DefenseBB
Snark is always appreciated!
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One of the items I have been thinking is the ongoing dialogues various fans say about their teams or their league and how great/tough the defense is. The PAC12 Tournament is on now and will be my hypothesis about my premise. I watched a lot of the PAC12 this year (parts of almost EVERY game on Fridays/Sundays) and while I contend ASU, USC and Arizona play overly physical defense that should be called fouls, our very faithful brethren contend it is simply "good, tough nosed defense". But do "low scoring games" reflect good defense or do reflect bad offense? Some of it can be driven by some schools who use all 30 seconds of the clock, like UCF, ASU and many, many others. Some can be driven by the fact, some schools just stink offensively think East Carolina, Pittsburg, Colorado, Tulsa, or SMU.
I did a review of all the teams offensive point average (and NCAA Rank) and their defensive point average (and rank), aggregated them by conference, and did an average Offensive/Defensive ranking of the conference. I then did a sort of the these totals to see how all 32 conferences ranked.
On the Offensive side-Oregon is #1 in the country but the Big12 is the highest scoring conference at 71.8 per game. Big Ten is #2 at 70.3 pts. Summit League was #3 at 70.3 pts.
On the Defensive side, Princeton is #1 at 47.7 pts allowed per game but the A-10 gives up the least points per conference at 60.9. Second is IVY league at 61.0 then the Patriot at 61.3.
This list can immediately tell us that many times, the function of good defense/low scoring is the direct result of BAD offense as the A-10 and Patriot Leagues are not great on the offensive end
. As I have seen Princeton and Yale play quite a bit this year. I am holding off judgement until this analysis is complete. 
I went further with my analysis to see how Offense correlates with Defensive ranking. Using the above, the A-10 is the 28th ranked conference on Offense (of 32). IVY is 16th and Patriot League is 29th. So yes, A-10/Patriot is really bad on offense. IVY is middle of the pack.
By using the Offensive league team average combined with the Defensive league team average, I can rank each of the leagues to each other. The top 5 results were not surprising but #6 was. Top 5 are Pac 12, Big 12, SEC, Big Ten and ACC in that order. IVY was #6!!!
There are 3 P5 schools that ranked in both of the Top12 in Offensive and Defensive Ranking-Pac12, SEC and ACC. When combining the O&D, the Pac 12 has a big edge over #2 Big 12. The biggest gap was after #4 Big Ten to the ACC. What I found interesting is this fits the eye test and Massey/WarrenNolan conference rankings. The ACC is clearly the least of the P5 in all 3 Conference ranks. The ACC offense is 67.2 while it's defense is 63.3 and demonstrates, at least to me, this is not a strong offensive nor defensive conference when compared to it's peers. By using relative rankings, what I learned from this is good leagues can score and keep opposing scoring down. Bad leagues just don't score. Here's the top 12 conferences by Offensive Rank, Defensive Rank, Offense & Defense Rank, Massey Rank and WarrenNolan Rank. P5 are in colors. I put the American in RED. I will post the overall 32 conferences numbers in a second post on this thread.
I did a review of all the teams offensive point average (and NCAA Rank) and their defensive point average (and rank), aggregated them by conference, and did an average Offensive/Defensive ranking of the conference. I then did a sort of the these totals to see how all 32 conferences ranked.
On the Offensive side-Oregon is #1 in the country but the Big12 is the highest scoring conference at 71.8 per game. Big Ten is #2 at 70.3 pts. Summit League was #3 at 70.3 pts.
On the Defensive side, Princeton is #1 at 47.7 pts allowed per game but the A-10 gives up the least points per conference at 60.9. Second is IVY league at 61.0 then the Patriot at 61.3.
This list can immediately tell us that many times, the function of good defense/low scoring is the direct result of BAD offense as the A-10 and Patriot Leagues are not great on the offensive end
. As I have seen Princeton and Yale play quite a bit this year. I am holding off judgement until this analysis is complete. I went further with my analysis to see how Offense correlates with Defensive ranking. Using the above, the A-10 is the 28th ranked conference on Offense (of 32). IVY is 16th and Patriot League is 29th. So yes, A-10/Patriot is really bad on offense. IVY is middle of the pack.
By using the Offensive league team average combined with the Defensive league team average, I can rank each of the leagues to each other. The top 5 results were not surprising but #6 was. Top 5 are Pac 12, Big 12, SEC, Big Ten and ACC in that order. IVY was #6!!!
There are 3 P5 schools that ranked in both of the Top12 in Offensive and Defensive Ranking-Pac12, SEC and ACC. When combining the O&D, the Pac 12 has a big edge over #2 Big 12. The biggest gap was after #4 Big Ten to the ACC. What I found interesting is this fits the eye test and Massey/WarrenNolan conference rankings. The ACC is clearly the least of the P5 in all 3 Conference ranks. The ACC offense is 67.2 while it's defense is 63.3 and demonstrates, at least to me, this is not a strong offensive nor defensive conference when compared to it's peers. By using relative rankings, what I learned from this is good leagues can score and keep opposing scoring down. Bad leagues just don't score. Here's the top 12 conferences by Offensive Rank, Defensive Rank, Offense & Defense Rank, Massey Rank and WarrenNolan Rank. P5 are in colors. I put the American in RED. I will post the overall 32 conferences numbers in a second post on this thread.
| Rk | Off Rk | Def Rk | O&D Rk | Massey | WarNol |
1 | Big 12 | Atlantic 10 | Pac-12 | Pac-12 | Pac-12 |
2 | Big Ten | Ivy League | Big 12 | Big Ten | Big Ten |
3 | Summit League | Patriot | SEC | Big 12 | Big 12 |
4 | SEC | America East | Big Ten | SEC | SEC |
5 | MAC | Big South | ACC | ACC | ACC |
6 | Pac-12 | AAC | Ivy League | Big East | Big East |
7 | MVC | Pac-12 | C-USA | MVC | Ivy League |
8 | Big Sky | WCC | MVC | American | MVC |
9 | ACC | ACC | Big East | Ivy League | American |
10 | Mountain West | SoCon | WCC | WCC | MAC |
11 | Big East | Big West | ASUN | MAC | WCC |
12 | C-USA | SEC | Atlantic 10 | Atlantic 10 | Atlantic 10 |
