As we wade into our massive pool of College Football Focus data, we’ll be sharing with you some of the highlights from our Signature Stats in position-by-position looks.
So, over these couple weeks you can expect daily dives into the best and worst that the full FBS schedule produced in all of the same categories you’ve come to know from our NFL coverage.
On the defensive side we’ve already shared looks at the edge defenders, defensive interior,linebackers and cornerbacks, so that means the safeties are up next and we’ll have a pair of posts splitting out their numbers. A tough group to get a handle on as the nature of the position lends itself to many buckets for players to fit into, but they’ll all be treated as a single safety group here. We looked at run stops and tackling in the first safety piece, now we’ll see some coverage and blitzing numbers.
Yards Allowed Per Coverage Snap
NFL leader in 2014 (min. 10 targets): Louis Delmas, MIA, 0.19 yards allowed per cover snap
– Braylon Webb of Missouri and Adrian Amos of Penn State came in tied allowing 0.30 yards per coverage snap and are a pair to watch come draft weekend. Webb spent over 800 of his snaps back as a high safety while Amos lined up over a slot WR on a third of his.
– Michigan State’s Kurtis Drummond was saddled with the highest yardage total allowed (669) and his YPCS of 1.48 finished second-worst to Oklahoma State’s Larry Stephens’ 1.50.
Passer Rating Against
Not truly amongst our Signature Stats, but this quick look at passer rating on targets into each safety's coverage is interesting nonetheless:
NFL leader in 2104 (min. 20 targets): George Iloka, CIN, 18.4
– More familiar names showing up here. Amos’ rise coupled with the earlier note about his time in the slot makes him a particularly interesting feature on this table.
– Holliman’s pick total pushes him up in the NFL rating calculation and sets him in as the only one of 13 safeties to see more than 50 targets and bring home a sub-60 passer rating against (Landon Collins came in at 61.6 on 58 targets).
– Drummond, mentioned above, and UCLA’s Anthony Jefferson saw the most action their way with 80 and 77 passes, respectively, headed for their coverage.
Plays on Ball
Again, not one of our regular Signature Stats, but combining interceptions and passes defensed for a ‘plays on ball’ tally, we can compare to the number of targets for an indication of the player’s knack for disrupting passes. Keep in mind some plays on the ball are made on passes into another defender’s primary coverage.
NFL leader in 2014: Tashaun Gipson, CLE, 35% (7/20)
– As you’d expect, Gerod Holliman’s ridiculous 14 interceptions on the year help him to a spot on this list and his 15 total plays on the ball were tops in the class. Holliman’s running mate at Louisville, James Sample, racked up the second-highest total (12) and saw fewer targets to wind up with the third-best percentage.
– Utah State’s Frankie Sutera made the most of limited opportunities with the ball coming his way. He’ll also show up on the next table, highlighting the versatile impact he had for the Aggie defense.
Pass Rushing Productivity
NFL leader in 2014: Tyrann Mathieu, ARZ, 27.8
– The Arizona pair of Tevis and Bondurant pop up again as you might expect from a number concerned with play across the line of scrimmage.
– Sutera’s 80 pass rush snaps were far and away tops at the position as he was sent into the backfield with regularity and got home more than any other as his five sacks and three hits show.
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