There’s been a lot of chatter about the perceived decline of the UND defense and when it began. Though stats don’t tell the whole story — each season includes a different set of opponents, and the team plays to win the game not to beat the stats — they’re an interesting place to start. Thanks to UND92,96 in the forum for doing the legwork, here are this year’s defensive stats compared to the past few years.
| Year | YPG | PPG |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 217 ypg | 13.3 ppg |
| 2001 | 191 ypg | 13.0 ppg |
| 2002 | 276 ypg | 19.2 ppg |
| 2003 | 304 ypg | 19.3 ppg |
| 2004 | 250 ypg | 10.5 ppg |
| 2005 | 262 ypg | 13.0 ppg |
| 2006 | 314 ypg | 17.9 ppg |
| 2007 | 320 ypg | 19.7 ppg |
| 2008 | 368 ypg | 25.3 ppg |
Regular-season only.
How about turnovers? Some defenses may give up more yardage but be more opportunistic in setting the offense up. Which can be just as good as being shut down. That’s one area that seems to certainly have been deficient recently, maybe thats only my perception.