Pelini's Best Wins and Worst Losses

[Landlord]

For that year, sure. I still don't think that's a very tough schedule. We should be good enough to take teams ranked 15-25 behind the woodshed on a consistent basis. The fact that those are now considered by some to be our benchmark games says a lot about the state of the program...and how we continue to lower our expectations. And that's unfortunate.

 

 

Show me any other team that played 8 ranked teams last season and also show me any other team that takes teams ranked 15-25 "behind the woodshed on a consistent basis". Thanks in advance.

[knapplc]

For that year, sure. I still don't think that's a very tough schedule. We should be good enough to take teams ranked 15-25 behind the woodshed on a consistent basis. The fact that those are now considered by some to be our benchmark games says a lot about the state of the program...and how we continue to lower our expectations. And that's unfortunate.

 

 

Show me any other team that played 8 ranked teams last season and also show me any other team that takes teams ranked 15-25 "behind the woodshed on a consistent basis". Thanks in advance.

 

In a perfect world there'd be a readily-accessible gif of Forrest saying ALABAMA! for me to post here, but in the absence of that, I'll just offer this:

 

 

And to be honest I have no idea if this is an actual answer to your question, and I'm not even trying to respond to you. I just really like this line (and the whole movie) and wanted to post it here.

 

 

 

This.... this is probably why a lot of people put me on Ignore.

[Ric Flair]

For that year, sure. I still don't think that's a very tough schedule. We should be good enough to take teams ranked 15-25 behind the woodshed on a consistent basis. The fact that those are now considered by some to be our benchmark games says a lot about the state of the program...and how we continue to lower our expectations. And that's unfortunate.

 

Show me any other team that played 8 ranked teams last season and also show me any other team that takes teams ranked 15-25 "behind the woodshed on a consistent basis". Thanks in advance.

 

Penn State wasn't actually ranked at the end of the season, nor was Wisconsin or UCLA. So that's 4 ranked teams we played. Ohio State (3), Northwestern (17), Michigan (24) and Georgia (5).

 

Alabama played Michigan (24), LSU (14), Texas A&M (5), Georgia (5) and Notre Dame (4).

 

South Carolina played Vanderbilt (23), Georgia (5), LSU (14), Florida (9), Clemson (11), Michigan (24).

 

Michigan played Alabama (1), Notre Dame (4), Nebraska (25), Northwestern (17), Ohio State (3) and South Carolina (8).

 

So those are just three examples of teams with tougher schedules than we had last season. Of note is that all three ended the season ranked higher than we did.

 

http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2013/1/8/3850284/final-2013-college-football-rankings-bcs-ap-coaches

[junior4949]

His best win so far was against OU a few years back. His worst loss by far was to Iowa State a few years back especially considering it was at home and Iowa State was down to their second string QB and I believe third string RB.

[Landlord]

That's why I didn't specifically look at end of season results because lets' just be logical here, having a strict and defined cutoff point to come to conclusions of who is good or not is a bit elementary, don't you think?

 

Wisconsin, Penn State and UCLA were all in the receiving votes category. Are you saying that being ranked 25th is good and counts towards schedule strength, but being 27th doesn't? UCLA almost won the Pac 12 and was as high as 15th in the last few weeks of the season - Wisconsin lost to Stanford by a score. So, not necessarily to prove a point but just to take a slightly different look at things, let's use top 35 teams:

 

 

Nebraska - Ohio State (3), Georgia (5), Northwestern (17), Michigan (24), Penn State (27), UCLA (31), Wisconsin (34), Wisconsin (34)

 

 

Still waiting on the teams that take the 15-25 teams behind the woodshed consistently.

[Ric Flair]

That's why I didn't specifically look at end of season results because lets' just be logical here, having a strict and defined cutoff point to come to conclusions of who is good or not is a bit elementary, don't you think?

 

Wisconsin, Penn State and UCLA were all in the receiving votes category. Are you saying that being ranked 25th is good and counts towards schedule strength, but being 27th doesn't? UCLA almost won the Pac 12 and was as high as 15th in the last few weeks of the season - Wisconsin lost to Stanford by a score. So, not necessarily to prove a point but just to take a slightly different look at things, let's use top 35 teams:

 

Nebraska - Ohio State (3), Georgia (5), Northwestern (17), Michigan (24), Penn State (27), UCLA (31), Wisconsin (34), Wisconsin (34)

 

Still waiting on the teams that take the 15-25 teams behind the woodshed consistently.

 

It makes more sense to take stock of how good the teams are after all the games are played...far more so than trying to figure out what a team's rating is when we play them, including any team that was ever ranked, etc. The end of year rankings are the best and final gauge of how good teams actually were.

 

I think it's sad that you define our 'success' by whether we're beating teams that are ranked in the bottom half of the Top 25 and even those just receiving votes. It shows how far our expectations for this program have fallen. Rather than worrying about winning conference and national titles, we're now trying to rationalize mediocrity by counting up how many teams in the Top 40 or so we played and claiming that our annual tally of 4 losses and 2 beat downs really weren't as bad as they seemed. We might as well be Iowa fans at that point.

