Photo by Rick Kimball/ISD
Notre Dame Football
Prepare for Havoc
May 16, 2017
8,841
Havoc can be either a noun or a verb. As a noun, the definition of havoc is "widespread destruction". That makes me love Bill Connelly's havoc rate statistic for college football even more.
I know many people prefer offense and want high scoring football games, but I enjoy the chaos a good defense can create. Havoc created by the defense is a very good thing and something that Notre Dame has not been very successful at producing.
What is havoc rate? This is how Connelly described it when he introduced it in a Football Outsiders article in 2014.
"Havoc rate is a pretty simple method for looking at how much hell a defense is raising. Add up tackles for loss (which includes sacks), forced fumbles, and defensed passes (picks and break-ups), divide it by total plays, and voila: havoc rate."
For a long time, Notre Dame fans have been hoping for havoc from the defense, but haven't seen a lot of it. Whether it was the blitz happy Jon Tenuta at the end of the Charlie Weis era, the conservative Bob Diaco arriving with Brian Kelly, or Brian VanGorder for most of the last three seasons, the results have been disappointing when it comes to tackles for loss, defended passes, and forced fumbles.
The main objective for Tenuta's defense was to produce those kind of plays. They were average at accomplishing it with a havoc rate of 15.8% and 15.3% in 2008 and 2009. Connelly doesn't have numbers for that year, but the average havoc rate in the last three seasons was in the 15.5% to 16% range to add some context with those number.
The havoc rate for Diaco's defenses at Notre Dame was, not surprisingly, even worse. A lot of that is by design. He ran a bend, but don't break system and it worked fairly well in many areas. What it didn't do well was disrupt the football or produce negative plays. His best season in terms of havoc rate was 2012 when they were at 15.3%.
Phenomenal red zone defense was what made that group so effective. The rest of his defenses had havoc rates of 15.2% (2010), 14.3% (2011), and a pretty dreadful 12.3% (2013).
The big reason why VanGorder was considered a good hire at the time was that he was supposed to run a defense that added that missing element that Diaco's groups lacked. Unfortunately, we now know that didn't turn out to be the case. There was negligible improvement at best over his three seasons (14.6%, 16%, and 13.4%) while the amount of mental and physical mistakes greatly increased.
That's exactly why there is a new defensive coordinator at Notre Dame. Mike Elko not only had a defense that was in top 30 in rushing defense, top 25 in scoring defense, and top 20 in 3rd down defense last year. He also has a track record of coordinating a defense with a much higher havoc rate than Irish fans are used to seeing.
Over the last five seasons (two at Bowling Green and three at Wake Forest), Elko's defense had havoc rates of 18.6, 16.2, 18.3, 15.2, and 18.1%. They've only kept track of the rankings for havoc rate over the last three years, but they were 24th and 28th in havoc rate in 2014 and 2016. I think we can assume that the 18.6% in 2012 was ranked in a similar area. Even the down years would have been considered good by Notre Dame defensive standards since 2008.
He didn't exactly have the same kind of talent Notre Dame had on defense either. He coached zero 4 or 5 stars on defense at Bowling Green and had one player selected in the NFL Draft. At Wake Forest they had the least amount of highly recruited talented on their roster in the ACC and the 3rd least in the Power 5 conferences. He also coached only two NFL Draft picks (cornerback Kevin Johnson and linebacker Marquel Lee) at Wake.
Diaco's 2011 defense had twelve future NFL Draft picks on it. The 2012 defense had 10. It almost feels unnecessary to say that the material he will have to work with and develop at Notre Dame is going to be quite a bit better than he had previously at Bowling Green or Wake Forest.
I think that's a good indication that his defense this season and beyond has a chance to have an even higher havoc rate than defenses he has coached before.
Elko has never specifically mentioned havoc rate in any interviews he has given, but he has talked quite a bit about disrupting the football. It's the exact same thing, just a different name. His defenses emphasize disrupting the football in practice and it's clearly showed up in games. They did the same thing this spring as well and it definitely caught everyone's attention after the Blue-Gold game.
Over 110 plays, the defense produced eighteen tackles for loss, two interceptions, and seven pass breakups. That produced a havoc rate of 24.5%. (The top 5 ranked defenses in havoc rate last season were all over 21%)
I realize it was the spring game and every result from it should be taken with a grain of salt, but it could very well be an indicator of things to come. A jump to 18%, something Elko's defenses have done in three of the last five years, would be phenomenal improvement. Anything close to 20% would mean the Irish have one of the most disruptive defenses in the nation.
A defense that is known for making plays behind the line of scrimmage, taking away the football, and breaking up passes? I think that's something Notre Dame fans could get used to.
