I think an improved pass rush is possible in 2025 and could be a key to defensive improvement next year.
Since Iowa State sends fewer pass rushers than the rest of the league and every team faces a different number of passing plays, it can be hard to compare raw stats across teams without context. I tried to add some context to ISU's 2024 Pass Rush performance, compares to 2023, and some opportunities & challenges we may have in 2025.
The table below breaks down the pass rush stats and ISU's B12 Rank and ISU vs. Avg B12 Team:
1) Number of pass rushers per pass play
(ISU send 0.6 fewer pass rushers than the B12 average and ranks 15th in pass rushers sent per pass play; they also faced 60 fewer, or 13% fewer, pass plays than the average B12 team in 2024; both of these impact raw stats like sacks and pressures)
2) Total Sacks
3) Total Pressures
(Sacks+QB Hits+QB Hurries)
4) Pressure%
(Total Pressures / Total Pass Rush Snaps, ISU was 4th)
5) Sack%
(Total Sacks / Total Pass Rush Snaps, ISU was 13th)
6) %Pass Plays w/Pressure
(Total Pressures / Total Pass Plays)
7) %Pass Plays w/Sack
(Total Sacks / Total Pass Plays)
A couple things I would note:
First, ISU sends fewer pass rushers and this scheme accounts for much of the gap between ISU and the rest of the B12 in terms of pressure and % of plays with pressure. You can see, even in what I would consider a down year for ISU we were 4th in Pressure% which normalizes for both number of pass rushers sent each play and number of pass plays faced by a defense.
Second, ISU converted fewer pressures into sacks. Sacks can be volatile year to year. ISU only converted about 10% of it's pressures into sacks in 2024 (very low). B12 Average was 14%, top teams were close to 20%. Last year ISU was at about 13%. So, a bad sack year for sure, they ranked 13th in sack% (sacks/pass rush snaps).
Looking at 2024 vs. 2023, we can see our pressure% improved, but our sack rate declined. Looking more closely, you can see this was driven by the LB position, where Caleb Bacon and Will McLaughlin were missed. In 2023, they combined for 4 sacks and 24 pressures on 101 pass rush snaps. The two combined for a Pressure% of 24%, and a Sack% of 4% (much higher than the 2024 ISU averages of 10.4% and 1.1%).
Change in LB Production Year to Year:
2025 Opportunities & Challenges:
LB
Iowa State's LBs are an important part of ISU's pass rush. They accounted for about 1/3 of the team's pressures and sacks in 2023. But in 2024, this dropped to about 1/4 of the teams production. Getting Bacon and McLaughlin back in 2025 should boost the production from the LB's in 2025.
EDGE:
On the edge, ISU lost 4 of their top 5 pass rushers from a year ago. Three transfers will attempt to replace them along with other younger players on ISU's roster. Vontroy Malone (Tulsa), Cannon Butler (UNI), and Tamatoa McDonough (Yale) will all be competing for time. Their stats were similar to the players we are losing but they will need to do it at the B12 level (Pressure% 9.7% v. 9.5%, Sack% 1.2% vs. 1.1%). One note on Butler, although he only had 1 sack on 25 pressures in 2024, he has 8 sacks on 68 pressures over his 3 seasons at UNI. So, last year he had a low pressure to sack conversion rate (4%) vs. his career average (12%).
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