McKewon: Mike Riley's 3-5 team according to analytics? A little like other recent Husker teams

[huskerfan92]

"Isn't so different" is a nice relative way of making it sound similar when it doesn't appear to be that close.

Of the four metrics he looked at, only the FEI is very close. Average FEI 08-14: 31.9; 2015: 32.

S&P +: 08-15 Average: 27; 2015: 47

FPI: 08-15 Average: 25; 2015: 44

Sagarin: 08-15 Average: 25; 2015: 46

So in the other three metrics, we're right on the edge of the Top 25. Which makes sense as most years we finished ranked. Now we're a fringe Top 50 team. That doesn't really seem all that close to me.

+1 Exactly what I was thinking. It's like seeing our rush defense ranked 10th in the nation, and thinking they're elite. While completely ignoring every other statistic that says they are awful. This is a worse team than before, and it doesn't take ratings to see that.

 

[alwayshusking]

"Isn't so different" is a nice relative way of making it sound similar when it doesn't appear to be that close.

Of the four metrics he looked at, only the FEI is very close. Average FEI 08-14: 31.9; 2015: 32.

S&P +: 08-15 Average: 27; 2015: 47

FPI: 08-15 Average: 25; 2015: 44

Sagarin: 08-15 Average: 25; 2015: 46

So in the other three metrics, we're right on the edge of the Top 25. Which makes sense as most years we finished ranked. Now we're a fringe Top 50 team. That doesn't really seem all that close to me.

Just use the last two seasons and this year. No need to go all the way back to when we still had Callahan recruits.

S&P

2015 47

2014 31

2013 60

2013-2014 average 45.5

 

[It'sNotAFakeID]

"Isn't so different" is a nice relative way of making it sound similar when it doesn't appear to be that close.

Of the four metrics he looked at, only the FEI is very close. Average FEI 08-14: 31.9; 2015: 32.

S&P +: 08-15 Average: 27; 2015: 47

FPI: 08-15 Average: 25; 2015: 44

Sagarin: 08-15 Average: 25; 2015: 46

So in the other three metrics, we're right on the edge of the Top 25. Which makes sense as most years we finished ranked. Now we're a fringe Top 50 team. That doesn't really seem all that close to me.

It's nice that you use average; sorta helps when you have a guy who's had 7 years at a program compared to a guy who's only had not even one.

For the FEI, Nebraska's been as low as 46th and 59th, and 60th for the S&P. So basically, Nebraska's had teams who statistically have been worse than the one they have now, and just as the potential is there for Nebraska to worsen in these categories over the next few years, so is the potential for Nebraska to improve in these areas.

 

[FeelLikeAStranger]

This was sold as a complete staff upgrade, but as it stands now, that is pretty debatable at all but a couple spots. It was interesting to listen to Aaron Semm's segment on Sharp &Benning after the Illinois game. He had been selling this as an experienced group of "adult coaches" and blah blah for months...he was basically floored by their collective incompetence.

In my opinion, Bray and Seumalo (DL coach who stayed in Corvallis. But ended up at UNLV, interestingly enough) were the only two on Riley's Oregon State staff that were acceptable/desirable assistant coach candidated for Nebraska. Bray is a top notch recruiter and seems to be a great position coach. Seumalo had the P.I. connection in recruiting and seemed to have the street cred. Bray is a star and is a clear upgrade as a LB coach.

DL is a better technical QB coach, but he's as rookie or worse than Beck was as a playcaller at first, and he is so brain-washed in the Pretty Passing Offense it isn't even tolerable. I liked Beck's offense. I hate PPO's. I'm truly terrified if it comes to be, but I think Riley needs to yank the reins and put DL in the press box. Either that or pay a minimimum wage intern to have one job during the game-be in langsdorf's earballs every stinking freaking play yelling " RUN THE F%#&ING BALL, DANNY!!", just so he runs it 1/3 of the time.

Riley should never have been allowed to bring Banker or Read. Both are high priced wastes of carbon.

