You may remember Max Olson’s stop rate metric ($$).
What is stop rate? It’s a basic measurement of success: the percentage of a defense’s drives that end in punts, turnovers or a turnover on downs. This simple metric can offer a more accurate reflection of a defense’s effectiveness in today’s faster-tempo game than yards per game or points per game.
He only includes games against FBS opposition in his rankings.
Last year’s Georgia defense was pretty hot shit.
Georgia’s defense finished No. 1 with a stop rate of 84 percent over its 15 games and 83.4 percent against FBS opponents, the best we’ve seen in our five years of tracking this statistic.
With a stop rate of 73.2%, this year’s defense is 22nd. That’s still good (“Last season, the top 25 teams in stop rate went a combined 257-78 (.767). Sixteen of them won 10 or more games, and six won conference titles.”), but not otherworldly.
One other thing of note — and, if you’re Kirby Smart, it’s good news — is that Georgia is only allowing 1.14 points per drive, which is good for eighth nationally and second only to Alabama in the conference.
Get The Picture 
“second only to Alabama in the conference.”
The problem is Alabama is who we have to beat to win the conference. The plus side is our defense is young and will hopefully be better at the end of the year.
LikeLiked by 4 people
They do seem to be maturing each game.
LikeLike
We’ve taken advantage of the weaker first half of the schedule as we thought. Now just need to maintain it or ramp it up for the tail end of the schedule.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Need to ramp it up for sure.
I think the Vandy+Bye+Turds trifecta will give the Dawgs the opportunity to sharpen, heal and especially to mature a bit.
A little off from last season, but a very high ceiling if this team gels and seasons.
LikeLiked by 4 people
The UGA football “D” of the 2021 season was recognized as a once every so often squad, that “D” also weathered some injuries, this 2022 edition is finding their way, getting week in and week out the oppositions “best shot” (cause we all know, somebody wants to spout, they beat “Georgia”), UGA football will be just fine, week in and week out, CKS has his CEO hat on is doing just fine, very interested in roster management this Saturday…GO DAWGS!
LikeLiked by 2 people
We need Bear Alexander to keep getting better and 88 to get fully healthy. This defense is only as good as the interior DL.
LikeLiked by 7 people
Bear has been better than I thought he would be at this stage.
LikeLiked by 5 people
And Williams
LikeLiked by 1 person
Agreed. I don’t know that he’ll ever be as big as JD and command the type of attention he did but we need another guy occupying blockers for 88 and the LBs.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m surprised his shoulder healed that quickly after surgery. Pleasantly surprised.
LikeLike
Pretty encouraging for a “young, inexperienced defense.” Makes you think this is the year to score points on UGA… if you can.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I don’t know the answer to this, but I wonder if there is a Stop Rate variation that uses the punt, TO, or TO on downs plus drives that end with a FG inside the 20 or 25 or something like that. That would be a useful metric as well (to me) because getting stops is ideal but in lieu of that forcing short FGs instead of giving up TDs is also huge. Longer FG metrics (40+ yards) to me aren’t as useful as forcing short FGs. I’ll take Bama or UT moving the ball between the 20s if a high percentage of those end in 3 instead of 7.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Annnnnd had I read the post about 21 stats vs 22 stats some of that question would have been answered.
LikeLike
My eyes are starting to glaze over from all these stats..
LikeLiked by 3 people
Wonder what the trajectory is by game.
Are we improving?
LikeLike
Going in, I don’t think anyone expected the D to carry the team like it did in ‘21. This year’s O needs to do a bit more of the heavy lifting, particularly when we go up against the tougher part of the schedule and post season.
LikeLike
If the run game is truly unstuck, it fixes A LOT of problems.
LikeLiked by 2 people