TONY CASTRICONE

It’s no secret that the Huskies have sported one of college football’s finest defenses the last several years. But just how good has it been compared to the other elite defenses in college football? Here are some statistics that suggest that Washington’s defense has not only been strong and, at times, dominant over the last four to five seasons, but has been consistent in a unique and superlative way.

SCORING DEFENSE

Twenty teams held their opponents to under 20 points per game last year according to cfbstats.com. But only two programs have come in below that mark each of the last five seasons: Alabama and Washington.

During that time, the Huskies ranked in the Top 15 in scoring defense every season, in the Top 10 three times, and cracked the Top 5 twice.

Year	Points Allowed	National Ranking
2015	18.8 ppg	13th in FBS
2016	17.7 ppg	8th in FBS
2017	16.1 ppg	5th in FBS
2018	16.4 ppg	5th in FBS
2019	19.4 ppg	15th in FBS

While the Huskies never ranked higher than 5th in the nation in any given year in scoring defense, the cumulative effect of this level of consistency has the Huskies as the fourth best scoring defense in college football over the last five years.

School	Games from 2015 – 2019	Points Allowed	PPG average
1. Alabama Crimson Tide	72	1,102	15.31
2. Clemson Tigers	74	1,185	16.01
3. Wisconsin Badgers	68	1,122	16.50
4. Washington Huskies	67	1,182	17.64
5. Georgia Bulldogs	69	1,223	17.72

GAMES WITH NO TOUCHDOWNS ALLOWED BY FIRST-TEAM DEFENSE

As strong as Washington’s scoring defense has been over the past five years, it still understates how consistently the Huskies’ defense has kept opponents out of the end zone. After all, touchdowns on short fields, garbage time touchdowns and touchdowns allowed by the offense all count against a team’s scoring defense statistics. The UW has managed only one shutout during this five-year stretch, but a closer analysis shows several close misses and many games where the first-team defense did keep the opponent from scoring a touchdown at any relevant point.

Year	Opponent	Score	Opposing touchdowns
2015	Sacramento St.	W, 49-0	none
2015	Arizona	W, 49-3	none
2015	at Oregon St.	W, 52-7	UW led 52-0
2016	Rutgers	W, 48-13	UW up 48-6 with 6:00 left
2016	Idaho	W, 59-14	UW up 42-0 late 3rd qtr
2016	Portland St.	W, 41-3	none
2016	Stanford	W, 44-6	UW up 30-0 w/ 1:00 left in 3rd
2017	Montana	W, 63-7	virtual shutout: TD was pick 6
2017	at Oregon St.	W, 42-7	UW up 42-0 with 3:30 left
2017	Cal	W, 38-7	virtual shutout: TD was scoop & score
2017	Oregon	W, 38-3	none
2017	Washington St.	W, 41-14	UW up 34-0 with under 10:00 left
2018	North Dakota	W, 45-3	none
2018	BYU	W, 35-7	UW fumbled up 35-0 with 2:00 left
2018	at Cal	L, 10-12	none, Cal TD was a pick 6
2018	vs. Utah	W, 10-3	none
2019	at Oregon St.	W, 19-7	virtual shutout: TD was a pick 6

To recap, in the last five years, the Husky defense has had:

• one shutout and three virtual shutouts, where the only points the opponent scored in the entire game were against the UW offense.
• 10 games where the Husky defense didn’t let the opponent score a touchdown at any point.
• 17 games (out of 67! which is over 25%!) where the Huskies’ first-team defense kept the opponent out of the end zone.

GAMES WITH ONE TOUCHDOWN ALLOWED BY FIRST-TEAM DEFENSE

Let’s create the same standard and apply it to games where the UW first-team defense allowed only one touchdown.

Year	Opponent	Score	Opposing touchdowns
2015	Utah St.	W, 31-17	USU 4th qtr scoop & score TD
2015	at USC	W, 17-12	one TD
2015	Washington St.	W, 45-10	one TD
2016	Oregon St.	W, 41-17	UW up 41-10 with 4:00 left
2016	vs. Colorado	W, 41-10	one TD
2017	Fresno St.	W, 48-16	one TD
2017	at Colorado	W, 37-10	one TD
2017	at Arizona St.	L, 7-13	one TD
2018	at Utah	W, 21-7	one TD
2018	Colorado	W, 27-13	one TD
2018	Oregon St.	W, 42-23	one TD allowed by 1st team
2019	at BYU	W, 45-19	one TD allowed by 1st team
2019	Washington St.	W, 31-13	one TD
2019	vs. Boise St.	W, 38-7	one TD

So additionally, over the last five years, the Husky defense has had:

• 11 more games where the Husky defense only allowed one touchdown at any point.
• 14 more games where the first-team unit allowed only one touchdown.

