I thought it would be interesting to see the playing time / production ISU has coming back next year - took a deep dive on the Defense first.
Overall, they lost two starters on Defense (TJ Tampa, Gerry Vaughn). They really did not lose much (even in the two deep) other than those two.
Corner Back:
Almost 80% of the snaps by corners were taken by Tampa and Purchase. They will need to replace 798 total snaps at corner (most of any position). The next 2 corners that saw the most playing time last year were Jontez Williams and Darien Porter. It will be interesting to see how Tampa's snaps are divided up. I assume Williams and Porter will get the majority of the lost snaps. But we could also see one of the young guys step up or they may get an addition in the portal. Based on last year's playing time, they really only used two guys at Corner with the Safety's taking most of the snaps in the slot (primarily Cooper). If they are able to avoid injuries, they could see almost all of the snaps played by the top 3 returning guys this year.
Safety:
At safety all of the key players return. It will be interesting to see which of the young guys is able to step up and take some of the playing time Nikkel got last year. Also, with 5 games missed by the top 3 guys last year, the number 4/5 guy will be important to have step up if needed. I think Patton / Surges / Howard are most likely to pick up Nikkel's snaps. But maybe Smith/James or a Freshman get more involved. Basically, we need a new #4 and #6. But the way we play defense there are a lot of snaps at safety - almost total 3000 total last year, 410 more than any other position. They played about 6.5 guys a year ago with the top 6 getting 89% of the snaps.
Linebackers:
The linebackers have the second most snaps to replace behind corner (655). It will be interesting to see how this shapes up. I was surprised Bacon was only 4th in terms of snaps played - he was their highest graded defender a year ago and was very productive. Not surprising to hear he is doing well this spring. I think he could easily pick up 200-250 of the lost snaps. After that, I am not really sure which of the young guys will step up. McLaughlin was 2nd in terms of snap count, Sadowsky was 3rd. Lovett was 2nd in terms of total Pressures (Hits+Hurries+Sacks), but was not a great tackler (only 4 tackles in 175 snaps, and also missed 3 tackles).
LB Tackle Rate and Pressure Rate:
One thing that I thought was interesting to look at was the pressure rate and tackle rate at LB. The pressure rate is the % of pass rush snaps that a player generates a pressure (sack/hit/hurry). The tackle rate is the % of total snaps that a player gets a tackle or assists in the tackle. You can see that Bacon was near/at the top in both. Lovett had a good pressure % but a relatively low tackle rate (partly but not fully explained by his usage in coverage vs. run defense). Overall, ISU's LBs were 5th in pressure rate in the B12 (behind tcu, bay, wvu, and tx) with a 20.1% pressure rate.
DL/EDGE:
In terms of interior defensive linemen we really only played two guys - Orange and Singleton. It is great to hear all of the good news on Hawk. It sounds like we will have more of a three man rotation there this year.
At DE/Edge, we have almost everyone back and also added Kenard Snyder from the transfer portal. It will be interesting to see how the snaps are distributed this year and whether Same/Snyder get more into the mix.
Overall, along the defensive front, we have almost everyone back. Hopefully, with another year of development, we see them take another step this year.
DL/EDGE Tackle Rate and Pressure Rate:
Overall, ISU was about average in DL pressure rate at 7.5%. However, the IDL was 2nd (only behind tex) and the DE group was 11th behind everyone except KSU, OSU, and TCU (B12 average DE/Edge Pressure% was 8.9%).
If you focus on the top six players (in terms of snaps), our top pressure guy on the DL was Onyedim at 8.9% followed by Singleton at 8.5%. For reference, McDonald had a career pressure rate of 14.7% with 127 pressures on 862 snaps. Same had a 30% pressure rate on a VERY small sample size (10 pass rush snaps, 3 pressures). Zaimir Hawk had 2 pressures on 21 pass rushes for an almost 10% pressure rate - which is excellent for an interior linemen. Kenard Snyder had an 8.6% pressure rate with 31 pressures a year ago at ULM.
ISU Pressure Rate
Overall, ISU had a 9.8% pressure rate (total pressures as a % of total pass rush snaps - all positions). That put us at 4th place in the conference behind texas (11.7%), ou (10.5%) and wvu (9.9%).
ISU ranked 9th in pass rush snaps (sent fewer pass rushers than most) but 6th in total pressures and 4th in pressure rate (how many pressures generated by the pass rushers sent). For example, 24.5% of texas's defensive snaps were pass rush snaps (meaning they sent more pass rushers than anyone else), 2nd highest was OU at 22.4%. ISU was 13th in the B12 in terms of pass rush snaps/total def snaps at 18.5% ahead of only TCU.
So, ISU is near the top at generating pressure with the pass rushers they send but just a bit above average in the conference in terms of total pressures since they do not send as many pass rushers as others.
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