Mavric

I do too, but I think the numbers bely Tommy's improvement. I don't think anyone can say that Tommy isn't a notably better quarterback than he was last year. The Illinois and Wisconsin games drag his percentages down a big way, and no mistake, he played awful in those games, but overall he has improved quite a bit. Tommy's had games with 70%, 65.7%, 69.2%, and 66.7% this season. Last year he had one game better than any of those, and that 69.2% against Miami, where he only threw 13 times. But the flip side of that coin is he must have had several games that are really bad to drag his percentage right back down to where it was last year. So all that really tells you is that he's been more inconsistent - higher highs, lower lows - than he was last year. Or, probably more precisely, he's completed a higher percentage in the games he hasn't thrown very much and rarely completes a high percentage when he throws a lot. The four high-percentage games you mention are when he threw 30, 35, 26, and 21 times. They are also against three of the four worst teams we've played this year and possibly four of the worst five. But the two games he's thrown the most (45 and 48 attempts) he hasn't been above 50%. Which makes it all the more mind-boggling why there are so many games where we've tried to throw so much.

Says he's still a solid USC commit and that he committed to the school, not the coaching staff. Likes the connections he'll have with a USC degree in Southern California. That being said, Nebraska and Arizona have been standing out the most out of other schools contacting him lately. Taking an OV to USC on December 12. Not sure if he'll visit Arizona. December grad - early enrollee. 99% USC but if things go awry there, he says he'll come here.

I previously stated that I thought Nebraska was going to land both Fitzpatrick and Reese. I now think Nebraska will have to work very hard to get either of these guys. Yeah, I thought we were in pretty good shape with both as well. But I'm not nearly so confident anymore.

I'm not willing to say that the penalty problem is cured, as Rileys teams are almost always highly penalized. But it definitely is a 1 and a half game trend in the right direction. Lets hope it continues. I agree. Thus I used a derivation of "hope" in my post as well. But even over the last five games we've averaged just over 4 penalties per game. That's a pretty good trend.

Visited Louisville this weekend. Fitzpatrick was supposed to visit as well but didn't make it. However, according to Reese's dad, Fitzpatrick has been working on him to switch to Louisville. Hopefully it's more trying to get them to play at the same school but that's not how it was worded. Reese visiting Florida this weekend then TCU and Texas next month.

Credit where it's due - a nice improvement to see. Hopefully the positive trend continues.

I think it was up to the bowls to select who they wanted previously. Now the B1G itself has a lot to do with who plays where as opposed to the Big XII not really having any say at the time, iirc.

OT Nathan Smith visiting for the Iowa game.

The analytics would say that when you have a passer who is barely above .50 completion percentage it would be a bad idea to increase the number of those plays by 33% particularly when his completion percentage doesn't budge. It just doesn't make any sense, you are just throwing away offensive plays. You can try to make all the justifications you want but there is some pretty simple math involved here. Not sure if analytics is your strong suit here. Let's make the math really simple: The Huskers have had 394 rushing plays and 396 passing plays this year. They have averaged 7.6 yards per passing attempt, and 4.7 yards per rushing attempt. No one is saying we should pass the ball more, but it would be a better argument than yours, which seems to suggest we should run more of those 4.7 yard plays, and stop wasting them on those fancypants 7.6 yard plays that have somehow managed to produce 26 touchdowns. The run game, particularly with our current backs and offensive line, benefits greatly from a passing threat, even the current 55% variety. Every time you make this argument you conveniently leave out how many turnovers each type of play has generated. Conveniently? Geez, who wouldn't want Tommy to bring his interceptions down? Running backs are actually fumbling less this year. That's been one thing in Newby's favor. When both Ameer and Cross were making costly fumbles the past two years, it wasn't the result of running the ball too much. It was poor ball protection. Nobody was saying "why do we insist on running the ball?!" although it would have made just as much sense as the pass-bashing. Running the ball sets up the pass. Passing the ball sets up the run. Turnovers suck. But the notion that Nebraska can declare its intention to pound the rock and defenses will bend to our will needs to be retired. Also, that reasonably balanced offense is pretty exciting and puts up enough points to win on teams with better defenses. Not sure why it makes so many fans so grumpy. Considering it's a large factor in how successful both types of plays are and yet you never seem to mention it when you bring up how many more yards per play the passing game averages than the running game, it would seem that it's convenient to your argument to not include those stats. Yards per play is a very good indicator of the effectiveness of your offense but when you don't factor in the turnovers, you're not getting the full picture of how it affects the entire game. A couple unsuccessful running plays and a 45 yard punt can a lot better than an interception in terms of starting field position for the opponent. The Rutgers game shows that pretty plainly. Thus those "fancypants" passing plays aren't necessarily as good as the stats you usually point out try to make them look. I definitely agree that you need to be able to both run and throw. I think we could run the ball better if we chose to call more run plays that had a higher chance to be successful. We did that against Minnesota and Michigan State. We seemed to revert back to a lot less downhill, off-tackle runs against Rutgers despite that being what worked well against Michigan State. So I believe - and have said so all year - that a lot of the "problems" we've had trying to run the ball have more to do with the type of running plays that we've called a lot of the time rather than lack of skill or execution. But that doesn't show up in your stats.

