College Football Is Weird - Example #872

[knapplc]

Taken from Reddit /r/cfb/ because they have some good content often.

 

So, here are College football's 10 winningest programs over past decade

 

School	W	L	%
Alabama	127	13	.907
Ohio State	115	19	.858
Clemson	112	27	.805
Boise State	99	24	.804
Oklahoma	105	28	.789
Stanford	102	32	.761
Wisconsin	102	33	.755
LSU	97	32	.751
Oregon	99	33	.750
Florida State	97	36	.729

 

 

And the crazy thing is... Nebraska has beaten 40% of these teams in that decade.

 

2009: NE 10 - Oklahoma 3

2011: NE 34 - Ohio State 27

2012: NE 30 - Wisconsin 27

2016: NE 35 - Oregon 32

 

And if you go back 11 years, we've beaten half these teams. Bo beat Dabo Swinney's first-year Clemson team with Joey Ganz at QB in the 2008 Gator Bowl, 26-21.

 

Super crazy to think that, as bad as we've been these past umpteen years, we've cobbled together some wins over the decade's top teams.

 

 

[Landlord]

It is a weird and unexpected stat. But also not in any way an impressive one.

 

The Clemson team we beat was 7-6 (their second worst team in the last 10 years, although this one's a bit of a weird one because Dabo only coached the last 7 games of the season)

 

The Oklahoma team we beat was 8-5 (tied for their worst team in the last 10 years)

 

The Ohio State team we beat was 6-7 (their worst team in the last 10 years)

 

The Wisconsin team we beat was 8-6 (their worst team in the last 10 years)

 

The Oregon team we beat was 4-8 (their worst team in the last 10 years)

 

[huskerinacaveman]

I'm with landlord here.

To me it's weird that someone somewhere will brag about it, when it's not anything to brag about.  

Oklahoma wasnt, and isnt a regular schedule game.  Ohio State isnt either as we might play them 2 or 3 times in a 6 year period. 

 

The most striking fact is how bad the losses have been when we do lose.

OU, came back and took the BIG 12 CC from us when we decided to not show up in the second half, Oregon took it pretty cleanly, and tOSU, and Wis have absolutely dominated us.  

 

Another weird stat is the bottom feeding teams of the last 10 years that we've lost too.

[knapplc]

3 hours ago, huskerinacaveman said:

To me it's weird that someone somewhere will brag about it, when it's not anything to brag about.  

 

I can see why you could read the OP as "bragging."  It wasn't intended to be. I was more clear that these wins were an oddity on Reddit:

 

Quote

 

Crazy - Nebraska has only played four of those programs in the past 10 seasons, and we've beaten all four teams. And we've only beaten them one time each.

 

2009: NE 10 - Oklahoma 3

2011: NE 34 - Ohio State 27

2012: NE 30 - Wisconsin 27

2016: NE 35 - Oregon 32

 

Full disclosure - we've been bad the past decade+ and our overall record against these teams is a combined 4 - 13 with an eleventy gajillion point differential. I'm not even going to look up how many yards of offense we've given up to each of these teams. I think Melvin Gordon broke my calculator last time I tried to add it all up.

 

Bonus - 11 years ago we beat Clemson in Dabo's first season.

 

 

[BIG ERN]

6 hours ago, Landlord said:

It is a weird and unexpected stat. But also not in any way an impressive one.

 

The Clemson team we beat was 7-6 (their second worst team in the last 10 years, although this one's a bit of a weird one because Dabo only coached the last 7 games of the season)

 

The Oklahoma team we beat was 8-5 (tied for their worst team in the last 10 years)

 

The Ohio State team we beat was 6-7 (their worst team in the last 10 years)

 

The Wisconsin team we beat was 8-6 (their worst team in the last 10 years)

 

The Oregon team we beat was 4-8 (their worst team in the last 10 years)

 

Not to mention Wisconsin has beaten us the last 6 games we have played and we've lost to Ohio State the last 4 games we have played...pretty damn embarrassing if you ask me

[Hunter94]

stats of all kinds out there.......too often distorted and meaningless.

[Dr. Strangelove]

3 hours ago, BIG ERN said:

Not to mention Wisconsin has beaten us the last 6 games we have played and we've lost to Ohio State the last 4 games we have played...pretty damn embarrassing if you ask me

Right. Our record against teams with a pulse is embarrassing. 

 

And getting a win against a program's worse team in a decade is nothing to be excited about. When you routinely get pulverized by Ohio State and Wisconsin, winning a once-in-a-decade game is bound to happen. 

[Head Coach Scott Frost]

I'll never not appreciate someone showing me stats.  So thank you for that.  We beat 4/10 teams, but they all also beat us at minimum once over that decade.  And I would imagine a decent number of teams could also say they beat a couple of the winningest teams as well during the same time span.  Being able to say we beat Wisconsin a minimum of one time over the last decade is more on the depressing side of the scale than bright side.