One of my favorite metrics for determining whether or not a defense or offense is efficient or living up to its ranking is points per drive.

Of course drives can vary with short fields or needing to go 90+ yards. But for the most part, this statistic evens out over the course of a season. Three games into the season, there is finally enough data here to get an idea of good offenses and defenses in the SEC.

For those wanting to see more of the Points Per Drive data, I suggest you visit https://www.bcftoys.com/2024-ppd/, it is one of my favorite sites for all CFB statistics. But here is a visual of the SEC teams through three weeks in 2024.

A few takeaways:

It truly is so bad in Gainesville right now. That Florida defense is abysmal.

Also, Texas will be able to score and score plenty on Mississippi State even without Quinn Ewers at quarterback for that game to begin SEC play.

Interestingly, Oklahoma and Georgia are showing similar statistics, great defense, mediocre offense. The difference is Georgia has played a road SEC game while Oklahoma has not left home and has played teams with a combined 2–7 record.

Tennessee, Ole Miss and Texas are in a league of their own with both the defense and offense sitting inside the top ten nationally of points per drive so far this season. Alabama remains very good as well.

 Noticed we play five teams in or near that bottom left bad-bad quadrant and none of the other four teams in that upper right good-good quadrant 🙂

 

 

18 minutes ago, ArizonaLonghorn said:

 Noticed we play five teams in or near that bottom left bad-bad quadrant and none of the other four teams in that upper right good-good quadrant 🙂

 

 

And Oklahoma has to play every team in the upper right quadrant lol

Thanks for the post and it’s a great topic and visual. I think the big thing, for me at least, is that the FCS opponents and really weak G5 opponents are still skewing things horribly with a 3 game sample size. 

Directionally, though, it all looks right. Does a staff develop their program out of the left side of the graph as the season goes on? That will be interesting to track as well. 

The big thing with Georgia is that they really are lacking game breakers on offense.  They look pedestrian, and not just because Bobo is a vanilla comfort hire. They have a decent poster base and that’s the big thing they’re wringing their hands about on their boards right now. I don’t blame them given the firepower they’re about to face from here to the Ga Tech game. 

This week is huge for just how much the OU defense has improved from 2023. They were 77th overall in defense last year. 

They are probably more of a top 40-45 defense as the season plays out (not vaulting into the top 15-20), but we shall see starting Saturday against Tennessee. 

BTW, Georgia All-American guard Tate Ratledge out until November 2 vs. Florida ... per reports Monday. That's a substantial loss even for Georgia. You don't replace All-American's easily on any OL. 

Dawgs are shuffling on the OL right now in practice to get best five on the field. 

2 minutes ago, Gerry Hamilton said:

BTW, Georgia All-American guard Tate Ratledge out until November 2 vs. Florida ... per reports Monday. That's a substantial loss even for Georgia. You don't replace All-American's easily on any OL. 

Dawgs are shuffling on the OL right now in practice to get best five on the field. 

Agree, but Georgia does have talent waiting for an opportunity.  

1 hour ago, Gerry Hamilton said:

BTW, Georgia All-American guard Tate Ratledge out until November 2 vs. Florida ... per reports Monday. That's a substantial loss even for Georgia. You don't replace All-American's easily on any OL. 

Dawgs are shuffling on the OL right now in practice to get best five on the field. 

Good note right there.

Tennessee gets both Alabama and Georgia this year. However, their only other ranked game is Oklahoma. 

They could make some noise in the SEC Standings.

Also on the OU schedule:

#1 Texas

#4 Alabama

#5 Ole Miss

#6 Tennessee – this weekend

#7 Missouri 

#16 LSU

@ Auburn

vs. South Carolina

Tennessee and Ole Miss both run derivatives of the old Art Briles Baylor offense, which is best in class at running up the score on outmatched competition. Of course OU runs this offense as well, so their struggles are not a good sign for them...

18 minutes ago, whereiend said:

Tennessee and Ole Miss both run derivatives of the old Art Briles Baylor offense, which is best in class at running up the score on outmatched competition. Of course OU runs this offense as well, so their struggles are not a good sign for them...

Luckily for both Tennessee and Ole Miss, they have competent OL and a talented QB.

4 hours ago, Gerry Hamilton said:

This week is huge for just how much the OU defense has improved from 2023. They were 77th overall in defense last year. 

They are probably more of a top 40-45 defense as the season plays out (not vaulting into the top 15-20), but we shall see starting Saturday against Tennessee. 

OU hasn’t played any decent offensive team yet. Going to be ugly for OU this weekend

Venables remains a fine DC as a HC so I would not assume as Bobby did this morning that Tennessee will beat them by 40 points.  But 28 seems realistic from what I have seen.

We're either sacking Green from Arky 5 times or picking him off 5 times, he holds the ball way too long.

7 minutes ago, Dread-headed Texan said:

We're either sacking Green from Arky 5 times or picking him off 5 times, he holds the ball way too long.

Athletic dude. You’re right about him holding on to the rock long however