SI Mailbag: What Are Realistic Short-Term Expectations for Nebraska?

[yort2000]

Just now, Nebfanatic said:

When i said talent I directly meant his recruiting rankings which is all he had control over. Team talent rankings factor in Bo's last class which was the worst in awhile and it brings down the ranking as they move through the program. The 247 talent ranking is based pretty heavily off recruiting rankings

 

 

Well his highest rated class of 2017 at 23rd didn't have the 2nd or 8th rated players show up on campus and the 6th rated player wasn't on the team by the time the season started.  So, I think that had some effect on the roster talent.

 

 

[Redux]

2 minutes ago, huskerfan333157 said:

Which ones would you change?  Please attempt to use an unbias perspective-i know it may be hard though.

 

I guarantee your guaranteed loss prediction is crap.

[Nebfanatic]

1 minute ago, yort2000 said:

 

 

Well his highest rated class of 2017 at 23rd didn't have the 2nd or 8th rated players show up on campus and the 6th rated player wasn't on the team by the time the season started.  So, I think that had some effect on the roster talent.

 

 

Fair enough. Honestly I don't really care, sure he let it slip but still within the range we have been for 15 years. We didn't fall into oblivion talent wise and that is more of what I meant. We are still top dogs in the west in terms of sheer talent.

[yort2000]

Just now, Nebfanatic said:

Fair enough. Honestly I don't really care, sure he let it slip but still within the range we have been for 15 years. We didn't fall into oblivion talent wise and that is more of what I meant. We are still top dogs in the west in terms of sheer talent.

 

I also give you this article about blue chip ratio over the past 4 years.

 

https://www.sbnation.com/a/cfb-preview-2017/blue-chip-ratio

 

And this quote about Nebraska from that article:

 

"Nebraska’s gone from 30 percent in 2014 to just 19 in 2017, but seems to have real momentum in the 2018 class."

 

 

[RedSavage]

5 minutes ago, huskerfan333157 said:

Well, Ohio State hasn't punted the ball once in the past two years we played them...

 

We haven't beat Wisconsin in quite awhile.

 

Michigan will be improved and there is no way you should even consider us favored.

 

Michigan state had a damn good year last year and return everyone.  

 

Which one do you think we will win and please state why.

We COULD lose all of them.  You're saying we WILL lose all of them, guaranteed.  Why even play the game then?  We might as well start the season 0-4 and skip those games.

 

Ohio State is the most likely one for us to lose but I think we will see enough improvement that we will have a chance to win all of them.  

[huskerfan333157]

6 minutes ago, RedSavage said:

We COULD lose all of them.  You're saying we WILL lose all of them, guaranteed.  Why even play the game then?  We might as well start the season 0-4 and skip those games.

 

Ohio State is the most likely one for us to lose but I think we will see enough improvement that we will have a chance to win all of them.  

Which means I shouldn't guarantee Akron as a win and every game should be toss ups...

[Kiyoat Husker]

3 minutes ago, yort2000 said:

 

I also give you this article about blue chip ratio over the past 4 years.

 

https://www.sbnation.com/a/cfb-preview-2017/blue-chip-ratio

 

And this quote about Nebraska from that article:

 

"Nebraska’s gone from 30 percent in 2014 to just 19 in 2017, but seems to have real momentum in the 2018 class."

 

 

 

Your article only rates recruiting classes, not retention.  In fact, if you want to point the finger at Riley for not retaining all of his higher-ranked recruits, then you have to also acknowledge the large number of high-rated recruits that Pelini did not retain.  There have been multiple threads on this in the recruiting forum.  @Mavric did some research on this subject as well.  Riley's recruiting wasn't significantly better or worse than Pelini's overall.  Pelini's last two classes were a little below average, though.

[yort2000]

Just now, Kiyoat Husker said:

 

Your article only rates recruiting classes, not retention.  In fact, if you want to point the finger at Riley for not retaining all of his higher-ranked recruits, then you have to also acknowledge the large number of high-rated recruits that Pelini did not retain.  There have been multiple threads on this in the recruiting forum.  @Mavric did some research on this subject as well.  Riley's recruiting wasn't significantly better or worse than Pelini's overall.  Pelini's last two classes were a little below average, though.

 

Why does everyone want to come in and start pointing fingers?  The argument is if talent has slipped over the past 3 years (and by all metrics I can find it has), not who is responsible for it.

 

[jaws]

8 minutes ago, RedSavage said:

We COULD lose all of them.  You're saying we WILL lose all of them, guaranteed.  Why even play the game then?  We might as well start the season 0-4 and skip those games.

 

Ohio State is the most likely one for us to lose but I think we will see enough improvement that we will have a chance to win all of them.  

