Thanks to one man, the NFL started recognizing sacks as a stat in 1982.
Throughout his nearly decade-and-a-half NFL career, David “Deacon” Jones terrorized NFL defenses in the 1960s and early 1970s. During his 11-year stint with the Los Angeles Rams, Jones coined the term “sack.”
Jones tackled quarterbacks behind the line of scrimmage before the ball left their hand so frequently that the NFL started counting them eight years after his final and lone season with Washington in 1974.
But Jones’ illustrious Hall of Fame career can’t even be found in the record book; the sack became a box score staple nearly a decade after he played his final NFL game.
At the turn of the century, John Turney and Nick Webster of the Pro Football Researchers Association used play-by-play data and game film to compile unofficial sack records from 1960 to 1981.
Using Turney and Webster’s numbers recorded on Pro Football Reference, Jones is third all-time in sacks with 173.5 while leading the league in the statistic he forced into existence five times.
The NCAA finally started registering sacks as an official box stat in 2000, the same year Turney and Webster’s studies were publicized.
It took the NCAA nearly two decades after the NFL started recording sacks as an official stat to do it themselves, and that’s not even the worst of it.
The NCAA counts sacks against the team and the quarterback’s rushing numbers in the final tally, but when the NFL started counting sacks in 1984, the statisticians left rushing yards untouched.
The NCAA has zero excuses not to follow the pros’ policy, and it’s the most overlooked perquisite the NFL has over the college game. Counting sacks as rushing stats distorts both air and ground game numbers.
Sacks only happen when a quarterback is brought down behind the line of scrimmage before attempting a forward pass.
So sacks can only occur on passing plays, yet the NCAA only considers them for a team’s rushing totals? Filing sacks under rushing yards makes actual rushing yards fundamentally wrong.
Florida State’s 38 sacks allowed is the second-highest permitted in the nation, and its 229 sack yards rank fourth in the country.
The sack yardage is one of the many reasons Florida State has the seventh-worst rushing offense in the nation. With 805 total team rushing yards on the season, the team failed to eclipse 1,000 yards midway through November, something only 14 teams in the FBS have been unable to accomplish.
This affects running and passing stats as well. The NCAA only counts team passing attempts as plays in which the quarterback lets it fly, while the NFL subtracts sacks from the team’s passing totals. The NCAA’s methodology heavily skews team pass attempts and team passing averages.
Sure, the NCAA has many more pressing matters, like revenue sharing, whether student-athletes count as university and NCAA employees and fighting in federal court. However, adopting the NFL’s sack-counting rules will improve college football.