Read was/is a garbage recruiter with middling to poor special teams stat rankings. NU's special teams, which had lagged badly but turned around in 2014 were so much better than this. Els as an RC was an improvement over Gilmore, but tought to compare as he never had he had the budget, expanded staff, and infrastructure that the current staff does. Tough to compare

I'm close to putting Cavanaugh in the waste of carbon category. Aaron Taylor's segment on S&B thurs was interesting...he simultaneously said he likes Cav, loves what he's teaching technique and scheme-wise, then completely rebuked and decleated his "play only 5" strategy while debunking the "Milt didn't rotate" myth. That about sums it up. I can't tell if Cav's old school legit or just as full of bullcrap coach-speak as the rest of them. I tried to like him, but playing 6 OL all season is just beyond stupid.

I'm worried those 6 extra DE's and LB's they say they need to add are probably going to come from the OL scholarship pool. I worry about how quickly those numbers of scholarship OL will drop and if we will be dangerously low like they were in 2008. I just don't see us being able to retain all of those guys with no hope of seeing the field, even as a #2. We have backup OL that can run block and they want dancing bears...it wobbles the mind.

Hughes...meh, I think we might lose 2/3 Collins, Valentine and McMullen this year due to how precipitously their perceived draft value has dropped this season. Stewart...meh. RB coach...meh. WR coach is probably the next best pos coach behind Bray, but his 'hype' might be the only improvement over Fish, which will probably help in recruiting (I thought Fish was clearly one of Bo's best replacement hires)

 

[zoogs]

In short, the premise is that record stinks but the team is not as bad as your typical 3-5 team. Some metrics will reflect this; others will not (especially those based on point differential, but no metrics are perfect).

The FPI overall efficiencies paint a picture that I think matches the eye test -- Nebraska spiked in 2009 and 2010 with very high scores, but have had various flavors of middling in other years from 2005-2015.

Part of the reason '13 and '14 disappointed is because they were 9 wins, but not from strong teams. Similarly, this '15 team shouldn't be in a "Bowl?" conversation, but that's the way the cookie's crumbled. I think most fans realized or expected this to be a process that, even if we struck on gold overnight, would still be ongoing for a few years. There's a lot of transition, a lot of scheme change, a lot of culture change, and a lot of roster turnover to happen.

Granted, some people felt all offseason that all this change was nothing! And now that we're 3-5 with four losses in the final ten seconds, it confirms suspicions that coaches were in over their heads. The other alternative? Maybe those offseason assumptions were wrong.

 

[huskered17]

Doesn't matter if this was the wrong hire or not, it is done. Three years from now will tell the story, not next year. Riley's first "real" recruiting class will have their chance to show what he brought to the program. Next year is more of the same, with a few more wins, probably. This year's close loses, will be next year's wins, in a couple. Rare that a freshmen can make an impact, that turns a program around. So those waiting for next years freshmen to come in and turn everything around, will be waiting another year, while they sit out their redshirt year. jmo

GBR!!!

 

[InOmaha]

After reviewing the article and all the various rankings of things for the Huskers for the last 8 years, all I could think of was the famous Ricky Bobby line; If you're not first, you're last. 32nd place this 63rd place that, none of it amounts to jack sh#t when you're losing 3-4-5 or more games per year. We're not involved in this deal to see who can edge out Northwestern for some 33rd place composite ranking that only verifies how mediocre this football team has become. I think I've finally accepted that we aren't on our way down or on our way back, we're just not a top 30 program anymore. Reminds me of when my kids did club swimming in the summers. Some of the bigger meets they would hand out ribbons all the way down to 12th place. Who gives a sh#t about who came in 12th? This program needs to get back to competing for titles instead of haggling over who is 42nd in offense ranking.

15th, 20th, 25th, 30th......I don't care. Wake me up when back in the top ten or don't wake me up at all.

