Everyone knows the defense disappointed the first third of the season last year. Most stats websites had the Pitt defense ranked somewhere between 60-80 depending on the metric used.
What I did was look at the defensive numbers after week 5 and then compared that to what other teams averaged for the whole season. This actually doesn't "cheat" for Pitt as much as you'd think since most teams play a pretty easy OOC schedule and Pitt's OOC games were absolutely brutal.
The one part where I DID cheat is in excluding the Duke game (but I'll include the numbers with the Duke game too if you demand to see my work - it's just that the Duke game was a ridiculous outlier).
So that would leave 8 games (again, excluding Duke) to close the season.
Syracuse, Notre Dame, Duke (skipped), UVA, VT, WF, Miami, Clemson, Stanford
All 8 teams Pitt played were bowl teams. All quality P5 competition. Here's some of what I found:
(note, Pitt held almost every single team below their season averages, but I didn't take Pitt's performance away from their season averages so I'm actually slightly undervaluing how Pitt did relative to each opponent's averages by including Pitt in their averages)
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1. Total Yardage
Combined, those teams averaged 430 yards/game offensively
Pitt held those teams to a combined 333 yards/game
Almost 100 yards/game less on average
333 y/g would be around #20 nationally
2. Yards Per Play
Combined, they averaged 6.0 yards/play
Pitt held them to 5.2 yards/play
I'm sure you can do the math but almost a yard less per play
5.2 y/p would be around #34 nationally
3. Points Against
The defense also held every single team (again, ignoring Duke for this) below their scoring averages including: ND (-12), UVA (-15), WF (-20), and Stanford (-14).
23 p/g would be around #40 nationally
4. Pass Defense
Combined, Pitt's opponents averaged 242 yards passing/game
Pitt surrendered only 173 yards/game
Pitt also only gave up 6.0 yards/attempt
173 ypg/a would be about #8 nationally
6.0 y/a would be about #12 nationally
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The rush defense was really the problem area in 2018 but it's got to be encouraging that *outside of one game* in the last nine games, Pitt's defense performed like a top 25 unit even with a rush defense that was somewhere in the 70's-80's nationally.
What I found surprising is that the pass defense was legitimately elite over 8 games against 8 bowl teams including the National Champions. There's a lot to be excited about. The secondary should be even better across the board and the pass rush should be the strongest it's been when it comes to 4-man pressures as it's ever been under Narduzzi.
The big question is run defense...but I'm still pretty optimistic that even with the poor run defense numbers, we saw them play like a top 25 defense over 8 games which is definitely not an insignificant number of games.
An elite pass defense and an average-to-slightly above average run defense could make this team a repeat Coastal championship contender.
What I did was look at the defensive numbers after week 5 and then compared that to what other teams averaged for the whole season. This actually doesn't "cheat" for Pitt as much as you'd think since most teams play a pretty easy OOC schedule and Pitt's OOC games were absolutely brutal.
The one part where I DID cheat is in excluding the Duke game (but I'll include the numbers with the Duke game too if you demand to see my work - it's just that the Duke game was a ridiculous outlier).
So that would leave 8 games (again, excluding Duke) to close the season.
Syracuse, Notre Dame, Duke (skipped), UVA, VT, WF, Miami, Clemson, Stanford
All 8 teams Pitt played were bowl teams. All quality P5 competition. Here's some of what I found:
(note, Pitt held almost every single team below their season averages, but I didn't take Pitt's performance away from their season averages so I'm actually slightly undervaluing how Pitt did relative to each opponent's averages by including Pitt in their averages)
___________________________________________
1. Total Yardage
Combined, those teams averaged 430 yards/game offensively
Pitt held those teams to a combined 333 yards/game
Almost 100 yards/game less on average
333 y/g would be around #20 nationally
2. Yards Per Play
Combined, they averaged 6.0 yards/play
Pitt held them to 5.2 yards/play
I'm sure you can do the math but almost a yard less per play
5.2 y/p would be around #34 nationally
3. Points Against
The defense also held every single team (again, ignoring Duke for this) below their scoring averages including: ND (-12), UVA (-15), WF (-20), and Stanford (-14).
23 p/g would be around #40 nationally
4. Pass Defense
Combined, Pitt's opponents averaged 242 yards passing/game
Pitt surrendered only 173 yards/game
Pitt also only gave up 6.0 yards/attempt
173 ypg/a would be about #8 nationally
6.0 y/a would be about #12 nationally
____________________________________________
The rush defense was really the problem area in 2018 but it's got to be encouraging that *outside of one game* in the last nine games, Pitt's defense performed like a top 25 unit even with a rush defense that was somewhere in the 70's-80's nationally.
What I found surprising is that the pass defense was legitimately elite over 8 games against 8 bowl teams including the National Champions. There's a lot to be excited about. The secondary should be even better across the board and the pass rush should be the strongest it's been when it comes to 4-man pressures as it's ever been under Narduzzi.
The big question is run defense...but I'm still pretty optimistic that even with the poor run defense numbers, we saw them play like a top 25 defense over 8 games which is definitely not an insignificant number of games.
An elite pass defense and an average-to-slightly above average run defense could make this team a repeat Coastal championship contender.
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