A Look at How Big 10 Defenses Have Performed Against Big 12 Offenses

[Bodacious Bevo 3691]

A large portion of the discussion regarding the current DC search revolves around whether candidates will be able to successfully defend Big 12 Offenses. Chris Ash has been at the center of these discussions, and a fairly common belief is that Ash's success in the Big 10 will not translate well to the Big 12 because he defended worse, more simplistic offenses in the Big 10. 

Of course, we're just a bunch of arm chair experts that don't actually know anything, so let's see if the numbers support our distrust of Big 10 DC's in any way. 

Quick Note: Stats ahead. I'll be spoilering large portions in order to make this readable. I thought about doing actual statistical testing, but it would have been bad science for several different reasons, so I decided not to. So, there won't be any claims about whether the difference in the performance of Big 12 offenses against Big 12 and Big 10 defenses are statistically significant. I'm guessing that they are not. However, a lack of significance does not mean that the difference does not matter in real life. Football is a game of inches after all. 

There were a total of 15 games played between Big 10 and Big 12 teams since the 2015 season. I recorded the points scored, total yards gained, passing yards gained, and rushing yards gained. I also went back and did the math to find each team's average in conference playfor those categories. I've put all of those stats as well as a couple notes in the following spoiler: 

Spoiler

Don't spend too much time looking at this. There's discussion and better visuals ahead. This is just here for reference. 

A couple notes on the data:

• I know there are mistakes in here. This isn't meant to be perfect science, just message board fodder
• 15 games is really not enough to draw definitive conclusions, but this is an issue for any discussion involving football stats because seasons are so short. We just have to deal with it
• All of these games are OOC games early in the season, so there's going to be some weirdness as teams figure themselves out i.e. Iowa State seemingly every year
• A third of the sample come from the Cy-Hawk rivalry
• Points is total points scored, not just by the offense. Notable for games like 2017 Maryland at Texas

So, how did Big 10 defenses hold up when compared to their Big 12 counterparts? Pretty well. 

• In these 15 games, Big 10 defenses held their Big 12 opponents to 2.9 fewer points and 8.4 fewer yards
  • If you look at the chart in the next spoiler, you'll see that rush yards + pass yards ≠ total yards but I'm not going back through all this to find like 10 misplaced yards

However, if you remove the Cy-Hawk games from the equation, then there's a slightly different story.

• In the 10 games not involving Iowa/ISU, Big 10 defenses allowed their Big 12 opponents 1.8 more points and  25.0 more yards than their in-conference season averages

Spoiler

I think the most compelling reason to exclude the rivalry is that this post is about the ability of a Big 10 DC to succeed outside its natural habitat. Annual rivalries breed levels of familiarity that don't exist even between conference opponents. Then again, maybe that's the perfect reason to include it. Phil Parker has been the Iowa DC for all 5 of these games and his defenses have performed better against Iowa State than Big 12 defenses have. Iowa State has been really weird early on in the last couple seasons though, so Iowa hasn't been playing them at their best. 

Anyways, here are the stats:

I wrestled back and forth on whether to include the rivalry games, but ultimately I think it's best to keep them in the analysis. Regardless, there really isn't a major difference. Big 10 DC's have not fared much better or worse against Big 12 offenses than Big 12 DC's have. 

I also ran the numbers for Big 10 offenses against Big 12 defenses, and those results are very interesting.

• Big 10 offenses scored .5 fewer points than they did in conference play, although they did gain 18 more yards
  • The math for passing and rushing yards is wonky again here
• If you take out the Cy-Hawk games, Big 10 offenses scored 2.2 fewer points than they did in conference play while gaining 3 more yards

Not a huge difference, but that certainly undercuts the "they don't play D in the Big 12" narrative. 

Spoiler

I think it's notable that the average conference rank of the Big 12 teams in these games was 5.5 while the average for the Big 10 teams was 7.3. Basically, the average team on both sides was a mediocre team from the conference. There wasn't some huge disparity where these games typically featured a good team from one conference and a bad team from the other. They really came from all along the spectrum. This does get muddied a bit if you take the Cy-Hawk game out because Iowa State has had some really poor seasons, so it tips the scales towards the Big 12 a bit. 

Alright, let's talk about what we can take away here. 

It's incorrect to definitively say that Big 10 DC's perform worse against Big 12 offenses than Big 12 DC's. There is a lot of context and nuance, but the idea that a Big 10 DC is going to be lost trying to stop a Big 12 offense isn't supported by the last five years of games. 

How you choose to incorporate this post in to your opinion of Chris Ash is your own decision. I still don't want to hire the guy for reasons beyond his Big 10 background, but it seems that talking point is a bit overblown. 

[Coelenterate Fuccboi 13445]

Bodacious!

[Hank_Hill 20142]

Thank you, I figured this would be the case in that there really isn't a (dare I say it) significant difference. At the end of the day the high level DCs in each conference are pretty capable at their job and just because they don't face a certain offense year round doesn't mean they cant sit down and figure it out when tasked with it. I'm with you in not being stoked on Ash, but not because conference experience has anything to do with it. 

[MonkeyDoughnut 10819]

Hire a DC that uses and develops the talent he has in the best way to defend the teams they face.

Ash was a great DC in the Big 10 because he did just that.

Any notion that a former DB whose specialty is coaching and developing defensive backs wouldn't be successful here just because his opportunity started in the Big 10 is very misguided.

 

Our overriding problem with our last umpteen DC hires is they required getting "their guys" in before they might be successful rather than molding their defense based on the personnel on hand.

 

[Bodacious Bevo 3691]

5 minutes ago, Hank_Hill said:

Thank you, I figured this would be the case in that there really isn't a (dare I say it) significant difference. At the end of the day the high level DCs in each conference are pretty capable at their job and just because they don't face a certain offense year round doesn't mean they cant sit down and figure it out when tasked with it. I'm with you in not being stoked on Ash, but not because conference experience has anything to do with it. 

I agree and I also think the opposite is true: high level OCs with talent will put up points on anybody. 

[Dbeasy 15619]

None of this fits with my ore-ordained narrative and thus I will ignore this thread completely.

[6th Street 6711]

Chris Ash fucking sucks

[Sgt Hulk 14507]

But what if we blitz the safety from 25 yards out 

[Bigbend1812 13093]

12 minutes ago, Sgt Hulk said:

But what if we blitz the safety from 25 yards out 

[Jkwellborn 7097]

Don’t want Ash because he’s another one of Herman’s hermits. The offense helps the defense out a lot too. Will he be able to stop or sufficiently slow the Big 12 offenses without the benefit of a B10 offense? Who knows.

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

1 hour ago, Dbeasy said:

None of this fits with my ore-ordained narrative and thus I will ignore this thread completely.

Yeah I’m out. Fuck Chris Ash.

[mulletpelini 5230]

You should steal Chinander ala Watson/Beck

[RollLeft 5092]

TLDR

[Bodacious Bevo 3691]

So I came back and the photos aren't showing up for me in the post now, so here's a link to the album if anybody else can't see the charts.

https://imgur.com/a/RUTITXI