Know the Foe: Brett Smith

Smith does appear to be a quite good QB. But his team... obviously... cannot compete with NU on any level. So... give props where props are due --- Smith is a pretty good (at the very least) and perhaps a quite good college QB on a team that will be over matched in most (if not every) area on Saturday. He likely will have some modest measure of success against NU on Saturday... but in the end... NU wins big. Likely very big.
Wyoming's offense will compete pretty well imo against Neb. Wyoming's defense however, may be in trouble.

Smith does do a lot, and without a great offensive line and certainly hasn't had any Rex Burkheads to hand the ball off to.

 
"According to the depth chart, seven Cowboys are set to start in their first Division I football game in Lincoln"

"Still, it must be a bit unnerving to depend so heavily on a group of players that have never played in front of 30,000 fans, let alone a 90,000-capacity sea of red."

Whoa....
Pokes also played at Texas last year with the attendance over 100k, so most of their players have faced a huge crowd before.

 
Brett Smith threw

5 TD's against Idaho who gave up an average of 42.4ppg - 122nd in the nation

3 TD's against Nevada who gave up an average of 33.8ppg - 102nd in the nation

3 TD's against UNLV who gave up an average of 32.6ppg - 97th in the nation

4 TD's against Colorado State who gave up an average of 30.3ppg - 81st in the nation *

4 TD's against New Mexico who gave up an average of 30.2ppg - 80th in the nation

2 TD's against Texas who gave up an average of 29.2ppg - 74th in the nation

2 TD's against Toledo who gave up an average of 28.4ppg - 67th in the nation *

2 TD's against San Diego State who gave up an average of 24.4ppg - 42nd in the nation *

The * are games in which Wyoming as a team outscored the opponent's average ppg total.

Outside of Boise (against whom he threw zero TD's) the BEST scoring Defense Brett Smith faced all of last season was Fresno State who gave up an average of 23.8ppg and ranked 37th in the nation...

Smith threw 2 TD's in a Pick and had a 47.7 completion percentage against that Fresno State Defense.

Wyoming only played ONE game the entire season against a team that finished with a top 30 scoring Defense.. Boise.

They scored 14 points in that game, half of which were scored in the 4th quarter when the score was 38-7. Brett Smith threw Zero TD's in that game.

Brett Smith is NOT a great QB. He's barely even a very good QB and the Wyoming offense is above average at best.
...Mountain West team faces less competition than Big Ten team.

Shocking, I know...
I'll give you that, but the B10 wasn't exactly dominant last year either. B10 conf champ had 6 losses, teams like Iowa, Minn, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois... Penn St was 6-2 in conf. and undoubtedly had a down year.

 
Brett Smith threw

5 TD's against Idaho who gave up an average of 42.4ppg - 122nd in the nation

3 TD's against Nevada who gave up an average of 33.8ppg - 102nd in the nation

3 TD's against UNLV who gave up an average of 32.6ppg - 97th in the nation

4 TD's against Colorado State who gave up an average of 30.3ppg - 81st in the nation *

4 TD's against New Mexico who gave up an average of 30.2ppg - 80th in the nation

2 TD's against Texas who gave up an average of 29.2ppg - 74th in the nation

2 TD's against Toledo who gave up an average of 28.4ppg - 67th in the nation *

2 TD's against San Diego State who gave up an average of 24.4ppg - 42nd in the nation *

The * are games in which Wyoming as a team outscored the opponent's average ppg total.

Outside of Boise (against whom he threw zero TD's) the BEST scoring Defense Brett Smith faced all of last season was Fresno State who gave up an average of 23.8ppg and ranked 37th in the nation...

Smith threw 2 TD's in a Pick and had a 47.7 completion percentage against that Fresno State Defense.

Wyoming only played ONE game the entire season against a team that finished with a top 30 scoring Defense.. Boise.

They scored 14 points in that game, half of which were scored in the 4th quarter when the score was 38-7. Brett Smith threw Zero TD's in that game.