 

Ohio State is more talented and have guys that have been in the system under the same coaching for multiple years. They have everything going for them. Good thing you only play them once or twice (CCG). Anything can happen in a game and Nebraska could win. I assume with Frost they could win any one of those games. 

[Kiyoat Husker]

11 minutes ago, yort2000 said:

 

Why does everyone want to come in and start pointing fingers?  The argument is if talent has slipped over the past 3 years (and by all metrics I can find it has), not who is responsible for it.

 

 

Nebfanatic made the argument that Bo's last two classes were the reason for the talent drop.  You made the argument that it was because of Riley not retaining top players.  I was simply pointing out that Bo also failed to retain many of his four-star players, which affects the validity of your argument.  

 

Here's one of the threads on class retention:

http://www.huskerboard.com/index.php?/topic/78382-class-retention/&tab=comments#comment-1668273

 

Edited February 13, 2018 by Kiyoat Husker

[yort2000]

2 minutes ago, Kiyoat Husker said:

 

Nebfanatic made the argument that Bo's last two classes were the reason for the talent drop.  You made the argument that it was because of Riley not retaining top players.  I was simply pointing out that Bo also failed to retain many of his four-star players, which affects the validity of your argument.  

 

Well that was after I initially responded to his not letting talent slip post and he deflected by pointing fingers, he then responded a second time that he only meant recruiting rankings (the only thing Riley can control),  and then I posted that reason as why talent according to the recruiting rankings may have slipped also.  I was not arguing anything Riley over Pelini. 

 

This is becoming like politics.  "We have this huge problem.  Well, X faction says Y is to blame, no Y faction says X is to blame.  Everyone argues about who is to blame, and nothing gets done about the huge problem."

 

 

[Redux]

22 minutes ago, huskerfan333157 said:

Which means I shouldn't guarantee Akron as a win and every game should be toss ups...

 

You're basing your predictions like Nebraska didn't make a massive coaching upgrade.  It's weird.

[junior4949]

2 minutes ago, Redux said:

 

You're basing your predictions like Nebraska didn't make a massive coaching upgrade.  It's weird.

 

Alabama made a massive coaching upgrade following the 06' season where they went 6-7.  Even with a massive coaching upgrade, Bama went 7-6 in the 07' season.  It takes time for everything to unfold.  McKenzie Milton was quite a bit different in the 17' season than he was in the 16' season.  In 16', he averaged getting sacked 2.5 times per game.  In 17', he was sacked on average less than once per game.  His completion percentage jumped nearly ten percent from 16' to 17'.  Whether this was based strictly on him or his OL doesn't really matter.  What matters is that it took either him, his OL, or a combination of the two more than one season to really get things figured out. 

 

I expect a much better performance from the team in 18' over 17'.  However, I don't know right now how this translates in the W/L record.  We lost by 21 points to Wisconsin.  We lost by 42 points to Ohio State.  We lost by 33 points to Minnesota.  We lost by 42 points to Iowa.  We may very well lose to all of those teams in 18', but I expect the margin of loss to be considerably less than it was last year.  If we play hard to the final whistle and are down by a score, I will consider this a much better performance.   

[Saunders]

1 hour ago, huskerfan333157 said:

So how are you projecting the schedule? What wins would you have in the guaranteed section? 

That's my bet for a vegas number. Either 6.5 or 7. The team clearly had mailed it in down the stretch last year, and weren't performing as well as they could. That said... probable wins in bold.

 

09/01 - Akron

09/08 - Colorado

09/15 - Troy

09/22 - @ Michigan

09/29 - Purdue

10/06 - @ Wisconsin

10/13 - @ Northwestern

10/20 - Minnesota

11/03 - @ Ohio State

11/10 - Illinois

11/17 - Michigan State

11/23 - @ Iowa

 

First 3 don't really scare me, Purdue will hold serve, maybe step back in year 2 when people aren't surprised. Illinois is trash, Minnesota is blah, and NW is going to go backwards this season without JJ. That's not exactly a hard stretch to say we win those games, and that puts you at 7.  Then you steal 1 from Michigan, Wisconsin, MSU, or Iowa (OSU ain't happening), and you can get to 8.

 

 

[Saunders]

35 minutes ago, junior4949 said:

I expect a much better performance from the team in 18' over 17'.  However, I don't know right now how this translates in the W/L record.  We lost by 21 points to Wisconsin.  We lost by 42 points to Ohio State.  We lost by 33 points to Minnesota.  We lost by 42 points to Iowa.  We may very well lose to all of those teams in 18', but I expect the margin of loss to be considerably less than it was last year.  If we play hard to the final whistle and are down by a score, I will consider this a much better performance.   

Regarding the bolded... that's what happens when you're lead by a person who is used to losing, and expects to lose going into the game. That attitude rubbed off on the team. That's Frost's first thing to fix, IMO.