Statistical Characteristics of a Todd Grantham Defense

With some Mike Gundy hires, there aren’t a ton of data points to project how that hire will do in Stillwater (see Mike Yurcich and Bryan Nardo). With new defensive coordinator Todd Grantham, there are almost too many stats to look at.

Reports began to come out Sunday night that Grantham, a veteran coach in college and in the pros, was set to take over Oklahoma State’s defense after Nardo was fired last week.

Grantham has coordinated 12 college defenses during his career, and we went through the stats for all of them to see if we could find some trends to see where Grantham’s defenses stand out. Most of the stats we used came from Sports Reference, but third-down defense rankings came from the NCAA’s official website. One more quick note, we used the full season stats from Grantham’s 2021 Florida squad, but it should be noted that Grantham was let go after nine games that year. It just would’ve gotten a little odd with national rankings to pull just nine games.

Quickly, here are the nine defenses we’ll look at:

2021 Florida
2020 Florida
2019 Florida
2018 Florida
2017 Mississippi State
2016 Louisville
2015 Louisville
2014 Louisville
2013 Georgia
2012 Georgia
2011 Georgia
2010 Georgia

With all that said, let’s dive in.

Total Defense

Across Grantham’s dozen seasons as a Division-I defensive coordinator, half of the time, his defense has ranked in the top 20 nationally.

On average, Grantham’s defenses ranked about 27th in the country in total yards given up. Grantham had a six-year stretch from 2014 to 2019 (spanning stints at Louisville, Mississippi State and Florida), where his defenses ranked in the top 20 nationally five times.

Grantham has led four Top 10 defenses in the stat, with his his most recent coming at Florida in 2019 when the Gators allowed 306.7 yards a game good for 10th in the country. His only Mississippi State defense also ranked 10th nationally, as the Bulldogs allowed just 306.2 yards a game under Grantham in 2017.

Grantham’s best defense in the stat came in his second season at Georgia, back in 2011 when those Bulldogs gave up just 277.2 yards a game, which ranked fifth nationally.

Grantham’s defenses have ranked outside of the top 50 in total D only once. That happened in 2020 when his Gators gave up 428 yards a game, good for 83rd nationally.

Rush Defense

Stopping the run is something OSU struggled mightily at this season, giving up 215 yards a game on the grown and 5.4 yards a carry. Those numbers ranked in the bottom 10 nationally.

Six of Grantham’s dozen defenses have ranked in the top 30 in rush yards allowed per game. Grantham’s defenses have an average national ranking of 39.6 in the stat. He’s coached a pair of top 10 rush defenses (2019 at Florida and 2014 at Louisville), and he’s coached two other units that finished 11th in the stat (2016 at Louisville and 2011 at Georgia). That 2011 season was actually his best in the stat despite ranking lower nationally than some of his others, as Georgia gave up just 101.2 yards a game on the ground that season.

Five of Grantham’s defenses ranked outside the top 50 in rush yards per game allowed, with two of his worst being his two most recent. Grantham’s 2021 Gators gave up 163.9 yards a game on the ground, which ranked 85th nationally. Florida allowed 170.5 rush yards the year before, ranking 71st nationally.

From a yards per carry standpoint, five of Grantham’s defenses cracked the top 20 in the stat. His best came in his final season in Louisville, as the Cardinals gave up just 3.1 yards a carry in 2016, which ranked fifth nationally that season. Grantham defenses have allowed more than four yards per carry four times, and three of those came from his four most recent defenses. His two most recent defenses ranked in the 80s in yard per carry defense. His average ranking in yards per carry is about 37th nationally

Pass Defense

On average, Grantham’s pass defenses rank about 33rd nationally, peaking at eighth in his third season in Athens and being as low as 100th in his penultimate season in Gainesville.

