beorach

Thanks, MD - I didn't want people getting their hopes up too high!

No point in me putting in more time. You won't even consider it, clearly. Out of morbid curiosity, in one sentence, how would you sum up the point of Landlord's post (and yours)? Why wouldn't I consider it? I've clearly explained myself and you're weaseling out on actually providing some substance to back up your hypotheses. I tried summing up repeatedly above and avoided calling you insulting and idiotic (despite your having started with that toward me with your summation) so I don't get the continued attitude. It's all right to have a difference of opinion but you don't get to claim you've refuted something by merely questioning it. p.s. - I guess I will try to sum things up again for you after all. You have taken offense to my appreciation for Landlord's post and have gone so far as to claim it's BS but you won't back that opinion up with any research of your own because of your opinion about me. If you never saw any post I wrote on here outside this thread, I would expect that you might still be able to realize that I value facts given my appreciation for the research Landlord did. If you saw that I mainly share statistics on here, I'd think you'd realize even more the value I place on what's real, tangible, measurable, FACTual, etc. To continue laboring the point, I can make no judgment at this time as to your opinion that Landlord's data sampling obscured the truth about whatever side of whatever issue you think we've been discussing.

I don't recognize that you've made a counter argument. I don't think you've shown any substantial fallacy (aside from Donnan being included incorrectly, as I noted above - this is why I qualified this with substantial) and you're reading into Landlord's post to the extent that I think it's fair to say you've got its meaning twisted. Put in the time and make your case if you like but questioning whether altering the research by including bad coaches, going with seven years, etc., is nothing but speculation until then.

What we have here is a failure to communicate. You seem to think that I don't get what you're trying to tell me for some reason. Allow me to clarify in case we're not both feeling the same way at this point. I have no problem with Landlord doing the comparison with "four-year plus" coaches because I don't think he was trying to say that any monkey could coach the Cornhuskers to a similar level of success. Your insistence that it's what the post was about doesn't make it so. I think what was being demonstrated was that, at a school ranking in the top fifteen for all-time winning percentage, winning at that clip wasn't necessarily an indication that you had a great coach at the helm. We knew we had a good coach (so dropping the bad ones out of the comparison, again, was fine by me) but wanted greatness and didn't want to fire him if it seemed reasonable to believe he might be building toward something great. As for your qualification of Nebraska's membership in the blue blood club, I think you need to remember that we rarely play any other teams that belong to it. Nebraska may not be Notre Dame but the difference is negligible when our favorite team is playing a schedule like the most recent one.

