This has really been a strange year for results and especially on defense. Considering we had so many "match-up" games on paper at the beginning of the season, we had very few games that finished as one possession games.
If you had separated out and tried to predict results of the defense into these two buckets before the season, I'm guessing the predictions would have resulted in fairly close ppg results between pools.
Pool A-
Wisconsin, Ohio St., Purdue, Fresno St., Miami of Oh., NMSU
Pool B-
Iowa, Maryland, Nebraska, Illinois, Indiana, Northwestern
Pool A includes 5 teams that finished in the top 75 in country in scoring offense this year and two in the top 25, while Pool B only had 3 teams in top 75 with highest being Iowa at #47. On paper and including in season results, Pool A had the tougher offenses as a whole. Yet:
Gophers defense against Pool A teams resulted in average ppg of 13.6. That average would have been good enough for #3 in the country.
Gophers defense against Pool B teams resulted in average ppg of 42.2. That average would have been bad enough for #125 in the country.
That is a crazy contrast which I believe can be partially explained by injuries (primarily Winfield, and to a lesser extent OJ Smith), but also highlights the necessity to change D coordinators as the ceiling for the defense was much higher than we saw during many games in the middle third of the season.
If you had separated out and tried to predict results of the defense into these two buckets before the season, I'm guessing the predictions would have resulted in fairly close ppg results between pools.
Pool A-
Wisconsin, Ohio St., Purdue, Fresno St., Miami of Oh., NMSU
Pool B-
Iowa, Maryland, Nebraska, Illinois, Indiana, Northwestern
Pool A includes 5 teams that finished in the top 75 in country in scoring offense this year and two in the top 25, while Pool B only had 3 teams in top 75 with highest being Iowa at #47. On paper and including in season results, Pool A had the tougher offenses as a whole. Yet:
Gophers defense against Pool A teams resulted in average ppg of 13.6. That average would have been good enough for #3 in the country.
Gophers defense against Pool B teams resulted in average ppg of 42.2. That average would have been bad enough for #125 in the country.
That is a crazy contrast which I believe can be partially explained by injuries (primarily Winfield, and to a lesser extent OJ Smith), but also highlights the necessity to change D coordinators as the ceiling for the defense was much higher than we saw during many games in the middle third of the season.
