College Football Betting: Havoc Rate, Takeaways & Negative Regression (2022)
Today I analyze College Football havoc rate and its correlation to takeaways.
Havoc rate is an advanced statistic to determine how disruptive a team’s defense is. Havoc rate = TFL + Passes Defended + Forced Fumbles + QB hurries divided by total plays. I will first look at a team’s havoc ranking in coordination with their overall takeaway ranking. Once done, I’ll pair it with said team’s overall returning defensive production.
Seven teams ranked 55th or lower in Havoc Rate and finished top 25 in takeaways. We will look at six of those teams today and explain how they will be up for regression in several areas.
To put this into context, teams that ranked 61st-90th in Havoc Rate averaged 17.1 takeaways. If you were a team that ranked between 91st-120th in Havoc Rate, your average takeaways were 16.3. All six of these teams had at least 23 takeaways. Let’s dive in.
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South Carolina
- 56th in Havoc Rate
- 24 takeaways (16th overall)
- 104th in returning production
- 49th in 2021 SP+ defense
South Carolina vastly overperformed last year when it came to takeaways. None of this resulted in amazing results, though. They ended up going 7-6. They were 3-3 in one-score games and were utterly dominated by better teams. In their three games against Texas A&M, Clemson and Georgia, they were outscored 114-27.