The problem with your and the original poster's logic is that such a post only establishes that pelini was at least mediocre. Not that he was only mediocre. I guess we'll see what Riley does, but he has to win at least 11 (and really 13 because 11 reg season wins means a ccg and bowl game) games next season to get to .700. More "modestly," assuming NU plays 26 games over the next two seasons, Riley has to win 21 of them to get to .700. I see the "a monkey could win .700+ games at NU" argument from lots of people, including former players, I think it's equal parts idiotic and insulting to the coaches who've done it. I found the old post and linked it below: http://www.huskerboard.com/index.php?%2Ftopic%2F72663-bo-is-only-the-fifth-coach-w-9-wins-yadda-yadda%2F My sense of what the original post was getting at was that the winning percentage shouldn't serve as a basis that Bo was a special coach we couldn't afford to lose. If you think it says something about a monkey instead, well, that's your problem. There are lots of problems with his "analysis" (e.g., using 9-4 as a cutoff when actually, that's a 69% winning percentage and Bo closer to 10-4 as an average). But, his bolded line caught my attention: So roughly 65% of coaches at major programs in modern history that have coached at their schools for at least 4 years have been able to win just as well as Bo, if not better. Why the qualifier on "at least 4 years"? So the ones who were utter failures and canned within 3 years don't count somehow? If those are included, what's the percentage? He also includes a note about Jim Donovan, who failed to win at least 9 games in 50% of the seasons he coached at UGA and his win % at UGA was below .700 (and even the equivalent of 9-4). Similarly, Bill Battle, who may have started strong, went 28-17-2 (.596) over his last four years and 13-10 in his last two years. He also never finished better than 4th in his conference during his final four years (mostly, he was around 6th each year at a time when the SEC was not good). So, I'd say those inclusions show that his methodology may be flawed (or misapplied) and that the post does nothing to actually disprove the difficulty in winning .700+ games during a tenure, even at a top school. If you're so interested, why don't you do the research your way and show us Landlord was wrong? I see that he made a mistake, in the case of Jim Donnan (since his winning percentage at UGA was less than 68%), but there was nothing misrepresented in the case of Bill Battle insofar as I can tell. You seem to be complaining that the post doesn't include enough losers anyway such that it seems like you can't focus on your own point let alone Landlord's. Considering he researched 79 coaches at 15 programs since 1960 and even gave a range for his final percentage, I'm willing to allow a bit of leeway...given that it's free labor for a message board post. He did this research "[t]o disarm the stupid argument of all of your facebook friends," remember? The streak of 9-win (at a minimum) seasons was and continues to be used by folks to argue that Bo was doing something exceptional at good old Nebraska U. I suspect most of us fanatics didn't need Landlord's post to tell us that wasn't the case but it did speak to that specific argument very well and, to me, not in an idiotic and insulting manner. Perhaps you could look beyond your original take for a moment and recognize that what Landlord was getting at is something we argue with Iowa fans about. Being one of the blue bloods of college football counts for something (even if the glory days were long ago).

The problem with your and the original poster's logic is that such a post only establishes that pelini was at least mediocre. Not that he was only mediocre. I guess we'll see what Riley does, but he has to win at least 11 (and really 13 because 11 reg season wins means a ccg and bowl game) games next season to get to .700. More "modestly," assuming NU plays 26 games over the next two seasons, Riley has to win 21 of them to get to .700. I see the "a monkey could win .700+ games at NU" argument from lots of people, including former players, I think it's equal parts idiotic and insulting to the coaches who've done it. I found the old post and linked it below: http://www.huskerboard.com/index.php?%2Ftopic%2F72663-bo-is-only-the-fifth-coach-w-9-wins-yadda-yadda%2F My sense of what the original post was getting at was that the winning percentage shouldn't serve as a basis that Bo was a special coach we couldn't afford to lose. If you think it says something about a monkey instead, well, that's your problem.

I'll agree about the rematch but ND was undefeated that season. I don't see how anyone could argue that another team should have been substituted in their place. They belonged more than any one-loss team and the short list of those included Alabama that season. Ohio State was also undefeated but on probation. Oregon's one loss was to Stanford, a team Notre Dame defeated that season.

One of the posts that impressed me from this board, around the time I joined, pointed out that even mediocre coaches can maintain the .700 standard at programs like Nebraska (i.e., ones with rich football histories). I don't remember now who it was that did the extensive research but it was the best point about Pelini that I found online.

I remember Bo's teams struggling with offensive pre-snap penalties to a noticeable degree for at least three seasons.

I've shared before that Riley and Banker, in their third season at Oregon State (during their last stint there, wanna say this was 2006), had a defense that forced ~33 turnovers. I have not tracked penalties but they've certainly been an issue this season. I was hoping that'd be a big difference this season with a guy who has been a HC so long. Wishful thinking had me chalking that up to the new systems on both sides of the ball. Time will tell.

Yeah, about those 8 wins... http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2016/1/4/10703606/sec-bowl-games-wins-record-explanation Yep, I was at that site. That's where I found it was a record.

