A quick look today at team defensive leaders in stuffing the run. A stuff is defined as a tackle for no gain or behind the line of scrimmage on a rushing attempt. Since I want to only consider true rushing plays, I’ve removed sacks and team rushing attempts, such as kneel-downs at the end of the half and snaps over the quarterback’s or punter’s head.

CORRECTION: The rushing attempt totals in the original list still included sacks, which has been corrected. The stuff totals remain the same, but the stuff percentages changed so the rankings have changed. From the original top 20 list, Middle Tennessee, Rutgers, Wisconsin, and Boston College have been replaced by California and Georgia Tech. There were more than 20 teams in the original list because of ties in stuff percentage.

The complete list can be downloaded as a CSV file here.

Before last Saturday’s game against Mississippi, Alabama had not trailed in a game this season. That streak was broken with 5:25 left in the first quarter when Joshua Shene’s field goal put Ole Miss up 3-0. Alabama wasted no time starting a new streak on the next drive, taking the lead for good with a 4-play, 73-yard touchdown drive that took just 1 minute and 15 seconds.

While Alabama’s streak was broken, it still holds the lead among FBS schools in the least amount of time spent trailing this season. Here is the top 15:

Boise State is the only team that is relatively close to Alabama in not letting its opponent take the lead. Boise State has only trailed in the first half of its game against Oregon, taking 6 minutes and 51 seconds over three drives to reclaim the lead for good.

As you might expect even before looking at the list, the teams that trail the least generally end up with the best records. Every team on the list is either undefeated or has one loss, except Auburn. Auburn is helped because it never trailed in its four wins, and had 2nd-half leads in its three losses. Those 2nd-half leads slipped away for the most part due to an offense that is ranked 107th in Total Offense and 97th in Scoring Offense.

Early in the broadcast of the Missouri - Texas game on Saturday night, ABC displayed the statistic that Missouri had only had two three-and-out drives this season with Chase Daniel at quarterback. Not long after they showed that statistic, Missouri and Daniel went three-and-out on three of their first four drives against Texas. Missouri rallied though, and did not have a three-and-out drive over their last seven drives of the game.

Such a low number of three-and-out drives is impressive, but I wondered how that compares to other teams in the FBS (Division I-A). Since I track every play and drive of every game involving an FBS team, I can answer the question. The caveat is that I don’t have a way to assign a drive to a particular quarterback since the play-by-play does not list the quarterback for every play. So I can only answer the question by looking at team totals rather than individual quarterbacks.

The following table shows the top-ten teams with the lowest percentage of three-and-out drives through week 8.

Tulsa - check, Texas Tech - check, Missouri - check, South Carolina - ch…oh, wait. South Carolina? Yeah, that one threw me when I saw it, so much so that I went back and manually checked every South Carolina drive. Sure enough, South Carolina, which is 81st in the FBS in Total Offense through week 8, has had only eight three-and-out drives this season. But South Carolina is not the only team in the top ten that seems out of place, Colorado State and Ohio rank 73rd and 61st respectively in the FBS in total offense.

On the flip side, here are the top-ten teams with the highest percentage of three-and-out drives through week 8.

No real surprises here, most of these teams are near the bottom in total offense. However, the team that has the highest percentage of three-and-out drives this season among 120 FBS teams, Louisiana-Monroe, ranks higher in total offense (77th) than the South Carolina, the team with the 4th lowest percentage!

The statistics through week 8 of the 2008 season (through 10/18/2008) are now available.

This week’s look at the impact of the new 40-second clock rule is available at The Wiz Of Odds.

Clock Losers Outnumber Gainers Five to One

Check it out.

The statistics through week 7 of the 2008 season (through 10/11/2008) are now available. Thanks again for your patience.

Who would schedule a wedding for a Saturday during college football season? My sister, that’s who. I tried to convince her that spring weddings are better, but she wouldn’t listen. Hopefully we can at least find a TV to watch at the reception. Who cares about toasting the happy couple when you’ve got the Red River Shootout to watch?

I probably won’t get back home until late Sunday afternoon at the earliest, so it’s doubtful that the site will be updated by Monday morning. Unfortunately, I don’t have a team of assistants to do all the work while I’m gone.

I hope to have the site updated by Monday evening. Thanks for your patience.

In his Inside The Numbers article this week, Rivals.com sports editor Mike Huguenin notes, using data from cfbstats.com, that both Purdue and Fresno State had no penalties in their games last week.

How rarely does that happen? Since the start of the 2004 season spanning 3370 games, they are the 24th and 25th teams to accomplish that feat. Since each game has two chances for a team to finish with no penalties, there have been 6740 chances, meaning that it has happened in only 0.37% (25/6740) of the chances.

As Mike notes in his article, being penalty-free did not help Purdue or Fresno State, they both lost!

The statistics through week 6 of the 2008 season (through 10/4/2008) are now available.