I know many people prefer offense and want high scoring football games, but I enjoy the chaos a good defense can create. Havoc created by the defense is a very good thing and something that Notre Dame has not been very successful at producing.
What is havoc rate? This is how Connelly described it when he introduced it in a Football Outsiders article in 2014.
"Havoc rate is a pretty simple method for looking at how much hell a defense is raising. Add up tackles for loss (which includes sacks), forced fumbles, and defensed passes (picks and break-ups), divide it by total plays, and voila: havoc rate."
For a long time, Notre Dame fans have been hoping for havoc from the defense, but haven't seen a lot of it. Whether it was the blitz happy Jon Tenuta at the end of the Charlie Weis era, the conservative Bob Diaco arriving with Brian Kelly, or Brian VanGorder for most of the last three seasons, the results have been disappointing when it comes to tackles for loss, defended passes, and forced fumbles.
"Havoc rate is a pretty simple method for looking at how much hell a defense is raising. Add up tackles for loss (which includes sacks), forced fumbles, and defensed passes (picks and break-ups), divide it by total plays, and voila: havoc rate."
The main objective for Tenuta's defense was to produce those kind of plays. They were average at accomplishing it with a havoc rate of 15.8% and 15.3% in 2008 and 2009. Connelly doesn't have numbers for that year, but the average havoc rate in the last three seasons was in the 15.5% to 16% range to add some context with those number.
The havoc rate for Diaco's defenses at Notre Dame was, not surprisingly, even worse. A lot of that is by design. He ran a bend, but don't break system and it worked fairly well in many areas. What it didn't do well was disrupt the football or produce negative plays. His best season in terms of havoc rate was 2012 when they were at 15.3%.
Phenomenal red zone defense was what made that group so effective. The rest of his defenses had havoc rates of 15.2% (2010), 14.3% (2011), and a pretty dreadful 12.3% (2013).
The big reason why VanGorder was considered a good hire at the time was that he was supposed to run a defense that added that missing element that Diaco's groups lacked. Unfortunately, we now know that didn't turn out to be the case. There was negligible improvement at best over his three seasons (14.6%, 16%, and 13.4%) while the amount of mental and physical mistakes greatly increased.
Enter Mike Elko
That's exactly why there is a new defensive coordinator at Notre Dame. Mike Elko not only had a defense that was in top 30 in rushing defense, top 25 in scoring defense, and top 20 in 3rd down defense last year. He also has a track record of coordinating a defense with a much higher havoc rate than Irish fans are used to seeing.
Over the last five seasons (two at Bowling Green and three at Wake Forest), Elko's defense had havoc rates of 18.6, 16.2, 18.3, 15.2, and 18.1%. They've only kept track of the rankings for havoc rate over the last three years, but they were 24th and 28th in havoc rate in 2014 and 2016. I think we can assume that the 18.6% in 2012 was ranked in a similar area. Even the down years would have been considered good by Notre Dame defensive standards since 2008.
He didn't exactly have the same kind of talent Notre Dame had on defense either. He coached zero 4 or 5 stars on defense at Bowling Green and had one player selected in the NFL Draft. At Wake Forest they had the least amount of highly recruited talented on their roster in the ACC and the 3rd least in the Power 5 conferences. He also coached only two NFL Draft picks (cornerback Kevin Johnson and linebacker Marquel Lee) at Wake.
Diaco's 2011 defense had twelve future NFL Draft picks on it. The 2012 defense had 10. It almost feels unnecessary to say that the material he will have to work with and develop at Notre Dame is going to be quite a bit better than he had previously at Bowling Green or Wake Forest.
I think that's a good indication that his defense this season and beyond has a chance to have an even higher havoc rate than defenses he has coached before.
Elko has never specifically mentioned havoc rate in any interviews he has given, but he has talked quite a bit about disrupting the football. It's the exact same thing, just a different name. His defenses emphasize disrupting the football in practice and it's clearly showed up in games. They did the same thing this spring as well and it definitely caught everyone's attention after the Blue-Gold game.
Over 110 plays, the defense produced eighteen tackles for loss, two interceptions, and seven pass breakups. That produced a havoc rate of 24.5%. (The top 5 ranked defenses in havoc rate last season were all over 21%)
A jump to 18%, something Elko's defenses have done in three of the last five years, would be phenomenal improvement. Anything close to 20% would mean the Irish have one of the most disruptive defenses in the nation.
I realize it was the spring game and every result from it should be taken with a grain of salt, but it could very well be an indicator of things to come. A jump to 18%, something Elko's defenses have done in three of the last five years, would be phenomenal improvement. Anything close to 20% would mean the Irish have one of the most disruptive defenses in the nation.
A defense that is known for making plays behind the line of scrimmage, taking away the football, and breaking up passes? I think that's something Notre Dame fans could get used to.
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