Washington State Football Defensive Coordinator Resigns

Last Friday Yahoo! Sports reported that Tracy Claeys resigned as defensive coordinator for the Washington State Cougars.  So, now that I have finished grading four exams, let's take a look at the Washington State Cougars performance on the defensive side of the ball since 2008.  To measure this, I am using the Complex Invasion College Football Production Model, using aggregate data provided from www.cfbstats.com.

As you can see in the figure below, the only seasons Washington State's defense was above average was from 2016 to 2018; and Claeys was the defensive coordinator in 2018.  So for Washington State to be poor on the defensive side of the ball is not new.

Turning to this season, we see in the chart below that while the offense is one of the most productive in the nation, defensive production has been declining since week 2 of this season.