Stop rate for all 134 CFB teams: Jim Knowles, Ohio State finish on top

Jim Knowles led Ohio State’s defense to a No. 1 finish in this season’s stop rate standings. Now he’ll try to do it all over again at Penn State in 2025.

What is stop rate? It’s a basic measurement of success: the percentage of a defense’s drives that end in punts, turnovers or a turnover on downs. Defensive coordinators have the same goal regardless of their scheme, opponent or conference: prevent points and get off the field. Stop rate is a simple metric but can offer a good reflection of a defense’s effectiveness on a per-drive basis in today’s faster-tempo game.

Great teams find a way to get stops in critical moments. The national champion Buckeyes earned their No. 1 finish by achieving a stop rate of 78.5%. That’s a mighty impressive percentage considering their defense had to endure a four-game College Football Playoff run and a 16-game schedule that featured six top-5 opponents.

The top 25 teams in this year’s final stop rate standings won a total of 238 games, and 12 of these teams managed to win 10-plus games. Five of the top six ended up earning bids in the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff.

Stop rate is not an advanced stat and is no substitute for Bill Connelly’s SP+ or other more comprehensive metrics. It’s merely a different method for evaluating success on defense. Here are the final stop rate standings for the 2024 season.

Ohio State finished No. 1 in scoring defense (12.9 points per game), points per drive (1.11), total defense (254.6 yards per game) and yards per play (4.19) and also ranked first in defensive SP+ on its run to its first national title since 2014.

This group played its absolute best football when it mattered the most. The Buckeyes secured stops on 30 of 41 drives during its four-game CFP run, none more memorable than the goal-line stand against Texas and Jack Sawyer‘s game-clinching sack, scoop and 83-yard score. Ohio State allowed just 16 touchdowns in the red zone over 16 games.

The Buckeyes improved each season during Knowles three-year run with the Buckeyes: From No. 12 to No. 2 and finally No. 1. They got stops on 76.5% of their drives against FBS competition during his tenure, best in FBS. Knowles has led top-20 stop rate defenses in six of the last eight seasons during his time at Ohio State, Oklahoma State and Duke.

Now he’s heading to Happy Valley to work his magic (and make $3.1 million a year) for another Big Ten team with national championship ambitions. The Nittany Lions defense finished No. 15 in stop rate at 70.4% in Tom Allen’s lone season as DC and must replace potential No. 1 overall pick Abdul Carter plus four more NFL draft-bound starters.

Two of the teams Ohio State took down during its CFP run finished right behind the Buckeyes in stop rate. Texas ranked No. 2 (76.9%) and Tennessee was No. 3 (76.8%) in the final season standings. Notre Dame was No. 2 entering the national championship game and dropped down to fifth following its 34-23 defeat. Now the Irish are hunting for a new DC as well after losing Al Golden to the Cincinnati Bengals.

Here are a few more stop rate updates to note from the end-of-season rankings:

• This is the second time in the Ryan Day era that Ohio State has earned the stop rate crown. The Buckeyes finished in the No. 1 spot in 2019, Day’s first full season as head coach, with a stop rate of 81.8%.

• Knowles and Golden weren’t the only defensive coordinators who changed jobs this offseason after finishing with a top-25 defense in stop rate. Texas A&M added James Madison DC Lyle Hemphill (No. 7 defense in stop rate) to its staff, North Texas hired Sam Houston’s Skyler Cassity (No. 8), Purdue hired UNLV’s Michael Scherer (No. 16), Fresno State hired Northern Illinois’ Nick Benedetto (No. 19), Coastal Carolina hired Louisiana Tech’s Jeremiah Johnson (No. 20), West Virginia hired Oklahoma’s Zac Alley (No. 21), Florida State hired Nebraska’s Tony White (No. 23) and Miami hired Minnesota’s Corey Hetherman (No. 25).

• James Madison finished with the best stop rate among Group of 5 defenses at 72.9%. That’s pretty darn good for a unit that had lost six starters who transferred to Indiana and was playing for a new coaching staff.

• The SEC led all conferences with an average stop rate of 66.7% and had five defenses — Texas, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Alabama and South Carolina — finish inside the top 10 in this year’s standings.

• Iowa State and Oregon dropped out of the stop rate top 25 after their defenses got torched in the postseason. The Cyclones gave up a total of 86 points over their final two games and slid from No. 12 to No. 34. Oregon had few answers for Ohio State’s offense in a 41-21 loss in the Rose Bowl and dropped from 17th to 32nd in the final standings. Nebraska and Minnesota moved into the top 25 in the final update.

• Georgia finished with a shockingly poor stop rate of 62.5%, good for 13th among SEC defenses and 67th in FBS. This was the first time the Bulldogs did not field a top-25 defense in stop rate since 2018.

• Kent State’s FBS-low stop rate of 39.4% during its 0-12 season is the fifth-worst we’ve seen since we began tracking stop rate in 2017. The 2018 UConn Huskies are still sitting at the bottom of the list over this eight-year span at 35.1%.

Note: All data is courtesy of ESPN Research. Games against FCS opponents and end-of-half drives in which the opponent took a knee or ran out the clock were filtered out.