Mavric

It's entirely possible for this game to be closer than it should be. We are coming off a really nice win. They had a terrible start to their season and are playing at home. They are a team that doesn't often beat themselves. But all that being said, really the only game that they've truly beaten us was 2011. Every year since then we have totally outplayed them but have usually shot ourselves in the foot enough to keep them close or lose (2014 being the one year we played like we "should" against them). This year is no different. If we play well, we'll win handily. If we don't......

Younger brother of Notre Dame WR Equanimeous St. Brown.

Player: Amon-Ra St. Brown Hometown: Anaheim, California School: Mater Dei Position: Wide Receiver Height: 6-0 Weight: 190 40 time: Offers: Alabama, Arizona State, Boise State, California, Kentucky, LSU, Michigan State, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Utah, Washington, Washington State Visits: Twitter 247 Composite: #47 Overall; #6 WR; .9730; Rivals: #37 Overall; #7 WR; 247: #69 Overall; #7 WR; Scout: #55 Overall; #6 WR; ESPN: #112 Overall; #20 WR; Hudl

First it was "no one in the coaching profession would agree with you" Now it's "it's not as cut and dry as you make it out to be". Ok. We do agree that more aggressive play is generally the way to go. I just think that there is literally no advantage to get that second point up 32-28 with 9 min to go. 98% chance of 5 point lead or 40% (at best, 20% if we use Oregon's last game) of a 6 point lead. 5 points makes a huge difference over 4 points. 6 points makes no difference over 5 points. It the numbers back me up. Yes, when we are talking about two different things there are two different answers. The numbers you want to use back up your position. That doesn't make them the only numbers that can be used, let alone the correct ones.

Moore still not practicing. Reilly practiced again today - would appear to be good to go.

Also, even if you miss the conversion, give up a TD and then have to get a FG, it's not that you've lost the game. It goes into overtime and you still basically have a 50/50 chance to win. Not the same situation but I had a similar discussion with a random Husker fan as we watched the end of the Iowa/NDSU game at the stadium. When NDSU scored to make it 21-20, I advocated going for two, which was probably against what your chart showed. The other guy said they should kick and go to overtime. My reasoning was if you go for two, you give yourself two chances to win - make the conversion or stop Iowa and get back to kick a FG. But the extenuation circumstances were what Iowa would do. I said - before NDSU even attempted the conversion - that if they missed, Iowa would play conservative and NDSU would probably get the ball back in good field position. That's exactly what happened and even with an average kicker NDSU had plenty of time to get back into FG range and win the game. Not that one instance proves or disproves anything. But generally speaking, I think the more aggressive play is the way to go, especially on the road. Play to win, don't play not to lose. So there's even more that goes into the calculation than simply the probably of making the conversion. It's what's going to happen because you do or don't.

Yeah, there is almost no one in the coaching profession that would agree with you. You go for two to get ahead by six so the other team has to score a TD and also make their own extra point to beat you. The difference between a four and a five point lead at that point really doesn't mean much. The other team has to score a TD (a FG doesn't do them any good) and that would be enough to get ahead either way. You give yourself two outs - either stop them to win or stop the PAT to tie. You don't assume you'll still have time to score again yourself. there is not a coach in the game that game plans around the other team missing the extra point. you assume a touchdown is 7 points. the difference between a 4 and 5 point lead is huge late in the game. the difference between a 5 and 6 point lead is meaningless that late in the game. so you have the same potential outcome in either situation..... stop them (win either way) or they score a TD and two outcomes 1) 98% you are down by 2 and 2% you are down by 3 (kick extra point outcome) or 2) 30% you are down by 1 and 70% you are down by 3 (go for 2 outcome) Every coach in the world would choose option 1...except Helfrich. EDIT: its just basic math... http://www.footballcommentary.com/twoptchart.htm Oregon scored with 10:25 to play, putting them up four. According to that chart, the would need to have between a 49%-50% probability of converting to go for two. They were three for six coming into the game so they were right on the line. And if they felt they had a better probability, then the play would have been to go for two. I'm not sure that really counts as "basic math" when it in includes a number that can be open to interpretation. Based on whose interpretation of what variables? All conversion attempts? Just by their regular offense? Throw out your conversions against non-Power 5 opponents? Most regular charts say to go for two when up by 4. Use Helfirch's Oregon team's historical rate for 2xp conversion and its not even close. Easy decision go for 1. Who uses a two game sample size against joke teams for accurate averages? Those images are for Dick Vermeil's famous chart, which was very groundbreaking for its time. However, it has been proven to be mathematically inaccurate. Does not take into account % likelihood of success on 2xp, time remaining in game, etc. Yes, I realize that. But like I said, it depends on what variables you use to calculate the probability. Perhaps it's more appropriate to use this years stats because of different players or different plays. Or consider the fact that we were having a hard time stopping them - they had nearly 450 yards of total offense and were averaging almost 7 yards per play. It's just not nearly as cut-and-dried and you'd like to make it look. All depends on how you look at the probability.

