Numbers tell us Brent Venables is a great DC. USATSI

The defining moment of college football last season came on an onside kick. Nick Saban knew Alabama's defense was tired in the College Football Playoff National Championship and couldn't get dynamic Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson off the field.

So Saban dialed up a gutsy and successful onside kick with a tie score and 10 minutes left that helped Alabama win the national title. When even a great defensive coach like Saban must gamble like that to rest his defense, you know defenses are playing catch-up to offenses these days.

Look at the head coach hirings. A year ago, only one of the 14 FBS head-coaching jobs went to a defensive coordinator: Pat Narduzzi. This offseason, six of the 28 jobs went to defensive coordinators (Kirby Smart, Will Muschamp, D.J. Durkin, Tracy Claeys, Barry Odom and Chris Ash). Also, Bronco Mendenhall and Lovie Smith were hired as head coaches with defensive backgrounds.

Schools went hunting for high-profile defensive coordinators this offseason: Dave Aranda (Wisconsin to LSU), Jeremy Pruitt (Georgia to Alabama), Bob Shoop (Penn State to Tennessee), Don Brown (Boston College to Michigan), and Brady Hoke (out of work to Oregon). Virginia Tech made sure to keep talented defensive coordinator Bud Foster when Frank Beamer retired. Houston was able to keep defensive coordinator Todd Orlando from leaving after Wisconsin reportedly offered him its coordinator job.

The right defensive coach is being viewed as a valuable necessity after 2015 produced college football's highest-scoring season of all-time, marking the fifth time since 2000 the scoring record has been set. With increasing frequency, many defensive coordinators view getting off the field quickly as pivotal in this era of prolific offenses. That means less sitting back and waiting for the offense to make a mistake on a long drive.

It's in the numbers. The chance an offense will score points on a drive becomes 66 percent after the second first down, according to SportSource Analytics.

"We do a lot of work with coaching staffs and I've had a lot of longtime defensive coordinators say, 'I've been waiting to be aggressive later and I'm kind of doing this wrong,'" said Stephen Prather, a partner at SportSource Analytics. "If you look at the best coordinators, they're doing the exact opposite and completely taking it to the tempo teams."

With that in mind, here is how defensive coordinators fared over the past three years with their percentage of drives that lasted six plays or less, according to SSA. The defensive coordinators are listed based on their current school, but some of them worked at different teams during this three-year period. Some schools are missing from the list because their current defensive coordinator wasn't a coordinator last season.

Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables was No. 1 in this category, an interesting spot considering the Tigers last season ranked 24th nationally in points allowed and tied for 24th in turnovers forced. Those are solid numbers, but not elite. Dig deeper and you see how the Tigers are helping to redefine what we now look for in an elite defense.

Clemson was first in tackles for loss, second in sacks, and 116th in plays allowed of 40 yards or more. In other words, one way or another, Clemson's defense got off the field pretty quickly and stayed fresh for the fourth quarter. That was a must for Clemson in 2015 considering some injuries that impacted its depth. Venables' ranking is certainly helped by the fact Clemson had 12 defensive players drafted by the NFL in the past three years. If you've got talent, it's easier to coach aggressively.

It's also interesting to see Venables at No. 1 because the Tigers' offense in recent years sometimes played extremely fast. A theory in football has been that a defense can be hurt by staying on the field too much due to its so-called tempo offense.

"It's really not the case at all," Prather said. "There's a big difference these days in how you define tempo. A lot of teams don't huddle, but aren't necessarily tempo teams. Brent Venables show that the theory is a little bit of a misstatement. You know what makes bad defenses? Bad coordinators."

ACC Coordinator Drives of 6 plays or less National Rank Brent Venables, Clemson 67.5% 1 Bud Foster, Virginia Tech 61.8% 7 Nick Howell, Virginia 59.1% 22 Todd Grantham, Louisville 58.9% 24 Mike Elko, Wake Forest 57.1% 38 Manny Diaz, Miami 54.6% 54 Dave Huxtable, NC State 54.2% 58 Charles Kelly, Florida State 53.5% 69 Jim Knowles, Duke 53.1% 75 Ted Roof, Georgia Tech 52.9% 77 Josh Conklin, Pittsburgh 51.7% 87 Gene Chizik, North Carolina 47.7% 126 Brian Ward, Syracuse 46.8% 130

SEC Coordinator Drives of 6 plays or less National Rank Dave Aranda, LSU 66.5% 3 Jeremy Pruitt, Alabama 64.9% 4 Bob Shoop, Tennessee 61.7% 8 Dave Womack, Ole Miss 59.1% 20 DeMonte Cross, Missouri 58.4% 26 John Chavis, Texas A&M 57.7% 34 Derek Mason, Vanderbilt 57.4% 39 Geoff Collins, Florida 57.2% 41 Robb Smith, Arkansas 53.6% 67 Kevin Steele, Auburn 52.1% 86 D.J. Eliot, Kentucky 49.2% 113

Big Ten Coordinator Drives of 6 plays or less National Rank Luke Fickell, Ohio State 61.6% 10 Don Brown, Michigan 60.2% 14 Phil Parker, Iowa 57.8% 32 Mike Tressel / Harlon Barnett,

Michigan St. 57.6% 36 Jay Niemann, Rutgers 54.5% 55 Tom Allen, Indiana 54.0% 61 Justin Wilcox, Wisconsin 53.3% 71 Mark Banker, Nebraska 52.3% 84

Pac-12 Coordinator Drives of 6 plays or less National Rank Marcel Yates, Arizona 59.3% 18 Kevin Clune, Oregon State 57.1% 42 Lance Anderson, Stanford 55.0% 52 Keith Patterson, Arizona State 54.1% 60 Pete Kwiatkowski, Washington 53.5% 68 Jim Leavitt, Colorado 53.2% 73 Art Kaufman, California 52.2% 85 Tom Bradley, UCLA 51.5% 90 Alex Grinch, Washington State 48.4% 119

Big 12 Coordinator Drives of 6 plays or less National Rank Phil Bennett, Baylor 60.5% 11 Mike Stoops, Oklahoma 59.6% 15 Chad Glasgow, TCU 58.4% 26 Vance Bedford, Texas 57.7% 35 Tony Gibson, West Virginia 55.9% 49 Glenn Spencer, Oklahoma State 55.8% 50 David Gibbs, Texas Tech 53.8% 59 Jon Heacock, Toledo 52.9% 76 Tom Hayes, Kansas State 50.5% 101 Clint Bowen, Kansas 41.3% 133