I agree with this and the article. The huskers haven't been good for a while, but managed to pull out a game here and there and were on the other side of the close ones with mediocre teams. It made us feel better, but they haven't been that good for a while. 5-3 or 6-2 and we go to a crap bowl with a better opponent then we deserve on their homefield because it would be the best attended game outside of the playoff games that count for something.

The best Pelini teams started with decent records, split with the middle of the pack BIG teams, won a game or two against a big name, and got rolled when it counted. #24, #30, #60, whatever. Most people can't even tell you who finished #1 4-5 years ago. That we finished #24 a couple years ago means nothing to anyone, anywhere. Under Pelini we were South Carolina. This year we are still South Carolina.

This staff has some work to do.

 

[Redux]

Pretty much just comes down to this:

Until Nebraska competes for and wins a conference title, we will stay irrelevant on a national level.

 

[gdubs4nu]

if we were 5-3 there would be excitement and hope for Riley's next 4 years.

But amazing what a win and loss record does for a team. 3-5 and everything is gloomy.

I doubt many fans are overly gloomy about the staff because of the 3-5 record. Not sure but I doubt it. My guess is that most of the excessive negativity is coming from a small minority of vocal (vocal *now*) fans. Some of the small group are people who really don't understand analytics at all. 3-5 to them is dispositive. The end. Then there are some agenda folks anti mike, AD, or Perlman plus some pro Bo's. And last but not least are the complainers. They do it because it's what they do. 3-5 is good fodder.

Zoogs thanks for the op. Interesting.

I'm not anti-Mike (but am very anti-Pederson, I mean Eichorst, and his boss).

NU screwed up big time going against what TO thought was best for football. We'll suffer the penalty, and all the pretzeled "analytics" aside, this is a .500 staff doing what a .500 staff does.

Knute Rockne and Bob Devaney would have a hell of a chuckle over this nonsense.

And of course the bottom line is that NU didn't upgrade at all. At best we stayed the same, but have a super nice laid back senior citizen coaching the Huskers now.

This mentality is defeatist. It's low hanging fruit. It's pointless. Most of all, it's largely untrue and baseless.

The scheme is completely different and is necessary to compete with the teams currently winning championships. Look at the teams in the B1G that run the same pro-style scheme.

Wisconsin

Michigan

Michigan State

Iowa

Ohio State

Illinois

Penn State

Rutgers

Those all look like teams doing well. Look at the nationally recognized programs doing the same.

USC

UCLA

Alabama

Florida

Oklahoma

Georgia

Florida State

Clemson

etc etc....you get the point, but this guy thinks Nebraska needs to run the triple option to be successful. He even referenced Knute Rockne and Bob Devaney, so that must make his opinion have more merit. Oregon, Georgia Tech may be diamonds in the rough, but Navy, Army, Air Force, and any other team running an outdated scheme is proof that it doesn't work and that's why you don't see it being run all over the country like it once was. Stop ignoring the game has changed an entire generation later since success has been had in this state.

 

[beorach]

It sounds to me like the worst thing the coaches are doing is not practicing the kids hard enough. Whether that's not getting enough reps or not playing in pads, I don't even know if it's as big a factor as kids not all being on board, kids not holding each other accountable, etc. How many years have we wondered about the mental toughness of Bo's teams? How much other football do you watch, played between ranked teams (not that they don't struggle against non-ranked ones often), and notice the seesaw battle accompanied by the talking heads spouting the "m-word"? I'm only noticing random talk show callers and message board posters making definitive statements on Nebraska's future with Riley and company. The OL rotation issue is a clear strike against Cavanaugh when you consider any team needs to build depth to succeed. The matter of the running game not meeting traditional Husker expectations may never be resolved for all I know. I understand the concept of a team needing an identity with respect to the running game...insofar as the concept of having a few running plays you do well as opposed to experimenting with more to get production from it...but the system of the guys the program's leadership chose may not prioritize that. No matter how much we want a certain kind of team, it's not our choice and it's unreasonable to insist a philosophy can't work before it's even implemented.

