Clemson Football: Comparing the 2018 team to Tiger teams of year’s past
How does the 2018 Clemson football team compare to Tiger teams of year’s past? Here’s a breakdown of the teams six games into their respective seasons.
How does the 2018 Clemson football team compare statistically to Tigers teams of year’s past?
Today, we’ll take a look at the 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 teams and compare them by the numbers through six games. Keep in mind that all four teams were and are undefeated through six games.
Let’s start with the offensive side of the ball.
Offensive Key statistics:
Points per game- 2015 with 35.2; 2016 with 38.7; 2017 with 35.0; 2018 with 42.2
Yards per play- 2015 with 6.1; 2016 with 6.5; 2017 with 6.12; 2018 with 7.6
Point Differential- 2015 with 111; 2016 with 142; 2017 with 142; 2018 with 166
I want you to think about this.
As bad as many have complained about the offense, when you do a statistical analysis of the teams through six games, the 2018 Clemson football offense has a higher points per game average, a higher yards per play average and a much higher point differential than all three of the teams from year’s past.
Defensive Key statistics:
Points given up per game- 2015 with 16.7; 2016 with 15.0; 2017 with 11.3; 2018 with 14.5
Yards given up per game – 2015 with 282.7; 2016 with 348.3; 2017 with 264.3; 2018 with 275.2.
Interestingly enough, the 2018 defense is second out of the four defenses so far with 14.5 points given up per game. The 2017 defense was giving up just 11.3 points per game at this point.
The 2016 defense, which won the national championship, was giving up 15 points per game, which is basically exactly the same as this years.
The 2018 group is also second on the list in yards given up per game with 275.2 right behind the 2017 defense (264.3 at this point in the year).
dark. Next. Does Clemson have the best backfield in the nation?
What does it mean?
Stats can be misleading because, obviously, all these teams faced different competition in their first six games.
It is interesting, though, to see that the offense is actually ahead of itself from any of the past recent years and that the defense is on track to have just as good of numbers as it had last year and better numbers than in the years before that.