Brett Smith is NOT a great QB. He's barely even a very good QB and the Wyoming offense is above average at best.
...Mountain West team faces less competition than Big Ten team.

Shocking, I know...
I'll give you that, but the B10 wasn't exactly dominant last year either. B10 conf champ had 6 losses, teams like Iowa, Minn, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois... Penn St was 6-2 in conf. and undoubtedly had a down year.
What? Evryone was predicting PSU to have no more than 5 wins last year. They overachieved big time, and they may win another 8-9 games this year.

 
And the Big Ten had a team go undefeated, who couldn't play in the post-season because their players took some tattoos in exchange for trinkets a few years back. Meanwhile, Miami and the entire SEC goes largely unpunished...

 
Brett Smith threw

5 TD's against Idaho who gave up an average of 42.4ppg - 122nd in the nation

3 TD's against Nevada who gave up an average of 33.8ppg - 102nd in the nation

3 TD's against UNLV who gave up an average of 32.6ppg - 97th in the nation

4 TD's against Colorado State who gave up an average of 30.3ppg - 81st in the nation *

4 TD's against New Mexico who gave up an average of 30.2ppg - 80th in the nation

2 TD's against Texas who gave up an average of 29.2ppg - 74th in the nation

2 TD's against Toledo who gave up an average of 28.4ppg - 67th in the nation *

2 TD's against San Diego State who gave up an average of 24.4ppg - 42nd in the nation *

The * are games in which Wyoming as a team outscored the opponent's average ppg total.

Outside of Boise (against whom he threw zero TD's) the BEST scoring Defense Brett Smith faced all of last season was Fresno State who gave up an average of 23.8ppg and ranked 37th in the nation...

Smith threw 2 TD's in a Pick and had a 47.7 completion percentage against that Fresno State Defense.

Wyoming only played ONE game the entire season against a team that finished with a top 30 scoring Defense.. Boise.

They scored 14 points in that game, half of which were scored in the 4th quarter when the score was 38-7. Brett Smith threw Zero TD's in that game.

Brett Smith is NOT a great QB. He's barely even a very good QB and the Wyoming offense is above average at best.
...Mountain West team faces less competition than Big Ten team.

Shocking, I know...
I'll give you that, but the B10 wasn't exactly dominant last year either. B10 conf champ had 6 losses, teams like Iowa, Minn, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois... Penn St was 6-2 in conf. and undoubtedly had a down year.
What? Evryone was predicting PSU to have no more than 5 wins last year. They overachieved big time, and they may win another 8-9 games this year.
Thats what I'm saying, Penn St in the B10 last year wasn't a great team but still won 6 conf games.

 
It's hard to judge a team when they go through what PSU did. But, PSU was a good team last year, and who knows how good they would've been without going through so much turmoil.

 
Thats what I'm saying, Penn St in the B10 last year wasn't a great team but still won 6 conf games.
And three of your four wins last year came against teams that won a combined four games and those wins were by a combined 13 points including one in overtime.

 
Brett Smith threw

5 TD's against Idaho who gave up an average of 42.4ppg - 122nd in the nation

3 TD's against Nevada who gave up an average of 33.8ppg - 102nd in the nation

3 TD's against UNLV who gave up an average of 32.6ppg - 97th in the nation

4 TD's against Colorado State who gave up an average of 30.3ppg - 81st in the nation *

4 TD's against New Mexico who gave up an average of 30.2ppg - 80th in the nation

2 TD's against Texas who gave up an average of 29.2ppg - 74th in the nation

2 TD's against Toledo who gave up an average of 28.4ppg - 67th in the nation *

2 TD's against San Diego State who gave up an average of 24.4ppg - 42nd in the nation *

The * are games in which Wyoming as a team outscored the opponent's average ppg total.

Outside of Boise (against whom he threw zero TD's) the BEST scoring Defense Brett Smith faced all of last season was Fresno State who gave up an average of 23.8ppg and ranked 37th in the nation...

Smith threw 2 TD's in a Pick and had a 47.7 completion percentage against that Fresno State Defense.

