Sean Spencer left has been in Sacks and Tackles-for-Loss. Notice (below) the significant trend downward from 2018 through 2021. Well, Manny Diaz’s chaos theory (aided by the arrival of a 5-star transfer EDGE and the best freshman LB in the country) totally flipped that script in 13 games. The 2022 Nittany Lions jumped to 11.2 Sack+TFL, up from 8.3 in 2021. This, again, is a top-5 performance in all of FBS on the season.
When you add these up and bring in turnovers generated, you see that the 2022 team set a record for HAVOC plays/game in 2022 with 20.8. Bolstered by the huge pass break up numbers, this is the 4th best performance in all of college football since 2009 and shows the immediate value that Manny brought to State College.
Final Efficiency
Our final calculation is the single best number/metric we can use to compare defenses in a comprehensive manner – Overall Defensive Efficiency. This metric ties together yards, scoring, and a number of other factors. Not sure how this happened – considering for the entirety of this blog post the 2022 PSU Defense has been crushing every statistical category out there — but Manny Diaz’s first act in Happy Valley was only the 7th best (?!?!?!) Penn State performance in overall efficiency since 2009. Seven out of 14 seems pretty mid but, as we’ve discussed previously, this ranking also shows how spoiled Penn State fans have been when it comes to quality defensive play. The 2022 PSU team ranks 111th over the last 14 years total (again, out of 1,771 FBS defenses during that time), which makes a little more sense. That means the 2022 PSU D lands the top-6% in Defensive Efficiency in all of FBS since 2009 but only in the 50th percentile in Penn State history over the same time. That is one of the more amazing stats to me.
Newsflash: The 2022 Penn State was incredible…incredible despite losing a ton of talent to Sundays all while adapting to an entirely new (and fairly complicated) defensive system, which is even MORE , um, incredible, I guess (can’t think of another word). Penn State’s stacked secondary and array of dizzying blitz packages quickly flattened the anticipated learning curve. And with so much talent returning, plus the addition of Storm Duck from the Transfer Portal, expectations will be sky high in 2023. Assuming this Year 2 Diaz defense hits the ground running, there’s no reason Penn State shouldn’t surpass its elite 2022 defensive metrics next year, perhaps pushing the Nittany Lions to their first CFP appearance.
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