BYU according to the five factors as of 9/11/2017

Efficiency
Defense #96 (last year #58)

Explosiveness
Defense #26 (last year #43)

Field Position
Defense: #93 (last year #4)

Finishing Drives
Defense: #29 (last year #25)


Rush Defense
On defense, BYU is bad at staying ahead of the down (#100) and really good at limiting big plays (#15). BYU's defensive line is above average at stopping the opposing OL from creating opportunities (44.4% of runs go for at least 5 yards, #116). They're good at stopping the run in short yardage situations on 3rd or 4th down (#39), but generally bad at stopping the ball at or behind the line of scrimmage (#108). Last year, BYU had an elite rush defense--this year it's terrible.

Defensive footprint
Teams run 62.6% of the time on standard downs (#50) and run 39.1% of the time on passing downs (#39). BYU's defense is terrible at causing havoc overall (#112). When looking at havoc by each position, the defensive line is average (#57), the linebackers are below average (#82), and the secondary is terrible (#126). BYU's secondary isn't very aggressive because only 28.1% of passes were intercepted or defended.

Last year, the linebackers were elite (#5 overall) and the defensive line (#85) and secondary (#108) were terrible. Last year BYU's secondary was very aggressive (39.9% of passes were intercepted or defended, #9)

We've seen improvement on the defensive line--but the dropoff for the linebackers has been pretty severe.