College football midseason defensive stop rate

Texas’ defense currently ranks No. 1 in the FBS in several categories: point defense, total defense, yards per play and yards per attempt. Here’s another metric where the top-ranked Midseason Longhorns are the best of the best: stop rate

What is the stop rate? It’s a basic measure of success: the percentage of a defense’s attacks that end in punts, turnovers or a turnover on downs. Defensive coordinators, regardless of their scheme, opponent or conference, have the same goal: prevent points and get off the field. Stop rate is a simple metric, but in today’s faster-paced game it can provide a good representation of a defense’s effectiveness per attack.

Last year, national champion Michigan ranked first with an 81.6% defensive stop rate in its games against FBS opponents. The top 25 teams in the final 2023 Stop Rate standings won a total of 249 games, with seven of them taking home conference titles. Great teams find a way to find stability in critical situations.

To be clear, Stop Rate is not an advanced statistic and is not a replacement for Bill Connelly’s SP+ or other more comprehensive metrics. It’s just another way to evaluate defensive success.

After six games, Texas’ defense has been remarkably successful. The Longhorns moved into No. 1 in stop rate rankings with a stop rate of 87.1% following their 34-3 win over No. 18 Oklahoma. Their rival managed 12 drives against this unit and didn’t reach the red zone until the last 30 seconds of the fourth quarter.

It is extremely difficult to hold on against Pete Kwiatkowski’s team. They allowed 38 points on 75 drives, with two of the three missed touchdowns coming in garbage time in the fourth quarter. The Longhorns have given up the fewest explosives (nine plays of 20 yards), have a 7-to-1 interception-touchdown ratio against the pass and have allowed just one touchdown in seven red zone trips.

The Texas defense ranked 21st in stop percentage (70.7%) last year and slipped slightly in the final rankings after Michael Penix Jr. and Washington lit up their secondary. Kwiatkowski and his team lost four NFL draft picks to this defense, but have gotten even better, developing top-notch talent and depth at all three levels. And it certainly helps that this defense played with a lead on 88% of its snaps this season heading into the showdown with No. 5 Georgia.

Where does Georgia rank in these stop rate rankings? All the way down at number 60, just above the national average of 63.5%. The Bulldogs’ D slipped from 46th to 60th after allowing 31 points against Mississippi State. This is the most points an unranked opponent has scored against Georgia since 2015

Ohio State was ranked No. 1 a week ago, but fell to No. 4 after struggling to stop Dillon Gabriel and the Ducks’ passing attack in a 32-31 loss. Tennessee climbed to No. 3 this week with an 82% stop rate after recording 10 stops in its 23-17 overtime win over Florida.

But this week’s No. 2 team is one you might not expect: Army. The Black Knights’ 6-0 defense ranks 54th in SP+ and 47th in defensive efficiency, but only gives up 9.8 points per game. Nobody has found a way to score more than 14 goals, partly because they don’t get many chances. Army’s defense played an FBS-low 54 drives this season and gave up just 59 points. Their offense dominates time of possession with an average margin of 8:55 per game (third best in FBS). When you can finish drives and control games the way they did, a few timely stops on defense can go a long way.

How do the rest of the defenses across the country perform in terms of stop rate? Find the full FBS-only stop rate rankings for Week 8 here.

Note: All data comes from TruMedia. Games against FCS opponents and attacks at the end of the half where the opponent took a knee or ran out of time were filtered out.