Yeah, saw a stat today that we are the only B1G without a home Saturday game - which might not matter a lot in your case. But definitely didn't do any fans coming from any distance any favors. I have two tickets and probably won't be many a whole lot of games so if you find one you want to go to, give me a holler.

Yeah, there is almost no one in the coaching profession that would agree with you. You go for two to get ahead by six so the other team has to score a TD and also make their own extra point to beat you. The difference between a four and a five point lead at that point really doesn't mean much. The other team has to score a TD (a FG doesn't do them any good) and that would be enough to get ahead either way. You give yourself two outs - either stop them to win or stop the PAT to tie. You don't assume you'll still have time to score again yourself. there is not a coach in the game that game plans around the other team missing the extra point. you assume a touchdown is 7 points. the difference between a 4 and 5 point lead is huge late in the game. the difference between a 5 and 6 point lead is meaningless that late in the game. so you have the same potential outcome in either situation..... stop them (win either way) or they score a TD and two outcomes 1) 98% you are down by 2 and 2% you are down by 3 (kick extra point outcome) or 2) 30% you are down by 1 and 70% you are down by 3 (go for 2 outcome) Every coach in the world would choose option 1...except Helfrich. EDIT: its just basic math... http://www.footballcommentary.com/twoptchart.htm Oregon scored with 10:25 to play, putting them up four. According to that chart, the would need to have between a 49%-50% probability of converting to go for two. They were three for six coming into the game so they were right on the line. And if they felt they had a better probability, then the play would have been to go for two. I'm not sure that really counts as "basic math" when it in includes a number that can be open to interpretation. Based on whose interpretation of what variables? All conversion attempts? Just by their regular offense? Throw out your conversions against non-Power 5 opponents? Most regular charts say to go for two when up by 4.

Yeah, there is almost no one in the coaching profession that would agree with you. You go for two to get ahead by six so the other team has to score a TD and also make their own extra point to beat you. The difference between a four and a five point lead at that point really doesn't mean much. The other team has to score a TD (a FG doesn't do them any good) and that would be enough to get ahead either way. You give yourself two outs - either stop them to win or stop the PAT to tie. You don't assume you'll still have time to score again yourself.

ESPN going to use Scully's call for part of the game tonight. Nice move by them.

If he kicks them all they get a tie. Or, like the announcers, are we only going to criticize the plays that didn't work, and not the same ones that did? they win if the kick the rest, they scored 5 td's , got 1 2 pointer, left 4 points if they kick the rest. they win 36-35 if my math is correct This is great logic if you know what the outcome of the game is going to be. The only reason people are second guessing Oregon's going for 2 throughout the game was Nebraska's ability to stop those conversions. Oregon is notorious for often going for 2 point conversions. Eh, not really. They actually don't go for it as much as I thought they did. They had gone for two 23 times in three years plus two games before Saturday. That's barely more than once every other game. So five times in one game is a drastic increase even by their standards. And if they would have learned anything from their own history, they would know that they are successful well less than 50% of the time. Thus, they are better off to kick it. They would have been better off to kick it all five times. They would definitely have been better off to kick it the last four. It would even have made a lot of sense to kick the last three - they weren't "chasing" any points and had already been stopped once. We definitely know after the fact that they should have been kicking it. But it's not like it was some crazy ending score like 25-23 where a bunch of odd things added up to needing a couple extra points. They could simply have done the things that were more likely to score points. But they didn't.

There is plenty of room for discussion without the attack. That's not what he's saying at all. He's simply comparing where we were in recruiting at this same time-frame over the past few years.

Kind of depends on the situation. I would guess that the vast majority of attempts are with a team's regular offense when they are "supposed to" or "have to" go for two late in the game. Oregon's last two attempts fall into that category. I'd be curious what the numbers are for the "other" attempts. Basically anything in the first three quarters. I would think you'd have a better chance to get it with your normal offense than with gimmicks like Oregon uses early. But almost no one does it - or at least far less frequently than Oregon.

Yeah, agree with this. Thus some end of the Purdue-Michigan State week last year would be a lot more of a turning point, imo - depending on how you want to look at it.

Honestly not sure if I ever remember hearing his name. But there's a couple interesting bits of history here:

It's a subscription article but both guys said it was pretty stupid for Oregon to go for two as much as they do.

Dang. He was off to a great start.