Even when the run hasn't been very successful for three quarters of a game, I feel like I've seen some "playcallers" mix it in enough that it has paid off in the 4th. I guess I don't ever think it makes sense to give up and be 1-D. I think folks are oversimplifying this issue to the extreme, though. What we saw in the bowl wasn't vindication of traditionalist armchair coaches across the state and Langsdorf isn't trying to install the fun and gun. As for the rushing defenses Nebraska has faced this season, I'd rank the Bruins' seventh: Average Z-scores from Rushing Defense category, without SOS adjustment, through games against FBS teams up until (and not including) CCG weekend 1) Wisconsin: 1.44 2) Iowa: 1.18 3) Michigan State: 0.98 4) Northwestern: 0.86 5) Southern Mississippi: 0.64 6) BYU: 0.41 7) UCLA: 0.21 8) Illinois: 0.12 9) Minnesota - 0.07 10) Purdue: -1.12 11) Miami: -1.22 12) Rutgers: -1.26 13) South Alabama: -1.48 p.s. - I misread Miami's rating before so I had to edit this post.

Just because a conference doesn't have multiple great teams doesn't mean it's weak, though. Strength is relative and eight bowl wins is the new conference record (that the SEC just set). WOW factor is an intangible but it seems like you're talking about offense and the SEC's quality is on the other side of the ball.

Michigan State was who we thought they were. If you wanna crown 'em... Seriously, though, I've been looking at schedule strength all season and I shared the figures. Alabama ran a more difficult gauntlet than any team that made the playoff. Iowa didn't play a difficult schedule. When you recognize how well you can trust a team's stats, you're going to be surprised less. With that said, I'm not trying to say I really knew anything. I did think it was stupid for people, like Gary Sharp, to be declaring the B1G the greatest football conference of the 2015-16 season...just as I thought it was stupid for people to say the SEC was weak. There's just not enough data to go by for measuring conference performance. I.e., we need to drop half the division and get the P5 teams playing each other in their out-of-conference schedules. I don't know why people always argue that this can't be done due to a need for seven home games. I'm just saying a game against a MAC team should be the exception (as opposed to the norm for the out of conference slate, as it is now). I shared an article earlier this season that indicated the ACC was leading the nation in terms of its teams playing P5 teams for their out of conference (OOC) games. 38% of their OOC games were against P5 teams. The B1G was second but were only playing 32%, iirc. Getting back to the matter the OP brought up, here are the conference rankings for their teams' overall stats and SOS (versus other FBS teams only): Average Overall Statistical Performance through all games played against FBS competition up until (and not including) the CCG weekend SEC - 0.204 B1G - 0.117 Big XII - 0.108 ACC - 0.101 Pac-12 - 0.070 Average Strength of Schedule for the same period used above (calculated by averaging the average z-scores for all the teams played through that stretch) SEC - 0.141 ACC - 0.105 B1G - 0.080 Big XII - 0.061 Pac-12 - 0.041 Nebraska has to worry first about becoming the top dog in its division. Given the team's offensive production, relative to division competition in what was a very difficult transition season, I think the future is bright. The biggest offensive issue went from being turnovers, in general, to just interceptions. Our defense is susceptible to the pass but Iowa's the best passing team in our division. It would be great if our "D" could start forcing more turnovers, too. Forcing fumbles, in particular, is an area with lots of room for improvement - i.e., Nebraska's total is far below average.

What's with the 2016 in the title? I think I understand but wondered if I'm missing something...

That may very well be but I use -3.5 as a plug number to come up with my numbers (after using stats to derive neutral field spreads) and am not far off. This week's NFL games, for example, look like this: Atlanta -6.5 (mine, rounded to the nearest half-point) vs. -4 Buffalo +1.5 vs. +3 Chicago -6 vs. -1 Cinci -12 vs. -9 Cleveland +11 vs. +10 Miami +12 vs. +11.5 New York -4 vs. -3 Houston -8 vs. -6.5 Denver -11 vs. -9.5 KC -12.5 vs. -7.5 Arizona -7 vs. -7.5 San Francisco +5 vs. +3 Carolina -12.5 vs. -11.5 Green Bay -2 vs. -3 I *only* like the Jets, the Bengals, the Steelers, the Pats, the Chiefs, the Rams (I know), and the Bucs ATS, though. The way the NFL site does its stats isn't so clear to me as the college version, too. I don't mess with the pros' data as much.

