CFF Sig Stats: Interior Defenders

As we continue to dig into our wealth of data we have collected over the past season, we get to look at the Interior Defensive lineman.

The interior line play we get to highlight will be the best from this years college players, we will look at every game and then break it down to only look at those games against the power five conference teams. We will see who was the top in terms of run stop percentage and Pass Rushing Productivity. There will be some expected big names but also see some smaller school guys who failed to get much recognition for their good work.

Run Stop Percentage            

We define a “stop” as any instance where the primary tackler prevents an offensive success this changes based on down and distance. To be more accurate here our official cutoffs for each down.

1st down:  <40% of required yardage
2nd down: <60% of required yardage
3rd down: <100% of required yardage
4th down: <100% of required yardage

NFL Leader – Damon Harrison 12.5%

–  The leader in run stop percentage is Connecticut’s Mikal Myers. Myers is a traditional 3-4 nose tackle where he benefited on significantly lower snaps than those around him, but still an effective run stopping nose tackle.
–  Next on the list is projected top five pick Leonard Williams. Williams showed great physical strength in playing the run often being in the losing situations but being able to use his strength to turn it around. For an in-depth study, check out his CFF Player Profile.
–  In third and fourth are two players who we see with more production than the publicity they have received. Henry Anderson plays with a style where he is always attacking and will record many stops when he gets it right.
–  Four of the Top 10 are players who played outside of the power five conferences in Vernon Butler, Alex Hansen, Ashaad Mabry and Christian Ringo.

Run Stop Percentage vs. Power 5 Opponents

–  When looking at games vs. teams in the Power 5 conferences, Leonard Williams claim the top spot, only recording four stops outside of those games.
–  Matt Hoch benefits from games inside of the power five conference has he recorded 18 of his 24 snaps against power five conferences.
–  Malcom Brown was another player who didn’t have a big slip against power five teams has he showed his ability to shed blockers against every team.
–  All of the players who played in the power five conference in the Top 10 stayed in the Top 10 as they where able to beat both power five conference and any other team.

Pass Rushing Productivity

NFL Leader – J.J. Watt 15.0 PRP

–  Christian Ringo leads the defensive interior with a ridiculous 15.8 PRP. Ringo recorded pressure at a more consistent rate than J.J. Watt did. Ringo was able to beat up on the Sunbelt conference as he recorded a pressure in every game and his best game came against instate rival Louisiana-Monroe as he recorded nine pressures.
–  Henry Anderson was able to show his ability to play the run and still be one of the best forces in the passing game.
–  Seven of the Top 10 came from players who played outside of the power five conferences.

Pass Rushing Productivity vs. Power 5 Opponents

–  In games against power five conference teams Henry Anderson was head and shoulders above any other player.
–  The biggest omission from either PRP list is USC’s Leonard Williams he had a PRP of 7.8 in power five games leaving him with the 30th best PRP.
–  The Iowa pair of Defensive tackles Louis Trinca-Pasat and Carl Davis both recorded the same PRP of 9.4 as Iowa had a good threat from both guys throughout the season.

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