This weekend, 18 teams will play with conference championships on the line. Eleven of them got this far thanks to defenses that rank among the best in FBS in stop rate. 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. Last year, national champ Michigan finished No. 1 with a stop rate of 81.6% in its games against FBS opponents. The top 25 teams in the final 2023 stop rate standings won a total of 249 games, with seven earning conference titles. Great teams find a way to get stops in critical situations. 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 regular season stop rate standings for the 2024 season. We’ll update this one more time at the end of the postseason.