I love the thread for how it began and those who continued in the same vein. I figured I should add something to the "carry the ball rarely" bit of misinformation above. Counting all the games before CCG weekend, the average number of rushing carries was 435. Nebraska's figure was 434 at that point. Nebraska's figure was pretty high for passing attempts, to be fair, at 439 (compared to the national average of 356 in the same stretch of games). As usual, I did not count any games played against FCS teams.

Riley's offense is about balance. I could believe that he and his staff didn't feel they could do all they wanted in the running game with the kids they had...and that some of that had to do with their development, as opposed to who these kids are. That's the only way I can follow the thinking of some posting ITT, though. I've shared before that I doubt many will be won over by the offensive philosophy of this staff. I can respect the attempt by the powers that be to do something different here, though, and I can keep an open mind with respect to this matter. The optimist in me hopes that the experiment works out and we're able to get some offensive talent in here that wouldn't consider most other teams in the conference. I can admit there have been times over the years when I wondered if neutral fans were as annoyed with a Nebraska game being the only one to watch as I was with a Virginia Tech or South Carolina one...largely because those offenses were so boring to watch.

Shh, we all know better than SE and decided MR was the wrong hire about half a season in! That's sarcasm, of course. Lots of folks never gave him a chance. p.s. - Bo wasn't just 0-2 against him. Our team looked bad for half those two games against Mora and the first one was his (Mora's) first game against a BCS team. If I had asked someone who had never watched either team, I'd bet you they'd have pegged UCLA as the team that had been coached by the same guy for five (4?) years already to that point. Halftime of that first UCLA game was the time I first thought Nebraska needed to roll the dice on someone else. A little of that may have had to do with his flirting with Miami, too.

When did we become the 'Skers? The Fighting Irish were the Ramblers before. A hostile crowd (in Chicago?) dubbed them the Fighting Irish. UNO used to be the University of Omaha and the mascot was an Indian? That's all I got. Merry Christmas, peeps!

How they play matters more than the win to me at this point. I'm hoping the kids show better discipline and effort than we've seen over the course of the season. I'm not sure how healthy they should be, too, but I think I've heard Newby should be feeling well enough to show something more to his detractors.

Tackling technique seems complicated to Bando. Why so high all the time? Did someone misunderstand what made Randy Gregory special?

Ever see Quadrophenia? I think that was the name of the movie with The Who anyway... One gang was the mods, iirc. If that's what this is from, I applaud the reference.

If I'm just looking at the positives, I'd point out that we've: 1) played a tougher schedule; 2) posted comparable stats in the passing offense category; 3) posted much better stats in the rushing defense category; and 4) have better numbers in the total defense category. Some of these I'm posting about take just games against P5 teams into consideration, as CFBstats.com allows for that filtering. Overall, against P5 teams, our defensive numbers are practically equal. It's the offensive and turnover margin figures that make them a touchdown favorite.

