The Minutemen Have a Top 6 MAC Defense and Other Stats That Lie

Sometimes stats are weird. Sometimes your stats show that the Massachusetts Minutemen has the fourth or fifth best defense in the MAC. It's at that point where you have to stop, take a deep breath, and wonder what the hell you did wrong when compiling these stats. More on that in a minute(man) though. Every team in the MAC has now played at least four games. That will give us a good sample to see how each team is doing so far on offense and defense.

The Quarterbacks

I took a stab at who would be starting, taking into account injuries (sorry Matt Johnson). EMU was a wild guess based on the last game. Most others I think I got right, but the comments may tell me otherwise. For those of you who are new to my writing, I use adjusted yards per attempt, or AY/A, which takes yards per attempt and adjusts for touchdowns and interceptions. Drew Hare, in his small sample of 80 passes, has been the perfect replacement for Jordan Lynch. Kyle Pohl, who I hated on in the preseason, has been terrible (despite the upset of Pitt). Now on the UMass side of things, Blake Frohnapfel, coming hot off a school record-setting 589 yard performance, is the fourth best quarterback in the MAC. It's getting to the point where the Minutemen shouldn't bother to run...

Running Offense

Because they are awful at it. At a mere 2.0 yards per carry, the only team worse at toting the rock is Kent State. Keep in mind that their best running back, Jamal Wilson, is injured indefinitely. Elsewhere, Bowling Green finds itself near the top of the list despite a rough game against Wisconsin, Kareem Hunt was everything everyone expected and powered Toledo to the top, and Western Michigan's surprise performance by freshman Jarvion Franklin has helped them take the next step. UMass next three opponents are ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth at running the ball, which should let the front seven gain some confidence.

Defense

4.2  yards per carry. That's the mode of all 128 teams in the FBS. Six MAC teams average at least 4.2 yards per carry. 10 MAC teams surrender over 4.2 yards per carry. Bowling Green, despite holding UMass to 1.6 yards per carry, still averages 6.4 yards per carry. Meanwhile, Northern Illinois is the class of the MAC at run defense, holding teams to 3.4 yards per carry.

The mode of pass offense in FBS is 7.0 yards per attempt. Once again, only three MAC teams hold teams to less than this amount. If you wonder why they call it MACtion,  there's your answer. If you sort these two tables by rank (I even made a rank column that you can sort by), you'll notice that UMass has the 4^th and 5^th best defense for rush and pass, respectively. Considering the high ranks on the defensive side, and the strong passing offense, you get final ranks that look like this:

Final Results

Umass is the sixth best school in the MAC, and Bowling Green is the 11^th. Yet, Bowling Green defeated UMass on Saturday, and looked like the better team in doing so, despite the foiled late heroics giving UMass a chance to win. Of course, the question should be asked, how the hell does UMass get high ranks on defense? They've given up 40 points a game. Obviously there's a fault in non-scoring statistics, though. Taking into account scoring defense, we get the following new ranks:

Well, UMass drops to 8^th, Bowling Green is still 11^th. Obviously taking into account each type of offense and defense equally is faulty, and doing one thing well on offense is very valuable if you focus on doing that one thing (rushing, in Bowling Green's case, or passing, in UMass's case). I also completely avoided talking about special teams, because it's tougher to quantify, though it should be noted UMass's special teams is awful. When all is said and done, though, UMass is no longer the whipping boy of the MAC, and with matchups against the 10^th, 12^th, and 13^th teams coming up, UMass might need to get used to winning.