The analytics would say that when you have a passer who is barely above .50 completion percentage it would be a bad idea to increase the number of those plays by 33% particularly when his completion percentage doesn't budge. It just doesn't make any sense, you are just throwing away offensive plays. You can try to make all the justifications you want but there is some pretty simple math involved here. Not sure if analytics is your strong suit here. Let's make the math really simple: The Huskers have had 394 rushing plays and 396 passing plays this year. They have averaged 7.6 yards per passing attempt, and 4.7 yards per rushing attempt. No one is saying we should pass the ball more, but it would be a better argument than yours, which seems to suggest we should run more of those 4.7 yard plays, and stop wasting them on those fancypants 7.6 yard plays that have somehow managed to produce 26 touchdowns. The run game, particularly with our current backs and offensive line, benefits greatly from a passing threat, even the current 55% variety. Every time you make this argument you conveniently leave out how many turnovers each type of play has generated.

Eh, I'm don't subscribe to that philosophy as a 100% absolute. Going strictly by that, Houston would be ahead of Alabama and I don't think Houston is the better team. College football schedules are terribly unbalnaced in terms of how tough they are. I think winning games is the most important thing but I don't think it's the only criteria. That's why a playoff was so badly needed. Lesser teams were playing for the National Title ahead of better teams because they happened to get a couple more breaks along the way. Notre Dame wasn't one of the best two teams in 2012 but they won all their games so they "deserved" a shot. Would have been much better with a ND-Bama-Oregon-Florida/KState playoff. Florida State definitely wasn't one of the top two teams last year but without the playoff, it would have been FSU/Bama in the National Championship game. I'm no Bama apologist but it's tough to argue that they don't play a tough schedule. If there were four undefeated P5 conference champions (B1G, Pac-12, ACC, Big XII), I would make an argument that Bama should be left out. But that's not the case. If you want to say that Bama should be behind tOSU and OkieState, that's fine but it's pretty tough to say. Would tOSU be undefeated against Bama's schedule with no better than they've played? Probably not. If tOSU closes out the year beating Michigan, Michigan State and Iowa, then they would deserve to be ahead of Bama in my book.

I agree, but the thing to remember is that he is still not playing with his players. Parker & Shields are from Doc. Both are good players, but Parker would not be here if it was not for Doc. Miles likes taller guards who can handle the ball & shot. It is great that we are now becoming competitive in basketball! Year four and you're still sticking with this? Besides the fact that Shields is one of our best players, if Benny is still playing either Miles likes him or hasn't recruited anyone better. This line is pretty tired. Yes, because we are now seeing 4 star players coming to Nebraska. As it takes a year to build relationships with recruits and I will also stand by Riley as well. When is the last time we beat a team by 40, like the better teams do. These guys are young and they will get better as the year goes on. So because two out of 15 guys aren't his, we're still saying he's not playing with "his guys"? If they aren't good enough for him, why are they still playing? When was the last time we beat a team by 40? You mean other than the two games we've played this year?

That didn't take long. First of many, I would guess.

https://twitter.com/King_Kongbo/status/666302156903845888

I had seen the completion percentage stat somewhere before but Sam brought it up again and adds INTs, which is interesting. OWH TA has 12 INTs for the year. Same number he had last year in basically the same number of attempts. Sam's point was the first thing I thought of when I saw the completion percentage stat before: When we're working off the script - the plays we practiced, likely in that order - during the week, our passing game works pretty well. When we start having to adjust on the fly, things go downhill in a hurry. TA's completion percentage is up slightly - one completion every two games - from last year. Yards per attempt and QB rating are down slightly.