After a second-half offensive performance by Bulldogs that only put up 50 yards and three first downs in the Alamodome on Saturday night, Tech fans will want to hear that UAB has a terrible defense.
Well, unfortunately, that is not the case. Going by SP+'s Success Rate, the Blazer defense has been just as good as BYU's:
Even if we use a more traditional stat, UAB looks like one of the best defenses the Bulldogs will face all year:
The defense is undoubtedly the strength of this Blazer team. UAB ranks in the top 25 in the nation in yards per play allowed, total yards allowed, and even points per game allowed.
And a lot of that overall success is due to UAB's stout pass defense:
The Blazers allow the sixth-lowest completion percentage and the ninth-fewest passing yards per game in the country. And that's with opponents are throwing the ball an average of 30 times a game.
But while the pass defense has been superb, the Blazer run defense could use some work:
But interestingly, if you look at defensive success rate on rushing plays, you see a different picture:
As a quick refresher, success rate refers to the number of plays that get 50% of the yards to gain on first down, 70% on second down, and 100% on third and fourth down.
So UAB is better than average at stopping any given run play, but are still giving up a large number of yards per rush. That must mean that the Blazers are prone to giving up a huge run.
And that's exactly what we see here:
UAB is the fifth-worst team in college football when it comes to how successful their opponents' runs are when the running back is able to get to the second level.
To look at a common opponent, Tech only gave up one rush longer than 15 yards to UTSA on Saturday night. When UAB faced the Roadrunners at the beginning of the month, the Blazers gave up six.
Granted, that one 15+ yard rush that the Bulldogs did allow was McCormick's game-winning 45-yarder. But that goes to show that one big rushing play can decide a game.
With how Israel Tucker looked in San Antonio coupled with UAB's inability to stop the huge run plays, it wouldn't be surprising to see the redshirt-senior involved in a deciding play or two on Saturday.
So even though the Blazer defense looks scary, I wouldn't quite rule out the Bulldog offense yet.
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Nathan is also a contributor to gtpdd.dog, a lighthearted Louisiana Tech blog. Be sure to check out @gotechplsdntdie on Twitter.