I understand that people are frustrated that things haven't improved demonstrably overnight but I don't understand how quickly people have reached a frustration level tantamount to what most (?) had with Bo after SEVEN years. I thought I was quick to judge him during the first game against UCLA but it seemed like most fans I spoke with, even last year, were still largely satisfied with the overall job he was doing. Is Nebraska really so impatient and unwilling to trust that we're ready to make enemies of our team's new caretakers over not reaching the ill-defined bar set by the previous regime? Is a blowout loss worth two single-digit losses? Is a year without an embarrassing audio tape worth a loss? These new guys represent an attempt, on the part of our leadership, to do something different...but the new guys have also put their best foot forward in terms of embracing Nebraska. I don't think the results are so much worse than they have been, over a long period of time and especially when you consider the perspective of neutrals who probably only noticed our football program because of Bo's antics, that Nebraskan hospitality should have disappeared so soon.

p.s. - With respect to Rockne, my favorite line of his is something along the lines of how the most important attribute in a football player is love of the game. He said there's no substitute for it. Our kids were upset that Nebraska took football too seriously. Bo's defenders even talked about how great these kids were doing in the classroom. I probably don't need to describe the past any further and I know we all saw something missing emotionally against Northwestern.

 

[gdubs4nu]

"Isn't so different" is a nice relative way of making it sound similar when it doesn't appear to be that close.

Of the four metrics he looked at, only the FEI is very close. Average FEI 08-14: 31.9; 2015: 32.

S&P +: 08-15 Average: 27; 2015: 47

FPI: 08-15 Average: 25; 2015: 44

Sagarin: 08-15 Average: 25; 2015: 46

So in the other three metrics, we're right on the edge of the Top 25. Which makes sense as most years we finished ranked. Now we're a fringe Top 50 team. That doesn't really seem all that close to me.

This is the central point hit squarely on the head.

The implication in the article is that "if we'd won half of those close losses, we'd be ranked the same as last year" but reality is that if we'd won by 1 instead of lost by 1, these "fancy" analytics would basically keep us in the same position. Because, as is being argued by Sam, actual wins and losses don't matter much in them. It's really about performance against competition strength, regardless of actual outcome.

What it means is that a team with a 75% win percentage is on the edge of the top 25, but a team with a 38% win percentage is only 20 spots behind. It's not rocket science and if you can't see on the surface what that means, it's more of a you problem. If you're significantly under .500 and still in the 60th percentile, you're doing more than one thing right.

 

[cm husker]

if we were 5-3 there would be excitement and hope for Riley's next 4 years.

But amazing what a win and loss record does for a team. 3-5 and everything is gloomy.

I doubt many fans are overly gloomy about the staff because of the 3-5 record. Not sure but I doubt it. My guess is that most of the excessive negativity is coming from a small minority of vocal (vocal *now*) fans. Some of the small group are people who really don't understand analytics at all. 3-5 to them is dispositive. The end. Then there are some agenda folks anti mike, AD, or Perlman plus some pro Bo's. And last but not least are the complainers. They do it because it's what they do. 3-5 is good fodder.

Zoogs thanks for the op. Interesting.

I'm not anti-Mike (but am very anti-Pederson, I mean Eichorst, and his boss).

NU screwed up big time going against what TO thought was best for football. We'll suffer the penalty, and all the pretzeled "analytics" aside, this is a .500 staff doing what a .500 staff does.

Knute Rockne and Bob Devaney would have a hell of a chuckle over this nonsense.

And of course the bottom line is that NU didn't upgrade at all. At best we stayed the same, but have a super nice laid back senior citizen coaching the Huskers now.

This mentality is defeatist. It's low hanging fruit. It's pointless. Most of all, it's largely untrue and baseless.

The scheme is completely different and is necessary to compete with the teams currently winning championships. Look at the teams in the B1G that run the same pro-style scheme.

Wisconsin

Michigan

Michigan State

Iowa

Ohio State

Illinois

Penn State

Rutgers

Those all look like teams doing well. Look at the nationally recognized programs doing the same.

