Alabama’s pass defense is back to being the best in the country

Florida State went 1,113 days between ACC losses before Saturday’s frantic loss to Georgia Tech.

On Oct. 6, 2012, the Seminoles blew a 16-3 fourth-quarter lead and fell to NC State, 17-16, on a touchdown by Bryan Underwood with 16 seconds left. On Saturday in Atlanta, they blew a 16-13 fourth-quarter lead, falling to 6-1 when Patrick Gamble blocked a 56-yard Roberto Aguayo field goal attempt and Lance Austin took the loose ball 78 yards for a score as time expired. The streak began following an unlikely defeat and ended with an almost impossible one.

In between, FSU was almost the surest bet in college football. The Seminoles outscored 28 ACC opponents by an average score of 40-17, averaging 465 yards per game and allowing 319. Only eight of the 28 wins were decided by single digits, and 11 had margins of 27 points or more. The Seminoles averaged seven or more yards per play 15 times and allowed fewer than 5 yards per play 16 times. They won three straight conference titles (and could put themselves in position to win a fourth with an upset of Clemson) and a national title.

This was one hell of a streak, and it ended in one hell of a way.

In 14 games last season, Alabama defensed (intercepted or broke up) 72 passes. In eight games this year, the Crimson Tide have defensed 62. After ranking 26th in FBS with 5.1 PDs per game last season, they are currently first with 7.8 and are on pace for more than 100 this season.

After some lackluster (by Tide standards) pass defenses in recent years, which led to plenty of overreactions about Nick Saban’s defenses falling behind modern offenses, the Tide have surged to No. 1 in the country in Passing S&P+. And it’s been a team effort. Five defensive backs have at least five passes defensed -- including three freshmen (Minkah Fitzpatrick, Marlon Humphrey and Ronnie Harrison) who have combined for 20 -- and linemen Dalvin Tomlinson and Jonathan Allen have gotten their big paws on a combined 10. Recent recruiting is reaping immediate dividends, and Alabama is once again well positioned for a national title run despite its offense struggling to produce as many big plays as normal.

Alabama also ranks 15th in Adj. Sack Rate. The Tide don’t usually rack up huge sack numbers and tend to be content with strangling you and gang tackling. But Bama sacked Tennessee’s Josh Dobbs five times and got hands on three of Dobbs’ nine incompletions in a 19-14 Third Saturday in October win.

Great, so now you can’t run or pass on Alabama.

For all the points and yards in college football, you can also find some pretty awful offense. But the names associated with some of those offenses this year are pretty surprising.

Central Florida ranked 23rd in Off. S&P+ two years ago and featured the No. 3 overall draft pick, Blake Bortles; this year, the Knights rank 126th.

Fresno State ranked 17th in Off. S&P+ two years ago. This year: 115th.

Kansas State has had a top-40 offense for the last five seasons, peaking at ninth in 2012. But with quarterback injuries so frequent that defensive tackle Will Geary was getting looks in practice, the Wildcats have fallen to 93rd.

The two most jarring names might belong to teams in the SEC. More specifically, they belong to the two teams that set offensive records in the SEC title game two years ago. I wrote one of my favorite pieces about it.

Points scored in the SEC Championship: 101. Friday night’s MAC title game: 74. The Big 12’s makeshift, winner-take-all title game (Baylor-Texas): 40.

One game does not signal a new way of life. It’s just one game. But watching Auburn’s offense click at this super-human level was startling. It raised some existential questions in this football fan.

I have 12 games of visual and statistical evidence that I can use to confidently tell you Missouri’s defense is pretty good. Ole Miss gained a school-record 751 yards on Troy the week before the Rebels played the Tigers. Texas A&M gained 628 yards on Alabama. In 120 minutes against these two offenses, Missouri allowed 757 yards and 31 points. In 60 minutes against Auburn, Missouri allowed 677 and 59.

After the game, Gary Pinkel was asked how one should go about stopping this offense. His response: ‘You know what, I’m the wrong person to ask, because I’d have stopped it if I could have.’

Comparatively speaking, Auburn’s offense isn’t that bad. The Tigers rank 68th in Off. S&P+ and are 29th in success rate. Starting quarterback Sean White, filling in for the ineffective Jeremy Johnson, has completed 64 percent of his passes, and sophomore running back Peyton Barber is on pace for 1,400 rushing yards.

But this is a Malzahn offense we’re talking about. Malzahn is regarded as one of football’s greatest offensive minds, and he has countless strong recruiting classes to cull from in placing 11 talented guys on the field. Auburn isn’t supposed to have an average offense. And following an overtime loss to Arkansas on Saturday, the 4-3 Tigers have some work to do to reach six wins.

Missouri has even more. Pinkel’s Tigers, which scored 42 points and gained 534 yards in that 2013 SEC title game loss, are 4-4 and haven’t scored a touchdown in three weeks.

Whether you prefer adjusted or unadjusted stats, advanced or basic, Missouri’s offense has reached an historically awful level.

It’s all bad. It’s all really, really bad.

How does this happen? For Auburn, the primary culprit has been a lack of big plays. The Tigers can still move the ball four yards at a time but have managed only 21 gains of 20-plus yards (126th in FBS) -- six on the ground (109th, same as Tulane) and 15 through the air (114th, same as Fresno State).

