College football defensive stop rate after Week 8

After a shutout win over Wisconsin on Saturday, No. 1 Ohio State's defense has moved to the top of the stop rate standings this week.

What is stop rate? It's a basic measurement of success: the percentage of a defense's drives that end in punts, turnovers or a turnover on downs. Defensive coordinators have the same goal regardless of their scheme, opponent or conference: prevent points and get off the field. Stop rate is a simple metric but can offer a good reflection of a defense's effectiveness on a per-drive basis in today's faster-tempo game.

Last season, Ohio State finished No. 1 in this metric with a stop rate of 78.5% against FBS opponents over its 16-game season. The Buckeyes are back on top under new defensive coordinator Matt Patricia with a stop rate of 84.2% and also have the No. 1 points per drive average (0.72) in FBS.

Stop rate is not an advanced stat and is no substitute for Bill Connelly's SP+, FPI or other more comprehensive metrics. It's merely a different method for evaluating success on defense against FBS opponents. Here's the current leaderboard entering Week 9:

The Buckeyes didn't give up much in a 34-0 rout of a struggling Wisconsin squad. The Badgers punted seven times, including five three-and-out drives, over nine drives with just one possession that went more than 30 yards. Ohio State held their two QBs to a combined 49 passing yards on the day, Wisconsin's fewest in a single game since 2014.

Penn State swooping in to hire Buckeyes defensive coordinator Jim Knowles and make him the highest-paid DC in the sport at $3.1 million per year hasn't proved to be much of a setback for a unit that also had to replace eight NFL draft picks. Ohio State has allowed more field goals (five) than touchdowns (four) through its first seven games.

Patricia deserves plenty of credit, too, for how effective his eight new starters have been on critical downs. The Buckeyes have the top third-down defense in FBS with a 21.3% conversion rate because they're only giving up 2.3 yards per play on third downs. Opponents are still converting 0% of their third-down attempts inside the red zone. Ohio State also has 11 fourth-down stops on the year, tied for most in FBS.

As long as they stay healthy, this defense shouldn't take much of a step back over the next month with Penn State, Purdue, UCLA and Rutgers ahead on the schedule. There's a decent chance Ohio State will still be leading the way in stop rate when it's time to head to Ann Arbor to confront rival Michigan on Nov. 29.

A few more updates to note regarding this week's stop rate standings:

• Oklahoma has jumped ahead of Texas for the No. 2 spot in this week's stop rate standings after getting 11 stops against LaNorris Sellers and South Carolina in a 26-7 road victory. Texas leaned on its defense on the road as well and escaped against Kentucky with a 16-13 win in overtime.


• Texas Tech's talented defense did enough to keep the Red Raiders in it at Arizona State, forcing the Sun Devils to settle for four field goals in the red zone. But they couldn't come up with a game-winning stop against Sam Leavitt and Jordyn Tyson, giving up a 33-yard pass on fourth down that led to a 75-yard, game-winning drive in a 26-22 upset loss. Texas Tech dropped from No. 1 to No. 4 in stop rate this week.


• Welcome to the top five, Toledo! The Rockets rank No. 2 nationally in yards per play (3.79) behind Oklahoma, have a top-10 run and pass defense nationally over their 4-3 start and have a stop rate of 78.4% on the year.


• After surviving a 45-42 road win at Arkansas to move to 7-0, Texas A&M coach Mike Elko said his defense "picked a really, really bad night to play bad football." The Aggies dropped out of the top 25 in this week's stop rate standings, going from 16th to 27th, after Bobby Petrino's offense lit them up with scores on seven of 10 drives. Arkansas, by the way, has a stop rate of 35.5% against SEC opponents this season and is all the way down to 130th in stop rate this week.


• Pitt is on a three-game win streak under new freshman starting QB Mason Heintschel and has moved into the top 25 in this week's stop rate standings, climbing from 34th to 21st after getting 12 defensive stops on the road in a 30-13 win over Syracuse.


• Florida has the No. 42 defense in stop rate this week. The Gators finished in the bottom 25 in the end-of-season stop rate standings in each of now-former coach Billy Napier's first two seasons before achieving a No. 39 finish in 2024.


• Ole Miss-Georgia turned into quite the offensive shootout on Saturday. The Rebels' defense did not get a stop on the day, surrendering points on all eight Georgia drives, and now rank 65th in stop rate on the year.

Note: All data is courtesy of ESPN Research. Games against FCS opponents and end-of-half drives in which the opponent took a knee or ran out the clock were filtered out.br/]