USC

UCLA

Alabama

Florida

Oklahoma

Georgia

Florida State

Clemson

etc etc....you get the point, but this guy thinks Nebraska needs to run the triple option to be successful. He even referenced Knute Rockne and Bob Devaney, so that must make his opinion have more merit. Oregon, Georgia Tech may be diamonds in the rough, but Navy, Army, Air Force, and any other team running an outdated scheme is proof that it doesn't work and that's why you don't see it being run all over the country like it once was. Stop ignoring the game has changed an entire generation later since success has been had in this state.

Ohio St runs a pro system? Hilarious.

Very few teams in the country ran TO's system. Obviously he shouldn't have been using it...

 

[gdubs4nu]

if we were 5-3 there would be excitement and hope for Riley's next 4 years.

But amazing what a win and loss record does for a team. 3-5 and everything is gloomy.

I doubt many fans are overly gloomy about the staff because of the 3-5 record. Not sure but I doubt it. My guess is that most of the excessive negativity is coming from a small minority of vocal (vocal *now*) fans. Some of the small group are people who really don't understand analytics at all. 3-5 to them is dispositive. The end. Then there are some agenda folks anti mike, AD, or Perlman plus some pro Bo's. And last but not least are the complainers. They do it because it's what they do. 3-5 is good fodder.

Zoogs thanks for the op. Interesting.

I'm not anti-Mike (but am very anti-Pederson, I mean Eichorst, and his boss).

NU screwed up big time going against what TO thought was best for football. We'll suffer the penalty, and all the pretzeled "analytics" aside, this is a .500 staff doing what a .500 staff does.

Knute Rockne and Bob Devaney would have a hell of a chuckle over this nonsense.

And of course the bottom line is that NU didn't upgrade at all. At best we stayed the same, but have a super nice laid back senior citizen coaching the Huskers now.

This mentality is defeatist. It's low hanging fruit. It's pointless. Most of all, it's largely untrue and baseless.

The scheme is completely different and is necessary to compete with the teams currently winning championships. Look at the teams in the B1G that run the same pro-style scheme.

Wisconsin

Michigan

Michigan State

Iowa

Ohio State

Illinois

Penn State

Rutgers

Those all look like teams doing well. Look at the nationally recognized programs doing the same.

USC

UCLA

Alabama

Florida

Oklahoma

Georgia

Florida State

Clemson

etc etc....you get the point, but this guy thinks Nebraska needs to run the triple option to be successful. He even referenced Knute Rockne and Bob Devaney, so that must make his opinion have more merit. Oregon, Georgia Tech may be diamonds in the rough, but Navy, Army, Air Force, and any other team running an outdated scheme is proof that it doesn't work and that's why you don't see it being run all over the country like it once was. Stop ignoring the game has changed an entire generation later since success has been had in this state.

Ohio St runs a pro system? Hilarious.

Very few teams in the country ran TO's system. Obviously he shouldn't have been using it...

1. Yes, Ohio State runs a pro style scheme. Single back set. Fairly balanced between the pass and run. 4-3 base man coverage defense.

2. TO coached for 25 years. During his tenure 50% of the nationally recognized programs ran everything from triple option to the wishbone.

3. Arguing factual information is one thing, but making crap up is another.

 

[Saunders]

The scheme is completely different and is necessary to compete with the teams currently winning championships. Look at the teams in the B1G that run the same pro-style scheme.

Wisconsin power run

Michigan power run

Michigan State

Iowa

Ohio State spread

Illinois spread

Penn State

Rutgers

Those all look like teams doing well. Look at the nationally recognized programs doing the same.

USC

UCLA spread

Alabama

Florida

Oklahoma air raid

Georgia

Florida State

Clemson spread

Like half of these teams don't run a "pro style" like us.

lol

 

[Saunders]

1. Yes, Ohio State runs a pro style scheme. Single back set. Fairly balanced between the pass and run. 4-3 base man coverage defense.

It's literally a power run spread option system.