Since his days at Tennessee, LSU defensive coordinator John Chavis has carried around a nickname on message boards.
It isn’t the more popular “Chief,” as his players call him — it’s “Third and Chavis,” as people have taken to accusing Chavis’ defenses of failing in third-down situations.
Since 2009, LSU has consistently ranked in the top half of the Southeastern Conference in opponent third-down conversions. Even with the Tigers’ much-maligned defensive unit this season, LSU is holding opponents to 38 percent on third downs, just behind South Carolina and Missouri.
One of the defense’s most high-profile missteps was in the 2012 season against Alabama. On second down, Alabama running back T.J. Yeldon took a screen pass from quarterback AJ McCarron 28 yards for a touchdown in the closing seconds of the game, essentially winning the match for the Tide.
What many fans don’t remember from the game, though, was that conversion was Alabama’s only third down conversion out of nine attempts that day — the same Alabama offense that ranked third in the nation in offensive success rate and points per play (S&P).
While the defense has been worse in raw third down conversion rate, advanced statistics have shown the Tigers have fared better than what some more traditional stats show.
The Tigers have been better on passing downs this season than they have on third downs, according to Football Outsider defensive S&P rankings. LSU has ranked in the nation’s top 25 of defensive S&P on passing downs every season since Chavis’ hiring in 2009.
The LSU defense is ranked in the nation’s top 15 of Difference in Net Points, raw average of the points an offense scores on a given drive compared to the points it would be expected to score based on starting field position.
In LSU’s loss to Georgia, while the Bulldogs scored on the final possession, the Tigers held them to only four conversions on 11 attempts.
Georgia’s offense is ranked fifth in Fremeau Efficiency Index, which considers each of the nearly 20,000 possessions every season in major college football. All drives are filtered to eliminate first-half clock kills and end-of-game garbage drives and scores. A team is rewarded for playing well against good teams, win or lose, and punished more severely for playing poorly against bad teams than it is rewarded for playing well against bad teams.
While LSU’s defense has statistically fallen this season, the Tigers’ struggles on third downs have been exaggerated by focusing on three or four failures rather than the greater number of successes.