Written by Ell
| 16 September 2008
Three games is usually a good barometer of where your team stands statistically speaking. The quality of your opponents through those three games can and will skew the numbers a bit - but why let that get in the way?.
Let's take a look at where Alabama stacks up against the rest of the NCAA on the defensive side of the ball:
Total Defense
Alabama ranks 13th nationally in total defense, allowing 221.33 yards per game. Florida State (after two games) comes in at #1 with 170 yards per game.
Surprisingly enough, Troy is ranked at #7 with 202 yards allowed per game.
The SEC places three teams in the top 10 with Florida at #3 (170 ypg), South Carolina at #9 (205 ypg), and Auburn at #10 (213.67).
Rush Defense
Whoo Hoo! The Tide high ranking #1 in rush defense nationally, aloowing only 42.7 yards per game. A surprising team in the top 10 is San Jose State ay #10 with 55.3 ypg.
The SEC has four teams in the top ten, following Alabama is LSU at #5 (48 ypg), Kentucky at #7 (50.3 ypg), and Auburn at #9 (53 ypg).
Pass Defense
The news isn't so good on this front (It won't get any easier this week against Arkansas either - see below) with Bama ranking #42 in the country with 178.67 yards per game.
How many of you would have put Eastern Michigan in this top 10 given the opportunity? Me neither but here they are at #6, allowing 117 ypg.
The SEC has two teams in the top 10 with South Carolina leading the nation with 95 ypg and Florida at #10 with 130 ypg.
Scoring Defense
Coming in at #9 in this category in the Crimson Tide, giving up 7.7 points per game. Iowa tops the list with a 2.7 points per game average.
Iowa is definitely a surprise to me (haven't they sucked lately?) but there are a couple of others of note. Boise State ranks seventh, allowing 7 ppg and Connecticut is one spot behind (7.3 ppg).
Three other SEC teams are in the top 10 with South Carolina tied for 3rd (5 ppg), Kentucky at #5 (6.3 ppg), and Florida at #6 (6.5 ppg).
