Texas A&M Football: Advanced stats and the Aggie defense

Success Rate+

As with the offense, we are going to look first at success rate. It’s the same as the offense (50 percent of yardage on first down, 70 percent on second down, 100% on third and fourth down), but the defense wants to make sure the offense doesn’t get those yards. An offense that gets six yards is successful, but the defense is not. Just as on offense, the national average is 100.

The Aggies come in with a score of 113.3, good for 27th in the country, Leaders in the realm of success rate are Auburn, TCU, Alabama, and Georgia. Around Texas A&M at 27 are Iowa State at 30, Florida State at 28, Wake Forest at 29, and Florida at 26. The Aggies are in pretty good company, and they have been better, as any Aggie will tell you.

I’m not going to compare these stats to Michigan State, where Mark Snyder is currently working, because he is not the defensive coordinator, Michigan State has a good defense as an identity, and nobody is thinking about replacing John Chavis this year. Instead, we’ll compare them to last year, and see if there is any improvement. Last year, the Aggies had a score of 101.9 in success rate, good for 57th in the country. There is a large amount of improvement in that area, and most Aggies will tell you improved linebacker play has a lot to do with the improvement