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JTrain

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Posts posted by JTrain

  1.  

    Nebraska's chances of beating:

     

    Wisconsin: 45%

    Minnesota: 60%

    Iowa: 70%

    Ohio St: 25%

     

    Chances of winning all four: 0.45 x 0.6 x 0.7 x 0.25 = 0.047 = 4.7%

     

     

    OK, I'll try waterboarding myself with Kool-Aid now:

     

    Wisconsin: 60%

    Minnesota: 75%

    Iowa: 85%

    Ohio St.: 50%

     

    Chances of winning all four: 0.6 x 0.75 x 0.85 x 0.5 = 0.191 = 19.1%. Still pretty low. :dunno

    From last weeks Football Study Hall:

     

    Wisconsin: 60% Win

    Minnesota: 90% Win

    Iowa: 78% Win

     

    http://www.footballstudyhall.com/2014/11/5/7160537/big-ten-football-projections-predictions-michigan-state-ohio-state

     

     

    Wisconsin is a 6.5 point favorite which would historically put Nebraska at 32.3% to win. Nebraska would have to be a 16.5 point favorite to be about 90% to beat Minnesota.

     

    But even if you wanted to go by the numbers in that link, it would put us at 14.7% to win out.

  2. About halfway through I realized you were on a different side of the argument than I thought.

     

    If I would like to see our offense go any direction it would be the same direction you do; towards more balance. Since the prevailing sentiment on here is that Beck still, somehow, passes too much or gets too cute with passing, usually the argument goes in defense of the passing game, so I guess in this case we're actually mostly on the same page.

     

    Our offense isn't perfectly balanced but I would prefer it not be anyways. I think equal yards rushing and passing is a great place to (strive to) be, rather than equal attempts, but compared to Nebraska teams of old and compared to the current trends in college football, I like our relative balance.

     

    Yes, I don't necessarily care if we are perfectly balanced in terms of yards or plays. I care more about quality. I want us to be very effective and hopefully even dangerous in both areas. That's the most important type of balance. We've been great at rushing for the most part in recent years, but aside from a handful of games, not very good at passing. If we're ever in the top 30 or 35 in both, we are probably an offense that has a good chance to put up points against anyone. And that's how you win the big games.

    • Fire 1
  3. No, I personally think the ranks are a much better indicator. A balanced team strives to be good in both areas and run a similar number of plays of both. A team that throws the ball 50% of plays and runs 50% of plays (balance) is going to have considerably more passing yards, since the average pass play nets more yards. This year we have 378 rushes versus 221 passes. That certainly is not balanced.

     

    Given our averages, if we had 300 passes and 300 rushes, we would have 300 pypg and 233 rypg which would put our ranks at, guess what: 21st and 20th respectively.

     

    On top of that, even if you only want to consider net yardage, it still hasn't been balanced outside 2013!

     

    The fact that we have more rushing yards and rank very high in rushing while ranking very low in passing is not a good thing in my opinion. We should strive to have a much better passing attack.

     

    But I guess it all goes back to my original point. The data can be used in attempt to justify just about any position. You argue that never having been in the top 75 FBS teams in passing offense actually "makes Beck even better"? OK, I don't buy it. But I won't stoop to calling your argument stupid.

    • Fire 1
  4.  

    I hope Beck's offense never appears in 1, 2, 5, and 6 personally. Balance is a GOOD thing in an offense and those records don't say anything other than either we had no offensive balance or we beat up on a poor middle school kid. Case in point, Joe Ganz' record of 510 passing yards that will never be broken because Callahan was trying to save his job by throwing it all over the field and going for it on 4th and 20. That record means literally nothing.

     

     

    So balance is his go-to strength?

     

    National Ranks

     

    2011: Rushing 15th, Passing 104th

    2012: Rushing 8th, Passing 88th

    2013: Rushing 19th, Passing 95th

    2014: Rushing 6th, Passing 78th

     

     

     

     

    Nobody is saying Tim Beck is the greatest offensive coordinator even in the country right now, let alone in the history of college football.

     

     

    No, but they are saying he is "breaking Osborne era rushing records and Callahan era passing records" "left and right" and even "pretty much all of them".

  5.  

     

     

    As long as people are convinced "SEC is overrated because ESPN", there will be no reasoning that will sway them. I can point to unbiased systems till I'm blue in the face--systems that do not watch ESPN and have no understanding of conference affiliation or even team name--no one will bother.

     

     

     

    These systems are made and influenced by people, who are influenced a great deal by ESPN.

     

    It's not possible to make unbiased systems in a vaccuum that doesn't have ESPN influence.