For Missouri, it’s ... well, everything. The Tigers entered with perhaps the youngest receiving corps in the country. Sophomores Nate Brown and J’Mon Moore are the only players with more than 15 catches, and senior Wes Leftwich was a rarely used reserve. Junior tight end Sean Culkin, the veteran, has missed two games with injury.

It goes far beyond that. Maty Mauk’s suspension has meant true freshman Drew Lock throwing to these young receivers. Star running back Russell Hansbrough badly sprained his ankle on his first carry of the season and has only 52 carries (he had 205 last year while splitting time). And most inexplicably, a line with four senior starters has been a horror show.

It takes quite a confluence to fall from seventh in Off. S&P+ to 124th in two years. But Missouri has pulled off exactly that. Since scoring 24 points against South Carolina in Lock’s first start, the Tigers have lost three in a row despite outstanding defensive play -- Mizzou’s young D ranks 12th in Def. S&P+, better than either of the last two seasons.

After Saturday’s last-second field goal and 23-20 win over Syracuse, Pitt has now won four consecutive one-possession games and has moved to 6-1 on the season, 4-0 in the ACC.

Teams will experience ups and downs in close games, but four such wins in a row for Pitt is like 30 for another team.

Call it the Curse of Johnny Majors. In the last 18 seasons, since Majors retired and Walt Harris took over, Pitt has had a winning record in one-possession games just five times and has been at least two games under .500 in such games nine times. In this nearly two-decade sample, the Panthers are 35-53 in these contests, a 0.397 win percentage.

That’s incredible.

The first close game of the Pat Narduzzi era ended in familiar fashion: A gut-wrenching, late-game field goal by Iowa and a 27-24 loss. But if the four wins that followed are a precursor, just go ahead and congratulate the Panthers on their three consecutive national titles. If karma has changed, they’re winning every close game for quite a while.

With Seth Russell out for the season, Jarrett Stidham now takes the reins of the mach-speed Baylor offense. If Stidham can navigate the No. 2 Bears through eight more games unscathed, he’ll be the first true freshman to win the national title as a starter since Oklahoma’s Jamelle Holieway.

Stidham has completed 86 percent of his passes in reserve duty this season, but if you want a scouting report for the blue-chipper, Bud Elliott’s already got you covered. I just wanted to bring this up so I could talk about Holieway, my first favorite college football player.

After Troy Aikman broke his leg, Holieway filled in and rushed for 862 yards and threw for 517. OU moved back to its triple-option roots following Aikman’s injury, and the freshman from Wilmington, Calif., had it mastered. The Sooners averaged 36 points per game with Holieway running the show and took down Penn State, 25-10, in the Orange Bowl to win the national title.

Holieway has dealt with criminal issues in recent years, and his career ended in rather cruel fashion. In 1987, he had 860 rushing yards and was running the triple option to perfection for the No. 1 Sooners when he tore his ACL. He returned for his senior season but was clearly slowed and got benched. Still, he was 31-2 as a starter.

If Stidham can capture the imagination of some seven-year-old Texan like Holieway did for me in Oklahoma, power to him. Either by Holieway’s or Russell’s standards, Stidham’s got a high bar to clear. And he just might.

Texas A&M made Ole Miss’ defense look like the Land Sharks of old on Saturday in Oxford. In a 23-3 loss to the Rebels, the Aggies averaged 2.7 yards per play; it was their first time under 3 per play since a 65-10 loss to Oklahoma in 2009.

Naturally, this has sparked talk of another October collapse. Since their remarkable 11-2 finish in 2012, the Aggies have regressed as seasons have progressed. In 2013, they began 5-1 with only a narrow loss to Alabama, then finished 4-3. In 2014, a 5-0 start begat a 3-5 finish. And this year’s 5-0 start has been followed by losses to Alabama and Ole Miss by a combined 64-26.

Of course, this might not be a collapse. It might just be that the Aggies can’t move the ball against good defenses. Alabama ranks fifth in Def. S&P+, and despite injuries, Ole Miss still ranks 16th. A&M struggled against those two (and to be sure, that’s disappointing compared to what was expected), but against five opponents ranking 46th or worse, the Aggies are still averaging 39 points per game and 6.5 yards per play.

The Aggies will soon get a reprieve. Before late-season trips to Vanderbilt (18th in Def. S&P+) and LSU (34th), they get South Carolina (83rd), Auburn (80th) and Western Carolina at home. Struggle against those defenses, and yes, this is another collapse. Otherwise it might be an offense that just isn’t quite as good as expected.

Washington State has scored 47.3 points per game in its last three conference games (all wins), against Oregon, Oregon State and Arizona. The Cougs have averaged 597.3 yards per game, 6.6 per play, and are enjoying their most prolific three-game span ever under Mike Leach.

Sophomore quarterback Luke Falk was already producing solid numbers during Wazzu’s 2-2 start, but during this three-game streak, his numbers are off the charts: 73 percent completion rate, 16 touchdowns, just two interceptions. Gabe Marks has 22 catches for 303 yards and seven scores in this span; those seven touchdown receptions would rank 13th in the country for the whole season.

Wazzu hosts Stanford this Saturday, and while the Cardinal have shut down the Cougars better than anybody else -- in three games against Leach, they have allowed 17 points each time while averaging 38 themselves, with offenses worse than the current one -- WSU is one big upset away from controlling its destiny in the Pac-12 North.