BlitzIndex College Football Defense Rankings, Week 5

September 30th, 2008 by Vince Mullins

When upsets shake up the Top 25 lists, when Rice scores 77, when the Bulldogs are down 31-0 between the hedges at halftime (see pic, ICON SMI) and when Northwestern is 5-0 – it may seem like chaos has broken out in the college football world.

With winds of change swirling around us, we take comfort in the numbers and the BlitzIndex gives you a great tool to do the same as you approach your starting lineups for Week Six.

As superfan Neil Young states on the Forum and in emails to me, and I paraphrase, “You gotta look at these numbers in context of strength of schedule, do you really think that Northwestern and Kentucky are Top Ten defenses?” His core point is correct, and perhaps I have not communicated it well enough…

it is that this numbers study (which i often overtitle as a “quantitative analysis”) is just a starting point on top of which Daniel, Drew John and I layer our own knowledge of the game. Each article from our senior writers gives you their feel for the game and then you can customize all that info into your lineup.

Below is the link to the Google Spreadsheet that lists the stats of all 120 teams.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pLm8-U8yRt8qFFsovbBUKaw

email me at vince [at] fantasycollegeblitz [dot] com if you have any insights to share.

Some random thoughts…

Kentucky at #1? History and strength of schedule (SOS) suggests that this Wildcat defense is not truly the best in the nation – let us see how they work upon the SEC.

Northwestern? I own this defense for most of my seven teams based on sacks, the above average offensive potential and the new defensive coordinator who brought in the Wisconsin way of attacking on defense.

Non-Big Six defenses may be unduly beaten up due to playing up against the bigger boys, only five of the top 30 (quartile) units are “mid-majors”. That does not apply to BYU and TCU, programs well steeped in defensive tradition.

Which to me are the scariest defenses in the nation, the ones that all the smart offensive minds sweat at this same hour of the night? Florida State, Penn State, Auburn, Oklahoma, USC Alabama and Texas would make me grab my Depend undergarments. Only this year with new Texas DC Wil Muschamp, as in previous years you could pass on the Longhorns all day long – no more.

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