To come up with a team's overall statistical rating, I've explained that I've just averaged all its average z-scores across nine categories (pass d/o, rush d/o, scoring d/o, total d/o, and turnover margin). To come up with strength of schedule (SOS), I've just averaged the overall statistical ratings for each team played. To rank all 128 FBS teams, I've just taken the average ranking for each one...meaning the ranking of overall stats and the ranking of SOS. E.g., the rank for Nebraska's overall statistics (mathematically equivalent to the average z-score for those nine categories listed above) is 66th. The rank of their SOS is 45th. The average of those two ranks is what puts them where they are below: 1. Alabama 2. Notre Dame 3. Tennessee 4. Navy 5. Arkansas, LSU, West Virginia (tie) 6. Clemson 7. Mississippi State, USC (tie) 8. Oklahoma 9. Mississippi 10. Western Michigan 11. Michigan State, Washington (tie) 12. California, Florida, Louisville, Pittsburgh (tie) 13. Florida State 14. Penn State 15. Utah State 16. Illinois 17. Auburn, Ohio State (tie) 18. Boston College 19. Oregon 20. Georgia Tech, Memphis (tie) 21. Minnesota 22. Northwestern 23. BYU, Georgia, Oklahoma State (tie) 24. Vanderbilt 25. Miami (Florida) 26. Arizona State 27. Michigan 28. North Carolina State 29. North Carolina, Texas A&M (tie) 30. Iowa State 31. Maryland, Virginia Tech (tie) 32. Baylor 33. Utah 34. Missouri, Syracuse, TCU (tie) 35. Nebraska 36. Toledo 37. Wake Forest 38. Bowling Green, Stanford, Texas Tech, Virginia (tie) 39. Purdue 40. South Carolina 41. Air Force 42. Appalachian State 43. Indiana 44. Iowa 45. Boise State 46. UCLA 47. Georgia Southern, SMU, Western Kentucky (tie) 48. South Florida 49. Connecticut, Houston (tie) 50. Wisconsin 51. Cincinnati 52. San Diego State 53. East Carolina, Northern Illinois (tie) 54. Southern Mississippi 55. Wyoming 56. Kansas 57. Central Michigan, Kansas State, Middle Tennessee (tie) 58. Akron 59. Oregon State 60. Texas 61. Ball State 62. Arizona, Temple (tie) 63. Arkansas State 64. Marshall 65. Duke 66. Kentucky 67. Colorado State, Kent State, Louisiana Tech (tie) 68. Buffalo 69. Washington State 70. Rutgers 71. North Texas 72. Fresno State 73. South Alabama, UNLV (tie) 74. Troy 75. Old Dominion 76. Ohio, UCF (tie) 77. Colorado 78. San Jose State 79. Miami (Ohio) 80. Hawai'i 81. New Mexico, Tulsa (tie) 82. Nevada 83. Texas State, Tulane (tie) 84. Florida Atlantic 85. Louisiana-Monroe 86. Georgia State, Massachusetts (tie) 87. New Mexico State 88. Louisiana-Lafayette, Rice (tie) 89. Charlotte, Idaho (tie) 90. Army 91. Florida International 92. Eastern Michigan 93. UTSA 94. UTEP To repeat, this order was determined by taking the average of two rankings: 1) the national ranking for the stats taken from the z-score method I've explained previously; and 2) the national ranking for the schedule strength a team played (by taking the average of all the overall statistical average z-scores for all the teams played). Seeing Iowa ranked below Nebraska doesn't mean the Cornhuskers are better than the Hawkeyes this season. It just means that the average of the Husker stats and strength of schedule rankings is higher than that of Iowa. The rankings, by just the overall statiscal average z-scores, are as follows: 1 Oklahoma 2 Baylor 3 Ohio State 4 Alabama 5 Clemson 6 Houston 7 San Diego State 8 Western Kentucky 9 Southern Mississippi 10 Iowa 11 Appalachian State 12 Bowling Green 13 Georgia Southern 14 North Carolina 15 Navy 16 Boise State 17 Wisconsin 18 Florida State 19 Toledo 20 Michigan 21 West Virginia 22 Florida 23 Air Force 24 Michigan State 