Sal Sunseri Archives | Gameday on Rocky Top

Earlier today, we looked at the numbers and concluded that Bob Shoop’s defense in 2016 was not as bad as Sal Sunseri’s 2012 defense. That’s not to say that it wasn’t bad, though. It was. Bad enough to put Butch Jones on the Screaming Pundits’ 2017 Hot Seat Watch List, and bad enough to spur Jones into shaking up his coaching staff in the offseason.

But what is a realistic expectation of improvement for a defense that . . . struggled . . . last season, bless its heart?

To answer that, we went to the spreadsheets to determine what happened, if anything, between Sunseri’s 2012 defense and the 2013 defense fielded by Jones’ first defensive coordinator, John Jancek.

John Jancek’s improvement in 2013 over Sal Sunseri’s 2012

What did we find when we compared 2012 to 2013? A bag full of mixed nuts, some of them tasty, honey-roasted and sea-salted almonds, and some of them lone and wrinkled peanuts retrieved from the men’s room floor.

You’ll recall from our earlier post that Sunseri’s 2012 defense was “not good” in three defensive categories (48-56), “bad” in four other categories (85-86), and “terrible” in five more (98-115). That’s what Jancek inherited. Welcome to Rocky Top, coach!

How did Jancek do in his first season? He somehow made a miracle turnaround in Red Zone Defense, improving to No. 11 from No. 115. He also dramatically improved the team’s pass defense. Under Sunseri, the team ranked No. 111 in Passing Yards Allowed and No. 86 in Passing Efficiency Defense, and Jancek improved those rankings to No. 27 and No. 58, respectively. The team was also much better in defending on first downs and better in Scoring and Total Defense.

Those are the almonds.

Unfortunately, Jancek’s 2013 defense was still “terrible” in five categories (90-117), “bad” in two more (78-83), and “not good” in three others (40-58). Jancek made little to no improvement with regard to sacks and rushing defense, and the defense actually got worse against the run, in TFLs, and on third and fourth downs.

Click here to view full spreadsheet

What gets measured, gets managed

(Or, fixing things without breaking others)

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The most interesting thing about all of this, though, is that Jancek fixed what was broken and broke what wasn’t. He improved in 2013 the worst things about 2012, some of them dramatically so. (See the Red Zone and Pass Defense discussed above.)

At the same time, though, other areas got worse. TFLs went from No. 48 to No. 90, and Third Down Conversion Pct Defense went from No. 50 to No. 91.

Overall, though, one could say that Jancek was able to make some degree of improvement over Sunseri’s historically bad defense. What he focused on got better, but those gains were somewhat diminished by other areas getting worse.

What to expect from Bob Shoop’s defense this fall

So what does all of this mean for Team 121 and Bob Shoop’s defense this season? It’s reasonable to expect Shoop to fix what was wrong last year. The real test is what happens to the rest of the defense while he’s focused on the warts.

The biggest areas of concern from last season are first downs, rushing defense, and the defense of long pass plays. Expect Shoop and his new position coaches to focus first on those areas, and expect the team to be better at those things.

But they need to make sure they don’t break something else in the process. They need to focus on first downs without losing their edge on third and fourth downs. They need to focus on improving their ability to stop the run without absolutely falling apart in pass defense. Basically, they need a tweaker who will shift the proper amount of focus to areas of need without completely diverting attention from things they already do well. And if, as many of us suspect, most of the problem last year was attributable to injuries, then just keeping everyone healthy could make a dramatic difference.

Bottom line, it’s reasonable to expect that Bob Shoop’s defense will improve in 2017. If he does it especially well, he could even improve it significantly by fixing last year’s problems without creating new ones this year.

While reading something the other day, I ran across a throwaway comment about Bob Shoop’s 2016 defense being “historically bad.” It triggered a double-take, because that was a phrase I used a lot back in 2012 to describe Sal Sunseri’s defense, but I don’t recall using it at all last season (although I did use some others). What had prevented me from using that phrase last season? Was it because, as bad as it was, it wasn’t as bad as 2012, or was it really that bad and I just didn’t realize it because Josh Dobbs occupied my full attention?

Was Bob Shoop’s 2016 defense as bad as Sal Sunseri’s 2012 defense?

The short answer is no, I don’t think so. It was bad, yeah, but not historically so unless you want to cherry pick the data.

Sal Sunseri’s 2012

Sunseri’s defense in 2012 did absolutely nothing well. The highest it ranked in official NCAA defensive rankings was 48th, in tackles for loss. Also in the not-good-but-not-terrible range was third down defense and interceptions. The team ranked 50th and 56th, respectively, in those categories.

After that, things went into the pit quickly. Four separate defensive categories were in the 85-86 range. Five more were in the HIDE YOUR EYES range of 98-115. The winner of the raspberry award was Red Zone Defense, which ranked 115th. But Passing Yards Allowed and both Total and Scoring Defense were also U-G-L-Y.

Bob Shoop’s 2016

The 2016 defense piloted by first-year Tennessee defensive coordinator Bob Shoop was, on the whole, much more diverse in its rankings. They were actually really good on fourth downs and TFLs, thanks primarily to Derek Barnett. They were in the not-good-but-not-terrible range in four to seven categories, depending on how wide you want to define that range. The defense was actually terrible in only three categories: Total Defense (which, yeah, that one’s kind of important), Rushing Defense (ditto!), and First Downs Defense.

The Comparison

So how does Bob Shoop’s 2016 actually compare to Sal Sunseri’s 2012? Shoop was much, much better in at least one category and much better in another six categories. Note that even where he was much better, he was still mostly in the “not good” range. And the defense last year was basically just as bad as 2012 in three categories and actually worse and into Terrible Land in two categories (Rushing Defense and First Downs Defense).

So, if you are predisposed to characterize Shoop’s first season on Rocky Top as historically bad, you can point to 2-5 defensive categories to support that argument. But on the whole, it actually wasn’t as bad last year as it was in 2012, even without the balm of the 2016 offense to soothe the pain. The defense really struggled in some key areas and could be called “just as bad” as Sunseri in a few places, but Shoop managed to be mostly better and to actually do some things well. And he did it under some less-than-ideal circumstances due to a viral injury bug.

Here are the numbers, in case you want to characterize them yourself:

Click here to view the full size chart

Stay tuned, because next we’ll look at how much, if any, the defense improved in 2013 after Sunseri left. Whatever we find should help us set some realistic expectations for improvement of the defense in Shoop’s second year.

Tag Archives: Sal Sunseri

What to expect from Bob Shoop’s defense in 2017