Unofficial Football Staff

[Prediction? Pain.]

There are other stats to note about Memphis' pass defense and Woodson beyond total passing yards allowed. For instance, in both of Woodson's years at Memphis, they were top 5 in their conference in both opponent's QB rating and yards per passing attempt allowed.

But hopefully more telling of Woodson a DB coach is Memphis' DBs' knack for ball hawking. In both of Woodson's years there, they were top 2 in their conference in passes defensed (which is the sum of interceptions and pass break ups). In fact, their DBs were nationally outstanding at making plays on the ball. In both 2016 and 2017, Memphis' national ranks in "DB Havoc Rate" -- a secondary's "total tackles for loss, passes defensed, and forced fumbles divided by total plays" -- were 6th and 11th.

And what's really interesting about those ranks is that they coincided with crappy havoc numbers from Memphis' front seven (125th and 85th nationally). In other words, under Woodson, Memphis' secondary was one of the best in the nation at getting PBUs, INTs, TFLs, and forcing fumbles even though their front seven sucked at doing that stuff. I didn't think that's how it was supposed to usually work in the secondary.