Grantham has led five defenses to the top 20 in pass defense, including two in the top 10 (both at Georgia). In his most recent season as a defensive coordinator, Grantham’s 2021 Gators finished 25th in the country, giving up 203.9 passing yards a game — down 53.6 yards than his worst season in the stat the year before.

Across a five-year stretch between 2014 and 2018 — spanning three schools — Grantham coached four defenses that ranked in the top 30 in completion percentage allowed. His 2017 Mississippi State defense was particularly good at limiting completions, ranking fifth nationally while allowing just 50.6% of passes to be completed. However, his 2019 and 2020 defenses at Florida were his worst in completion-percentage defense, bottoming out at allowing 64.1% of passes to be completed in 2020. He brought that back to being a top 30 group in his final season with the program.

Scoring Defense

Keeping points off the board is really what it all comes down to. Over his dozen seasons as a defensive coordinator, Grantham’s defenses have ranked in the top 10 once (2019 at Florida), in the top 20 on two other occasions (2018 Florida and 2012 Georgia) and in the top 30 three more times (2017 Mississippi State, 2014 Louisville and 2011 Georgia).

His defenses’ average ranking in scoring defense nationally is about 38th.

This is another area where his latest defenses were among his worst. Florida gave up 26.8 points a game in 2021 and 30.8 points a game in 2020. Before that, the only time a Grantham defense gave up more than 24.1 points per game in a season was his last in Georgia.

Third-Down Defense

If you’ve started researching Grantham after figuring out he was going to be named the Cowboys’ next DC, you might’ve come across the phrase “Third-and-Grantham,” which has apparently been used as a positive and negative over the years.

Rather than go down that rabbit hole, I chose to just look at the numbers. Grantham’s been coaching for so long, that some of those numbers were tough to find. I found his third-down percentages for all his seasons as a defensive coordinator, but tracking down consistent national rankings for the stat proved more difficult. So, instead of all 12 of his seasons, I have the national rankings for his past nine defenses. In that time, Grantham’s defenses have ranked in the top 10 in third-down percentage defense on three occasions (2014 Louisville, 2016 Louisville and 2017 Mississippi State).

This is a stat that will likely mean a lot to Mike Gundy next season, as it was a big key to a lot of the Cowboys’ struggles in 2024 when OSU allowed third-down conversions 45.9% of the time, which ranks 119th nationally.

The highest percentage of third downs Grantham has allowed came in his first season as a college coordinator, as his 2010 Georgia team allowed third-down conversations 42% of the time. The only other time he allowed more than 40% on conversions was in 2020 at Florida, where his defense ranked 72nd nationally in the stat.

Conclusions

Hiring Grantham is about on the opposite side of the spectrum than Nardo, Gundy’s most recent defensive coordinator.

When Gundy hired Nardo, people were wondering if the Division-II coordinator could do it at this level. With Grantham, people are wondering if he still has what it takes because he’s been in the game so long.

Grantham’s past two Florida defenses were not all that special. The fact that probably his worst college defenses as a coordinator were his most recent and he hasn’t been in charge of a full defense since 2021 might raise a few eyebrows. But Grantham has also had some impressive defenses. He wasn’t getting those high-profile jobs for nothing.

His lone Mississippi State defense back in 2017 ranked 26th nationally in scoring, fifth in completion percentage allowed, 12th in pass yards allowed, 27th in rush yards allowed, 10th in total yards allowed and 10th in third-down conversion percentage. That’s Mississippi State in the SEC.

Likewise, his 2014 defense at Louisville ranked in the top 30 nationally in scoring defense, completions percentage defense, pass defense, rush defense, yards per carry allowed, total defense, turnovers and third-down D.

Was it a splashy, up-and-coming name? No. But Grantham has more examples of good defenses over the years than he does bad. For a unit that has will have its fourth coordinator in five seasons, some semblance of veteran stability might be a good thing. Now it’ll be about Grantham proving that the end of his Florida tenure was an outlier and that he is still the guy who has what it takes to put together a defense that can hang out in the top 30 nationally.