     

     

    Yes, it is. Unbiased means the computer does not know anything about the teams or conferences. Just scores. Unless the scores were somehow significantly different between conferences on a regular basis (in other words, if a program could look at 100 SEC scores and 100 Big 12 scores with no teams and be able to tell based only on the numbers which conference was which), there is no way to intentionally skew the system towards the creator's favorite team or conference.

     

    A lot of these creators are pretty brilliant guys and many of them have published papers on their methodology. They would tell you it would be extremely difficult or perhaps impossible to program an unbiased rating system to favor any conference, even if they wanted to. Some of them are very accessible via email or Twitter: Kenneth Massey, Wes Colley and perhaps Peter Wolfe (who also was friends with the late David Rothman and probably knows most of the ins and outs of his system). You could certainly debate the point with them if you like.

     

    Not to mention all of the top systems were formulated years and years before ESPN created the SEC Network.

     

     

    There are no "unbiased systems" because systems don't program themselves. The selection and weighting of variables among the millions of possibilities introduces the beliefs of the programmer. You get out what you put in, nothing more.

     

     

    Unbiased system means no data outside game results. It does not mean value-free. Some systems value margin of victory more than others, for example. Some don't include it at all. Whatever the value system, it is applied evenly among all results without reference to outside information, including conference. A ten point win is a ten point win every time, and the team name is just a string of characters to the program--a row in a database.

     

    http://www.masseyratings.com/theory/

    http://www.masseyratings.com/faq.php

    http://homepages.cae.wisc.edu/~dwilson/rsfc/rate/rothman.html

    http://www.colleyrankings.com/matrate.pdf

    • Fire 2
  6. This is rich.

     

    How many times does Beck's offense appear in Nebraska's top ten all-time:

     

    1. Passing yards in a game

    2. Rushing yards in a game

    3. Total yards in a game

    4. Points in a game

    5. Passing yards/game in a season

    6. Rushing yards/game in a season

    7. Total yards/game in a season

    8. Points/game in a season

     

    Oh, but Martinez did go 13 of 14 against Ark. St. :w00t

    • Fire 2
  7.  

    As long as people are convinced "SEC is overrated because ESPN", there will be no reasoning that will sway them. I can point to unbiased systems till I'm blue in the face--systems that do not watch ESPN and have no understanding of conference affiliation or even team name--no one will bother.

     

     

     

    These systems are made and influenced by people, who are influenced a great deal by ESPN.

     

    It's not possible to make unbiased systems in a vaccuum that doesn't have ESPN influence.

     

     

    Yes, it is. Unbiased means the computer does not know anything about the teams or conferences. Just scores. Unless the scores were somehow significantly different between conferences on a regular basis (in other words, if a program could look at 100 SEC scores and 100 Big 12 scores with no teams and be able to tell based only on the numbers which conference was which), there is no way to intentionally skew the system towards the creator's favorite team or conference.

     

    A lot of these creators are pretty brilliant guys and many of them have published papers on their methodology. They would tell you it would be extremely difficult or perhaps impossible to program an unbiased rating system to favor any conference, even if they wanted to. Some of them are very accessible via email or Twitter: Kenneth Massey, Wes Colley and perhaps Peter Wolfe (who also was friends with the late David Rothman and probably knows most of the ins and outs of his system). You could certainly debate the point with them if you like.

     

    Not to mention all of the top systems were formulated years and years before ESPN created the SEC Network.

    • Fire 2
  8. As much as we love the Tunnel Walk, I think those on the outside will always smirk a bit at the fact that we jacked the song choice straight from the most famous sports entrance of all-time (Jordan's Bulls). That, and our crowd just never gets jacked quite like VT, Clemson or LSU.

     

    Also, I'm disappointed that they removed the Tunnel Walk video (once the music starts) for the first time in its history. Although there's a certain charm to the minimalism of it now... damn, I loved the cheesy CGI. And the extended ones from the epocson days were great.

  9. As long as people are convinced "SEC is overrated because ESPN", there will be no reasoning that will sway them. I can point to unbiased systems till I'm blue in the face--systems that do not watch ESPN and have no understanding of conference affiliation or even team name--no one will bother.

     

    People feel they can look at 15-20 results and consistently apply their value system to determine where teams should rank in comparison to one another. Yet there have already been something like 475 games played and these games can be connected in tens of thousands of complex ways.

     

    There is no voodoo involved. Just winner, loser, (sometimes) score, (sometimes) date and some complex math to calculate how all the games fit together (from which strength of schedule is derived). These systems consistently rank Alabama's schedule in the top five, while Kansas State's is significantly further down.

