10 schools have allowed fewer than 25 points per game for 4 straight years

[Cary Hudson's little bro]

Todd Grantham is why people are thinking we have a shot to surprise people this season (http://coachingsearch.com/article?a=Chart-10-schools-have-allowed-fewer-than-25-points-per-game-for-4-straight-years)

http://onlineathens.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full/grantham.jpg

[Gutter Cobreh]

Just shows you how bad LSU and Florida's offenses have been in the last 4 years.

Wisconsin makes the list, and I read the other day they are the only school that has played in a bowl game and made the NCAA basketball tournament for the past 15 consecutive years... that's pretty impressive!!!

http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2017/3/15/14935988/wisconsin-ncaa-tournament-bowl-games-streak-record

[Mjoelner34]

Interesting takeaway from that article and the one linked in the article about teams scoring over 30ppg.

Of the 10 teams listed as allowing fewer than 25ppg over the last 4 years, only 1 team (Florida) missed a bowl game in that time frame. Of the 17 teams averaging 30+ppg, 4 missed bowl games in 2016 alone.

Offense sells tickets but defense wins championships (and gets you to bowl games).

[Reason2succeed]

Here's to praying that Grantham is a good fit with Mullen. If he is he could be Mullen's Joe Lee Dunn. His intensity is definitely Joe Lee Dunn-ish. Put a solid defense consistently with Mullen and we may be able to knock off Nock one of these days.

[blacklistedbully]

Really makes one wonder why so many UGA and Louisville fans hate, "3rd and Grantham". So many of them are warning us about it, the same way UPig fans warned UNM about Nutt.

But do the facts back this up? Were Grantham teams truly that bad on 3rd and long? More importantly, were they that bad at getting-off-the-field? I get how playing aggressively in order to force mistakes can sometimes lead to big plays on 3rd down....but at the end of the day, isn't it more about limiting how much the other team scores to increase the chances your offense will score more and win?

And how many times did Grantham's "failures" have a lot to do with injuries to key players?

Head-scratcher for me.

[codeDawg]

Is he a miracle DC? Probably not. Is he better than anyone we've hired in the past? Probably so. We'll be in good shape if we have the players to execute.

[GTHOM]

Really makes one wonder why so many UGA and Louisville fans hate, "3rd and Grantham". So many of them are warning us about it, the same way UPig fans warned UNM about Nutt.

But do the facts back this up? Were Grantham teams truly that bad on 3rd and long? More importantly, were they that bad at getting-off-the-field? I get how playing aggressively in order to force mistakes can sometimes lead to big plays on 3rd down....but at the end of the day, isn't it more about limiting how much the other team scores to increase the chances your offense will score more and win?

And how many times did Grantham's "failures" have a lot to do with injuries to key players?

Head-scratcher for me.

His style of defense is going to give up some big plays, especially through the air. But we're going to make some too, sacks, turnovers, just part of it when you wanna come after peoples ass and not bend but dont break. Teams are going to struggle to run the ball on us

[EngDawg]

Holy shitbird the shitter is full

[lamont]

He's a good coach and should do well in Starkville.

[Ari Gold]

His style is going to allow our backend guys to make plays ..
Shit when was the last time we were good on 3rd and long???

[thf24]

My response for the Louisville fans warning us about "3rd and Grantham" is that at least we'll only be giving up big plays for first downs on 3rd down instead of 1st, 2nd, and 4th as well like they will.

[Tbonewannabe]

Interesting takeaway from that article and the one linked in the article about teams scoring over 30ppg.

Of the 10 teams listed as allowing fewer than 25ppg over the last 4 years, only 1 team (Florida) missed a bowl game in that time frame. Of the 17 teams averaging 30+ppg, 4 missed bowl games in 2016 alone.

Offense sells tickets but defense wins championships (and gets you to bowl games).

Also we had the worst defense under Mullen and had to back into a bowl. We might bitch about the defensive coordinators sometimes but Mullen has hired people that don't give up a lot of points which is the entire point of the defense. If Grantham actually gives us a defense as good or better than 2010 then we might have a chance at 8 wins.

[Prediction? Pain.]

There was a discussion about Grantham's defenses, including the "3rd and Grantham" phenomenon, on SPS a while back. Here's the research I came up with for that thread:


Another thing to note about the 3rd-and-Grantham complaint is that, in the context of the SEC, he actually only had one bad year -- his first. Among SEC teams in conference games, here are UGA's third-down-conversion-defense ranks:

2010: 12th
2011: 2nd
2012: 5th
2013: 7th

So yeah, Grantham's 2013 3rd-down defense wasn't great, but it was still in the top half of the conference in SEC play, ranking ahead of LSU, A&M, Tennessee, and U. Miss., among others.

Plus, by the same metric -- conference rank in 3rd-down-conversion defense in conference games only -- Grantham's Louisville defenses were stellar:

2014: 3rd
2015: 3rd
2016: 2nd

Now compare that to the 3rd-down defense we've seen here the past couple of years: 11th in the conference in both 2015 and 2016.

So, yeah, I'll be fine with a big ole bucket of 3rd and Grantham next season.

Also, I did a brief statistical overview of Grantham's Louisville defenses at the end of a FWTCT article I wrote upon his hiring. It's here (http://www.forwhomthecowbelltolls.com/2017/1/12/14241328/grantham-for-sirmon-setting-up-a-fort-and-buying-the-place-with-beads) if you're interested.

Grantham's big-play defense? In 2016, Louisville's defense was 1st in the ACC and 19th in the nation at giving up plays of 20+ yards. How'd we fare at that last year? 13th in the SEC and 124th (out of 128) in the nation.