[kchusker_chris]

His best win so far was against OU a few years back. His worst loss by far was to Iowa State a few years back especially considering it was at home and Iowa State was down to their second string QB and I believe third string RB.

wouldn't even have this in my top-5. that was a complete facepalm type of game, but it wasn't that bad of a loss IMO. the blowouts, the A&M screwjob, the final game with TX...all above a comical 2 point loss to Iowa State.

[Landlord]

I think it's sad that you define our 'success' by whether we're beating teams that are ranked in the bottom half of the Top 25 and even those just receiving votes.

 

 

I'm sorry, after you get me the list of teams these days that take ranked 15-25 teams to the woodshed consistently, can you find me where i said anything in regards to nebraska's success? How successful we are, how I define our success, etc. Anything will do. Any statement I have made relating to that.

 

(you might be looking a while as I didn't make any mention of success)

[Ric Flair]

I think it's sad that you define our 'success' by whether we're beating teams that are ranked in the bottom half of the Top 25 and even those just receiving votes.

 

I'm sorry, after you get me the list of teams these days that take ranked 15-25 teams to the woodshed consistently, can you find me where i said anything in regards to nebraska's success? How successful we are, how I define our success, etc. Anything will do. Any statement I have made relating to that.

 

(you might be looking a while as I didn't make any mention of success)

 

The whole point of this discussion is to determine how successful Nebraska has been. Our strength of schedule is a key component of that. You have made clear that you think it's been tougher than I do. And that's fine. We just disagree.

 

I don't think we should be looking to see how we have fared against teams ranked in the 15-40 range to judge where we're at as a program. If we're going to be a conference and national power, we should be comparing where we're at to teams in the Top 10-15 range.

[kchusker_chris]

I think it's sad that you define our 'success' by whether we're beating teams that are ranked in the bottom half of the Top 25 and even those just receiving votes.

 

 

I'm sorry, after you get me the list of teams these days that take ranked 15-25 teams to the woodshed consistently, can you find me where i said anything in regards to nebraska's success? How successful we are, how I define our success, etc. Anything will do. Any statement I have made relating to that.

 

(you might be looking a while as I didn't make any mention of success)

If you're getting into the 30's to define "quality" wins then a quality win for Nebraska would now include teams like San Jose State, a terrible USC team, North Dakota State, Cincinnati, TCU, TX Tech, Syracuse, Northern Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas State, UCF, Tulsa, etc...teams with as few as 5 wins, mostly 7-8. That's some pretty rough company. I'd hope we could win most of those.

[It'sNotAFakeID]

It makes more sense to take stock of how good the teams are after all the games are played...far more so than trying to figure out what a team's rating is when we play them, including any team that was ever ranked, etc. The end of year rankings are the best and final gauge of how good teams actually were.

 

That's exactly what I did and I took it a step further. By using Sagarin's rankings, I eliminated the bias that is rampant in the AP Poll. It's simply inaccurate to use a poll which isn't driven by statistics. Sagarin's rankings do the best job at eliminating the human part of the poll.

 

I think it's sad that you define our 'success' by whether we're beating teams that are ranked in the bottom half of the Top 25 and even those just receiving votes. It shows how far our expectations for this program have fallen. Rather than worrying about winning conference and national titles, we're now trying to rationalize mediocrity by counting up how many teams in the Top 40 or so we played and claiming that our annual tally of 4 losses and 2 beat downs really weren't as bad as they seemed. We might as well be Iowa fans at that point.

 

Success is defined as improvement. You don't judge improvement by seeing how you match against teams 1-10 if you're a team barely ranked in the Top 25. That understates where you are at as a program and makes the problem seem bigger than it is. You judge improvement by how well you play against the teams below you and the teams slightly (5 ranks) above you.

 

My expectations for this program have not fallen. I expect them to go out and win every game they play in. Unlike others, though, I don't go into crisis mode when we lose. It's really hard to win every game you play. Before jumping off the ledge of Oldfather Hall, I want to see if the loss really isn't that bad as it looked. Our gut reactions are emotional, and emotional reactions are often wrong. That's why I made these couple of posts. I wanted to crush the idea that our schedules have been weak, or that the games we were blown out in weren't to teams that were slouches, or that we have constantly underachieved under Bo Pelini. Neither of those are completely correct.

[huskrplaya]

IMO, the Washington and K State games in 2010 were Bo's best wins being we crushed both opponents and both were nationally televised. Bo's worst loss to me is last years B1G championship because of the exact opposite reasons but we lost to a whole different level..to the 3rd best team in the division.

 

edit: Both wins were on the road also

Edited September 24, 2013 by huskrplaya

[It'sNotAFakeID]

Bo's worst loss to me is last years B1G championship because of the exact opposite reasons but we lost to a whole different level.

 

I agree with this. The Big Ten CCG last year was Bo's worst lost since he's been here.

[presidentjlh]

Big Ten CCG was truly the nadir of his tenure here.

[skersfan]

I think the loss to Washington was his worst, as it changed the perspective of what we expected. Not prepared, not ready in anyway for what we faced. A team we had beaten before, took for granted. Then you have Wisconsin, same deal. It started the trend of not playing up to where we fans thought we should.