     

    http://football.kislanko.com/2014/Computer_byBorda_Current.html

    • Fire 1
  10. One of the biggest reasons (aside from human nature) that these discussions about Beck (or anyone with playcalling duties, in just about any sport) never go anywhere is that just about any playcall can be shown to have reasons behind it, and if executed perfectly can be successful.

     

    Someone defending Beck (or any coordinator) can go back and look at every failed play and show there to have been reasons for the call, and show where certain players made certain errors that prevented its success. Now, if a play was called that involved the quarterback spinning around three times, doing the Macarena and then hurling the ball backwards through his own goalposts, then we could all probably agree the call was bad, for there was no conceivable reasons for it. But that's never the case. There are always reasons for why a given play is called. And almost any call can be successful if executed at a very high level.

     

    The critic of Beck will counter that perhaps the reasons were not good reasons. Perhaps there were better reasons for alternate calls. Perhaps a better coordinator would be better aware of the strengths and weaknesses of his personnel. But this is no knockdown argument. There is no time machine available to go back and try a different call. All the critic can do is say that it seems likely that other options would have fared better, and point to previous plays in support of this.

     

    The stalemate continues.

    • Fire 3
  11.  

    So now Bo is yelling ****-sucker at the ref? I don't remember that from the story unless he edited the post to remove it.

     

     

    I didn't say that was in the story. I said yelling is one condition that would make it possible to hear it from a decent distance.

     

  12. I don't know if he's lying or not. My question was whether the OP had given us previous reason to believe he likely is lying or has personal reasons to.

     

    My other point was simply that you don't have to be standing right next to someone in the stadium to make out what they are saying.

  13.  

     

     

    I wonder how they communicate down there then.

    By standing right to each other or using these nifty headsets they wear.

     

    Since this poster most likely doesn't have a headset, he must therefor be standing right next to Bo as he calls a ref a ****-sucker.

     

    I don't know why you fighting this fight. You're just coming off as a troll.

    Hmm, people are strangely emotional in this thread. I don't think the players wear headsets but they seem to hear when the coaches yell things at them from fairly long distances. And refs can hear coaches yelling for them or asking for a timeout from fairly long distances. It's pretty clear that the crowd is not that loud for 90% of the game and strong voices can carry quite well. Not trying to fight or troll.

    What is so emotional in the quoted post?

     

    If the players could hear every word from the coaches why do we have those giant signs? The hand signals?

     

    It's like you don't even watch the games.

     

     

    I didn't say everyone could hear every word all the time. That would be a straw man. I just believe in many circumstances people within a reasonable distance can hear what people are saying, especially if they have a voice that carries and the person is yelling. In other words, I don't think crowd noise makes this an impossibility. Again, the crowd is only extremely loud for a small portion of each game.

  14.  

    He doesn't even remember which game or what year it was. We all know about the A&M game. I posted the youtube video of it above. When else has it said it? The only "proof" he has is him having a sideline pass and we don't even know if that's true or not.

     

     

    My initial question was about reasons for distrusting the OP. I did not claim there was any proof offered.

     

    From my memory, the OP seems to be fairly level-headed and not have any grand agenda.

  15.  

    I wonder how they communicate down there then.

    By standing right to each other or using these nifty headsets they wear.

     

    Since this poster most likely doesn't have a headset, he must therefor be standing right next to Bo as he calls a ref a ****-sucker.

     

    I don't know why you fighting this fight. You're just coming off as a troll.

     

     

    Hmm, people are strangely emotional in this thread. I don't think the players wear headsets but they seem to hear when the coaches yell things at them from fairly long distances. And refs can hear coaches yelling for them or asking for a timeout from fairly long distances. It's pretty clear that the crowd is not that loud for 90% of the game and strong voices can carry quite well. Not trying to fight or troll.

  16.  

     

     

     

    But you will nonchalantly claim he called a ref a ****-sucker for no reason.

    When did he claim there was no reason?

    In his little story he mentions Bo just walks up to the ref, calls him that, and when asked why he replies it's because that's what he is. Are you even reading the thread?

    Yes, he never claimed it was for no reason. You added that. I'm guessing it involved a call Bo was unhappy about.

    I didn't add sh#t. He had absolutely no context. You guess it's about a play. I read it differently. It's why I think he's f'ing lying.

     

     

    Why the anger and swearing? If tmfr15 mentioned "no reason" then he edited his post by now. He did not explain the context but he did not say it was for no reason.

  17.  

     

    But you will nonchalantly claim he called a ref a ****-sucker for no reason.

    When did he claim there was no reason?

    In his little story he mentions Bo just walks up to the ref, calls him that, and when asked why he replies it's because that's what he is. Are you even reading the thread?

     

     

    Yes, he never claimed it was for no reason. You added that. I'm guessing it involved a call Bo was unhappy about.

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