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.