25 North Carolina State 26 Stanford 27 Notre Dame 28 Mississippi 29 LSU 30 USC 31 TCU 32 Temple 33 South Florida 34 Georgia 35 Northern Illinois 36 Memphis 37 Tennessee 38 Utah 39 UCLA 40 Oklahoma State 41 Marshall 42 Washington 43 Pittsburgh 44 Arkansas 45 Arkansas State 46 BYU 47 Oregon 48 Louisiana Tech 49 Western Michigan 50 Central Michigan 51 Middle Tennessee 52 Utah State 53 Louisville 54 Ohio 55 Penn State 56 Mississippi State 57 Texas A&M 58 Northwestern 59 Akron 60 Duke 61 Texas Tech 62 Washington State 63 Cincinnati 64 Arizona State 65 California 66 Nebraska 67 Virginia Tech 68 Nevada 69 East Carolina 70 Connecticut 71 Illinois 72 Georgia State 73 Auburn 74 Minnesota 75 San Jose State 76 Indiana 77 Boston College 78 Texas 79 Kentucky 80 Miami (Florida) 81 Colorado State 82 Georgia Tech 83 New Mexico 84 Missouri 85 Army 86 Florida Atlantic 87 Tulsa 88 Louisiana-Lafayette 89 Buffalo 90 Arizona 91 Massachusetts 92 South Carolina 93 Colorado 94 Virginia 95 Vanderbilt 96 Troy 97 UTSA 98 Florida International 99 Kansas State 100 Iowa State 101 Old Dominion 102 UNLV 103 Syracuse 104 Maryland 105 Wyoming 106 Wake Forest 107 South Alabama 108 Kent State 109 Idaho 110 New Mexico State 111 Rutgers 112 Purdue 113 UTEP 114 Rice 115 Tulane 116 Texas State 117 Miami (Ohio) 118 Ball State 119 Fresno State 120 SMU 121 Eastern Michigan 122 Charlotte 123 Oregon State 124 North Texas 125 Louisiana-Monroe 126 Hawai'i 127 UCF 128 Kansas The rankings, by just SOS (as calculated with the z-scores), are as follows: 1 Maryland 2 Vanderbilt 3 Purdue 4 Iowa State 5 Mississippi State 6 Syracuse 7 Wake Forest 8 SMU 9 Georgia Tech 10 Boston College 11 Arkansas 12 Kansas 13 Auburn 14 Illinois 15 California 16 Tennessee 17 Alabama 18 Minnesota 19 Miami (Florida) 20 Virginia 21 Western Michigan 22 Oregon State 23 Notre Dame 24 South Carolina 25 Missouri 26 LSU 27 Louisville 28 Penn State 29 Washington 30 Ball State 31 USC 32 Utah State 33 Wyoming 34 West Virginia 35 Northwestern 36 Arizona State 37 Pittsburgh 38 Virginia Tech 39 Navy 40 Mississippi 41 Oregon 42 North Texas 43 Kansas State 44 Indiana 45 Nebraska 46 Texas A&M 47 Michigan State 48 Fresno State 49 UCF 50 BYU 51 Clemson 52 Kent State 53 Texas Tech 54 Rutgers 55 Memphis 56 Oklahoma State 57 Hawai'i 58 Florida 59 Arizona 60 Connecticut 61 South Alabama 62 Georgia 63 Florida State 64 Miami (Ohio) 65 Oklahoma 66 UNLV 67 East Carolina 68 Texas 69 Cincinnati 70 Utah 71 Louisiana-Monroe 72 Buffalo 73 Old Dominion 74 Troy 75 Texas State 76 Tulane 77 North Carolina State 78 TCU 79 Colorado State 80 Kentucky 81 Michigan 82 Charlotte 83 Ohio State 84 Akron 85 Colorado 86 UCLA 87 Rice 88 Stanford 89 North Carolina 90 New Mexico State 91 Middle Tennessee 92 Central Michigan 93 Toledo 94 Air Force 95 Idaho 96 South Florida 97 Eastern Michigan 98 Duke 99 Tulsa 100 Washington State 101 Northern Illinois 102 Bowling Green 103 New Mexico 104 San Jose State 105 Baylor 106 Massachusetts 107 Boise State 108 Appalachian State 109 Florida Atlantic 110 Arkansas State 111 Iowa 112 Louisiana Tech 113 Louisiana-Lafayette 114 Wisconsin 115 Georgia Southern 116 Marshall 117 Temple 118 UTEP 119 Florida International 120 Western Kentucky 121 Nevada 122 Ohio 123 UTSA 124 Houston 125 Georgia State 126 Army 127 San Diego State 128 Southern Mississippi p.s. - I should have noted before that I did not consider any games played against teams from outside the FBS. By this rationale, Alabama is not penalized for playing Sam Houston State or whatever. I only figured out the average rating of the teams on their schedule that were from the top division.