Sack-Evasion Success

PAT’s WEEKLY STAT (you likely won’t see anywhere else—and there’s probably good reason why): Upon glancing over the final statistics of Georgia’s 27-0 victory over Missouri last Saturday, it’s obviously evident the Bulldogs continued their now record-breaking streak of not allowing a rushing touchdown all season—which was last week’s Pat’s Weekly Stat. Still, something else from the game: the Tigers actually recorded a quarterback sack—albeit just one—against Georgia.

The Bulldogs have now allowed only five sacks all season, resulting in just three of the team’s nine games (three sacks yielded to South Carolina, one each to Murray State and Missouri).

Allowing only 0.56 sacks per game, Georgia currently ranks second of the 130 FBS teams in sacks allowed, trailing just Air Force’s 0.44 sacks-allowed average (four sacks in nine games). Notably, the Bulldogs’ sack evasion for this season comes after they allowed an average of 1.68 sacks per game for the previous nine seasons, while averaging an annual ranking of 44th in the FBS (and not once ranked in the top 15) in sacks allowed:

Besides sacks allowed per game, perhaps a more telling statistic is sacks-allowed percentage, or the percentage of pass attempts (plus sacks allowed) resulting in a sack. For instance, although Air Force has allowed only four sacks all season, the Falcons have attempted just 86 passes, yielding a sacks-allowed percentage of 4.44 percent.

On the other hand, Georgia has attempted more than three times as many passes as Air Force (259), and therefore has a meager sacks-allowed percentage of 1.89—an FBS-best.

Following the Bulldogs and rounding out the top five in sacks-allowed percentage are 2) Washington State, 2.058; 3) Clemson, 2.0649; 4) Boston College, 2.38; and 5) San Jose State, 2.39. The FBS average for sacks-allowed percentage is 6.23 percent, while its per-game average for sacks allowed is 2.07.

UGASports.com researched as far back as we could for reliable sack totals of Georgia’s opposition, even analyzing game by game in some instances, concluding with the 1985 season. With 6.07 being the Bulldogs’ sacks-allowed percentage for the entirety of the 34-season total, Georgia’s top ten in the measurement from 1985-2018:

As you can see, at Georgia’s current rate for the 2019 campaign, its sacks-allowed percentage of 1.89 would rank second-highest amongst Bulldog teams, trailing only the 1994 squad’s 1.28 percent. Yet, equally impressive to me, Georgia’s success in sack evasion this season follows an extended period when the Bulldogs had little knack for avoiding getting sacked.