Analytics - Future Defensive Coordinators

So people are throwing out names for potential DC candidates. This is a continuation of the analysis that I did for Coach Mark D. and Todd Orlando. Below I have the analysis for future coordinators, I’m not going to do a write up this time but I will offer some factual figures, this way we can have a discussion with hard data to back our claims. I want you to make your own judgement from the data that I present.

Refrain from discussing why you think the data is biased. The data is definitely useful as proven by the analysis done on Mark D and the results he produced this year.

David Gibbs
Year NCAA Team Defense Ranking Team Team Recruit Ranking Team SOS
2018 110 Texas Tech 72 23
2017 104 Texas Tech 49 32
2016 128 Texas Tech 44 41
2015 126 Texas Tech 32 31
2014 122 Texas Tech 40 48
Phil Bennett
Year NCAA Team Defense Ranking Team Team Recruit Ranking Team SOS
2017 108 Arizona State 32 38
2016 81 Baylor 40 46
2015 62 Baylor 36 13
2014 50 Baylor 25 11
2013 28 Baylor 27 18
Vic Koenning
Year NCAA Team Defense Ranking Team Team Recruit Ranking Team SOS
2018 30 Troy 98 95
2017 24 Troy N/A 100
2016 35 Troy 98 94
2015 57 Troy 117 104
Kevin Kane
Year NCAA Team Defense Ranking Team Team Recruit Ranking Team SOS
2018 26 Northern Illinois 93 69
2017 26 Northern Illinois 97 79
2016 98 Northern Illinois 112 88
2015 N/A N/A N/A N/A
2014 N/A N/A N/A N/A
Scottie Hazelton
Year NCAA Team Defense Ranking Team Team Recruit Ranking Team SOS
2018 20 Wyoming 127 86
2017 23 Wyoming 99 84
2016 N/A N/A N/A N/A
2015 N/A N/A N/A N/A
2014 N/A N/A N/A N/A
2 Likes

Those are not good stats for Gibbs. I know it’s more complicated than this stat. Still though, that’s not good optics.

Bennett progressively worse every year.

Uhhh …

David Gibbs looks like he was consistently … mediocre … to eghhh!!! … that was a P5 … in G5 he was supposedly better considering the talent he was facing … guess the secret is to NOT bring him along if your school gets promoted to a P5 conf.

Phil Bennett looks like he was getting long in tooth and just tired coaching the defense …

Edit - Added Vic Koenning

I’ll keep adding to this list, one caveat is that they have to have had former experience as a DC. So anyone going from a position coach to DC will not have this history available.

Do the same thing, but with a better stat metric - Defensive efficiency.

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Edit - Kevin Kane Added

I added this guy because his team held respectable teams to low totals:

BYU - held to 6pts
Utah - held to 17pts
Toledo - held to 15pts

This is typically the level of competition we play.

Other opponents:

FSU - held to 37
Iowa - held to 33

This guy is def flying under the radar.

How do you feel about Scottie Hazelton?

Edit - Scottie Hazelton added.

He seems to be doing okay albeit, there aren’t enough data points.

Great defensive efforts against competition similar to our conference this year:

San Jose State - held to 9
Air Force - held to 27
Utah State - held to 24
CO State - held to 21

Against better comp:

Missouri - held to 40
Washington State - held to 41

kevin kane sounds good…people talk about texas ties but remember orlando came from utah.
I think we need a kane type DC.

Koenning seems to get improvement from the same level of guys year after year. Tells me he may not know that recruiting area and is a great teacher/motivator…or…they just can’t get quality kids and he does a great job of developing, and holding his units together.

I thought Kevin Kane was now at SMU. Yes, he’s quite good. The Ponies had a great defensive effort vs. the ranked UH Cougars.

Would also need to get an average offensive rank of teams they played each season to get a better idea. Baylor and Tech defensive coordinators may have worse defenses statistically but they also play against some of the most explosive offenses in the country.

Can you put in rank in yards per play so we have a stat that is more about efficiency?