The conclusions that we can draw out of this are that:

• the Huskies have had four games over the last five years where the defense gave up zero points for the entire game.
• in almost a third of the Huskies’ games over the last five years (21 of 67), Washington’s defense has allowed no more than one touchdown during the game.
• in almost half the Huskies’ games over the last five years (31 of 67!), Washington’s first string D has given up either zero or one touchdown, with the Huskies going 29-2 in those games.

PASSING TOUCHDOWNS ALLOWED

After being one of the worst teams in the nation in passing touchdowns allowed in 2014 (ranking 109th), the Husky secondary has consistently been the best in the nation at keeping opponents from passing into paydirt.

Year	Games	TDs allowed	Average	National rank
2015	13	11	0.846	9th in FBS
2016	14	13	0.929	T-11th in FBS
2017	13	10	0.769	T-2nd in FBS
2018	14	12	0.857	5th in FBS
2019	13	13	1.000	T-9th in FBS
5-year totals	67	59	0.881	Leads the FBS

Only 18 programs in college football have limited opponents to 80 touchdown passes or fewer over the last five years. The Huskies are far below that total, leading the nation with only 59 touchdown passes allowed over the last five seasons.

School	Games from 2015-2019	Passing TDs allowed from 2015-2019	Passing TDs allowed per game average
1. Washington	67	59	0.881
2. Michigan	65	60	0.923
3. Wisconsin	68	63	0.926
4. Appalachian State	66	64	0.970
5. Ohio State	68	68	1.000
6. Clemson	74	75	1.014
7. Penn State	66	69	1.045
8. Georgia	69	73	1.058
9. Alabama	72	77	1.069
10. Florida	64	71	1.109

Every program on this list is consistently competing for divisional and conference championships, if not CFP berths and national championships. Keeping opponents out of the end zone is the name of the game, and as college football continues air the football out more and more, teams that can defend paydirt from the pass are in prime position to compete at an extremely high level.

EXPLOSIVE PLAYS ALLOWED (of 40 yards or more)

Explosive plays are not an explicitly defined term in college football. Some schools count any running play of more than 10-12 yards as an explosive play, while passing plays generally need to be 18-20 yards to be considered explosive.

But for whatever reason, the Huskies have been phenomenal at not allowing the huge chunk plays to occur. Take a look at how Washington has faired with the rest of the nation on allowing plays of 40 yards or more.

Year	Games	40-yd plays allowed	Average	National rank
2015	13	9	0.692	20th in FBS
2016	14	7	0.500	5th in FBS
2017	13	3	0.231	1st in FBS
2018	14	1	0.071	1st in FBS
2019	13	7	0.538	9th in FBS
Last 3 years	40	11	0.275	Leads the FBS
Last 4 years	54	18	0.333	Leads the FBS
Last 5 years	67	27	0.403	Leads the FBS

These numbers are staggeringly low compared to the rest of college football. Check out how far the UW sits ahead of the other programs that have limited explosives, particularly over the last three years, which is the Elijah Molden era.

School	Games from 2017-2019	40-yard plays allowed	Average per game
1. Washington	40	11	0.275
2. Alabama	42	20	0.476
3. Notre Dame	39	20	0.513
4. Wyoming	38	21	0.553
5. Utah	41	26	0.634
6. Maryland	36	23	0.639
7. BYU	39	26	0.667
8. Michigan State	39	26	0.667
9. Georgia	43	29	0.674
10. South Carolina	38	26	0.684

Granted, this stat is not so much evidence that Washington is a great defense as it is explanatory of how the Huskies have been able to keep teams from scoring. Limiting explosive plays contributes greatly to increasing the odds that you’ll keep the opponent out of the end zone. But for Washington to have given about half as many explosive plays as the 2nd best defense against explosives in the nation is remarkable. By contrast, the worst defense against explosives in the Pac-12 was Oregon State, giving up 53 plays of 40+ yards in 36 games, an average of 1.472 per game. The worst team in the nation was New Mexico, allowing 70 in 36 games for an average of 1.944.

They’ve achieved this partly because the 2017 and 2018 Huskies were so uniquely, extraordinarily elite at not giving up the big play. In fact, of the five individual defenses in college football that were best at limiting explosives over the last decade, two were wearing purple and gold.

Team	Games	40-yard plays allowed	Average
2018 Washington Huskies	14	1	0.071
2015 Missouri Tigers	12	2	0.167
2017 Washington Huskies	13	3	0.231
2019 Alabama Crimson Tide	13	3	0.231
2016 Georgia State Panthers	12	3	0.250

The evidence is overwhelming that Washington has consistently put out one of the best defenses in college football over the last half decade. Now that Jimmy Lake, one of the architects of that defense over the last several years, has taken over as head coach, it’ll be exciting to see if the UW can continue and even exceed its reputation for being elite on that side of the ball.