Success Rate: A common Football Outsiders tool used to measure efficiency by determining whether every play of a given game was successful or not. The terms of success in college football: 50 percent of necessary yardage on first down, 70 percent on second down, and 100 percent on third and fourth down.I logged every single defensive play from UNC's season, and our overall success rate was 50.38%, well above the FBS average of 41.33% (for a defense, a lower success rate is better). As I had found previously, our defense was very bad on 3rd and 4th down:
| Totals | |||
| Down | Success | Count | Success Rate |
| 1 | 206 | 415 | 49.64% |
| 2 | 152 | 313 | 48.56% |
| 3 | 99 | 190 | 52.11% |
| 4 | 12 | 13 | 92.31% |
| All | 469 | 931 | 50.38% |
My ultimate goal was to compare our defense this year with those under Gene Chizik, who was recently hired as UNC's new defensive coordinator, using the S&P+ Defensive Rating as well as others. That success rate ranked 122 out of 125, and our overall S&P+ Defensive rating ranked 113th.
The last time Chizik called defensive plays was when he was c0-defensive coordinator at Texas in 2006. I don't have the success rate data for that team, but S&P did produce ratings for that year, in which Texas ranked #27 (compared to UNC's #113 this past season). Our passing S&P+ ranked #101, and Texas ranked #56 in 2006, which is not outstanding but still an improvement. Chizik was also with Texas as co-DC in 2005 when they won it all, and Texas's defense ranked #1 that year.
The last time Chizik was the sole defensive coordinator at a school was 2004 with Auburn. S&P doesn't exist for that year, so I turned to Massey's Ratings, and Auburn ranked #2 defensively. For comparison, UNC ranked #128 this year in these ratings.
So even a #27 defense would be a huge improvement for North Carolina; thus, Chizik seems like a great hire, especially considering his name recognition. But that might signify the opposite: as Stan Hooper puts it, "It says everything about his reputation as a coach that he could be fired a year after winning the national title and no AQ would touch him for a year." His total record as a head coach was 24-38 between Iowa State and Auburn "when not gifted an NFL quarterback by his boosters." He was .500 in the SEC, with a 38-38 total record (including the Cam Newton year), and was ""Inept and easily the worst head coach to win a BCS title."
However, I'll end on a more positive note. Chizik employed a 4-3 defense at both Texas and Auburn, and presumably will at North Carolina, and the players apparently were not at all happy with the previous 4-2-5 scheme (so there will almost certainly be an improvement). Here are the final comparisons between UNC 2014 and Texas 2006:
UNC 2014
Defensive S&P+: 105th
Rushing: 86th
Passing: 102nd
Success rate: 48.2%, 120th
Texas 2006
Defensive S&P+: 27th
Rushing: 3rd
Passing: 56th
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