Wyoming only played ONE game the entire season against a team that finished with a top 30 scoring Defense.. Boise.

They scored 14 points in that game, half of which were scored in the 4th quarter when the score was 38-7. Brett Smith threw Zero TD's in that game.

Brett Smith is NOT a great QB. He's barely even a very good QB and the Wyoming offense is above average at best.


...Mountain West team faces less competition than Big Ten team.

Shocking, I know...
What I posted had nothing to do with comparing the Mountain West to the Big Ten.

What I posted shows that all the talk that Wyoming is a great offense and Brett Smith is a great QB isn't backed up by the production and that in reality Wyoming has a below average offense and that Brett Smith is at best an above average QB compared to other QB's nationally.

What I posted above shows the AVERAGE Points Per game given up by each opposing defense Brett Smith faced last season and how the Wyoming offense fared against those defenses. It doesn't matter what conference a team is in, any really good offense should consistently score more points than an average team would score on a given defense on their schedule, (doing something better than the average is the definition of being good after all) a Great offense should do it consistently and often by a large margin.

What the stats show is that Wyoming very rarely even achieved to match their opponents defensive average points against, let alone exceed that number -regardless of the quality of the defense they were facing.

That's what below average offenses do.

Now if you do want to do a comparison to say Nebraska's offense, here's a partial breakdown, I'll just do the top 30 defenses not the entire schedule.

Nebraska faced six top 30 defenses last year.

Michigan State gave up an average of 16.3ppg - 9th in the nation (Nebraska scored 28 points on this defense)

Wisconsin gave up an average of 19.1ppg - 17th in the nation (Nebraska scored 30 points on this defense - twice)

Penn State gave up an average of 19.2ppg - 18th in the nation (Nebraska scored 32 points on this defense)

Georgia gave up an average of 19.6ppg - 19th in the nation (Nebraska scored 31 points on this defense)

Michigan gave up an average of 19.8ppg - 20th in the nation (Nebraska scored 23 points on this defense)

Northwestern gave up an average of 22.5ppg - 29th in the nation (Nebraska scored 29 points on this defense)

Nebraska exceeded the average points per game allowed by those defenses in every single one of those six games, some by a significant amount.

So unlike Wyoming, Nebraska indeed has a great offense last year, and going deeper into the stats you'd find that if Nebraska turns the ball over less this season they could very easily move into an elite category.

But that has nothing to do with what conference either Nebraska or Wyoming play in or even much about the overall strength of the schedule each team faced. It's simply about how each offense performed as opposed to every other offense the teams they played also played against.

 
If the premise is that Wyoming isn't even a good team to begin with, I don't think you'll find any disagreements. They were a 4-8 team. Nebraska clearly did have a lot going for it on offense last year, and Wyoming didn't have much going on for it, period. I mean, their entire offense ranked 72 in the nation in YPG, and the pass game ranked T-38.

But Wyoming's lackluster program and roster says little about Brett Smith's qualities as a quarterback or indeed, a pro prospect, does it not?

All the numbers really show is that Wyoming didn't have a very good team, and overall, didn't do a very good job. Smith may indeed be mediocre at best, or maybe he has some above average qualities despite playing on a poor team. I find it hard to fit too many conclusions to a simple set of numbers, though.

I'm sort of unsure what conversation I'm really jumping into, to be fair. I thought it was an evaluation on Smith, regarded by Wyoming fans as the top player on their team and a guy who could play and do well on many other teams. If the conversation is really "Are the Cowboys going to steamroll our defense" or "Do they have a better offense than us"....I'd just say, well, no, they won't and they don't.
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What evidence do you have to show that Smith is a good QB, zoogies? This is twice you've come into this conversation telling Husker fans their evaluation of Smith isn't correct. What do the numbers really show?

 
That's a good read by McKinney, especially about that 1994 game. I was at that game and I thought for sure we were going to lose. I have vivid memories of Cowboy receivers running free through the Husker secondary, over and over and over. We finally started putting pressure on the QB and got some good hits on him. I didn't remember that we knocked him out of the game, though.

 
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