GT Pass Defense - Myth Vs. Fact

One of the key concerns going into the 2006 season was the pass defense. We lost a couple of key corners and we had to rely on a converted WR and a couple of freshman. When you look at the final stats of this year, we see that the concerns were true, we finished 49th in pass defense with 195.79 yards given up per game. Right? MYTH!!

Georgiatechfootballfacts is about providing a Mickey Ward liver shot to myths such as these.

Passing yards allowed is a very poor way to rate the quality of a particular pass defense. Basically, some bad teams are so easy to run on that opponents rarely pass against them. So you end up with a situation in which a team appears to have a great pass defense when, in fact, it does not.

We focus so much on passer rating as the measure of an quarterback and not of a team. The truth is that defensive passer rating is almost always a better indicator of team-wide success than an individual quarterback’s passer rating.

Let's take a gander at this stat for the 66 BCS teams. Georgia Tech finished 12th in Defensive Passer Rating of 66.1. Let's take a look at the top 10 in this ranking:

Wisconsin - 50.3
Virginia Tech - 50.7
LSU - 54.9
Georgia - 57.8
Florida - 58.0
Rutgers - 60.1
Ohio State - 61.4
South Florida - 63.6
Oklahoma - 64.9
Boston College - 65.2

Clemson was 11th at 66.0. I'd trade places with 9 of those 10.

One thing to keep in mind when we think that Taylor Bennett could be the savior next fall. Bennett played two quarters against Duke (99.4; 63 out of 66) and West Virginia (78.6; 36 out of 66).