Popular Post knapplc Posted September 30, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted September 30, 2019 After the Ohio State debacle it's not a lot of fun to think about the rest of the schedule, but there's reason for optimism. There's a clear path to Nebraska winning the West. And it basically boils down to holding serve against weaker opponents. As of right now, I'd rank the West: Tier One Wisconsin Iowa Tier Two Nebraska Tier Three Northwestern Minnesota Tier Four Illinois Purdue Wisconsin and Iowa are the top two teams in the West. Wisconsin looks to be as good as ever, and Iowa just keeps doing Iowa things - not really flashy, but solid & consistent. Nebraska shows flashes of brilliance and garbage. We have talent but we make too many mistakes and we don't play consistent football. This prediction is predicated on Nebraska playing (mostly) error-free ball the rest of the regular season. Minnesota looked good enough against Purdue, but Purdue is a dumpster fire without Rondale Moore, and he's dinged up. Northwestern doesn't seem to have that magic like they did last year, and they already have two conference losses, plus at least two more with Wisconsin & Iowa on the schedule - and should have another after this weekend against Nebraska. Illinois & Purdue look bad. Neither should pose much of a problem to their opponents the rest of the season, especially without a healthy Moore. Current West standings look like this, looking only at conference records: Wisconsin: 2-0 Iowa: 1-0 Minnesota: 1-0 Nebraska: 1-1 Northwestern: 0-2 Purdue: 0-1 Illinois: 0-1 For Nebraska to win the West, we have to leapfrog Iowa, Minnesota & Wisconsin. I think we beat Minnesota straight up. I think Minnesota loses three of their final four games against Penn State, Iowa, & Wisconsin. That puts them with at least four conference losses, and out of the picture. I think Iowa loses their next two games against Michigan and Penn State. That gives them two conference losses, and I think they lose to Wisconsin for three. If we get our errors figured out, at home on Black Friday, I think we can beat the Hawkeyes. That's at least three conference losses (Michigan, Penn State & Wisconsin) and possibly a fourth to Nebraska. I think Wisconsin is the team to beat. And to do that, we may not even have to beat them straight up. If - and this is a big if - they lose to Michigan State in two weeks, that's one conference loss, and they will definitely lose to Ohio State for their second. They only have to lose to one of Nebraska or Iowa for a third loss. But even then, a third loss for Wisconsin may not be necessary. Nebraska finishes the Big Ten slate against: Northwestern Minnesota Indiana Purdue Wisconsin Maryland Iowa We should (should) beat: Northwestern, Minnesota, Indiana, Purdue & Maryland. That's six conference wins. Even if we lose to Wisconsin, but we beat Iowa, that's a 7-2 conference record. All we have to do is hold serve against the weaker teams (Northwestern, Minnesota, Indiana, Purdue & Maryland), then beat one of Wisconsin or Iowa, and we have a great shot at the West. Here's a possible final standings this year: Nebraska 7-2 Wisconsin 6-3 Iowa 6-3 Minnesota 3-6 Northwestern 2-7 Purdue 1-8 Illinois 1-8 Again, the huge caveat to this is we have to fix our errors. We make too many unforced errors giving away points and putting ourselves in a hole. But there's your scenario. There's a realistic shot at winning the division, even after that awful game vs. Ohio State. 14 2 1 1 Quote Link to comment
Undone Posted September 30, 2019 Share Posted September 30, 2019 I love this thread, Knapp. Let's. Get. Hypothetical! Really though. We can still win the West. Who watched Wisconsin vs NW on Saturday? I was encouraged. NW stayed in run fit the whole game and, surprise, surprise - Wisconsin didn't just trample them. The problem was that NW doesn't have a pulse on offense. For this Saturday against them, the key is to staying in run fit and forcing them to throw. Get Mo healthy and hit the edges hard against them = we win. 1 Quote Link to comment
Nebfanatic Posted September 30, 2019 Share Posted September 30, 2019 Well laid out knapp. Fact of the matter is the loss to Colorado stung, but means nothing in the grand scheme of the season. OSU was already penciled in as a possible loss so its not like that game has destroyed our season. Everything is still in front of this team and it all starts next Saturday against NW. We have to hold on to the football but if we do so I don't see us losing to those weaker opponents. We have been good against the run when playing a team we aren't overmatched by and our corners cover less athletic recievers well so I like how our defense matches up with pretty much every team down the stretch. Minnesota has some dangerous recievers but I don't think they can stop our offense if we don't shoot ourselves in the foot. Quote Link to comment
BIG ERN Posted September 30, 2019 Share Posted September 30, 2019 I had the same thought, but we all have after lack luster starts over the past 3 seasons where we still feel we can win the West - and then are really let down. I think going 6-6 is where we for sure want to be at the least. Gotta get to a bowl game this year. I think our D is better suited against teams like NW, Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin. We don't have the athletes to play in space but Mo, Honas, Miller etc. can play better against the run. Our D line will also be more of a factor against those type of offenses. I think below is the best realistic scenario even though it's doubtful. --Wisconsin: Ohio State (L) Tough game against Mich St as well that they prolly win --Iowa: Penn State (L) I think they split between Michigan and Penn St. Could possibly lose both --Nebraksa: Ohio State (L) We can now only slip up once to some team not named Iowa or Wisconsin. For this sake let's say we lose to Purdue. B10 Record if we beat Wisconsin and Iowa. Minnesota is the sneaky team since they will start 2-0 in league play before they play us. They have a tough schedule on the back end. Nebraska: 7-2 (We win the West with the H2H edge) Iowa: 7-2 Wisconsin: 7-2 Quote Link to comment
Waldo Posted September 30, 2019 Share Posted September 30, 2019 This team is too inconsistent to only lose 1 more time this season, even with that schedule. Wisconsin has to be penciled in as an L at this point. NW always plays them hard, so I won’t take this past week as Wisconsin’s standard moving forward. That means Nebraska has to go 3-0 on the road, which has been a struggle for this squad the past couple of seasons. Get to 7 wins and a bowl game, and I’ll be happy at this point. 6 Quote Link to comment
Roger Dorn Posted September 30, 2019 Share Posted September 30, 2019 Good post/thread. As stated above, we can win the West still, contingent on fixing our mistakes. One positive for us, I don’t think there is another team on the schedule that is out of our class talent wise. Ohio State is in a different stratosphere as far as on the field talent goes. I don’t think that’s the case with anyone else on our schedule. Wiscy/Iowa are better coached teams at this point but I wouldn’t necessarily say more talented. We clean up our mistakes and we have a shot at winning any game remaining on our schedule. 1 Quote Link to comment
hskrfan4life Posted September 30, 2019 Share Posted September 30, 2019 8 minutes ago, Waldo said: This team is too inconsistent to only lose 1 more time this season, even with that schedule. Wisconsin has to be penciled in as an L at this point. NW always plays them hard, so I won’t take this past week as Wisconsin’s standard moving forward. That means Nebraska has to go 3-0 on the road, which has been a struggle for this squad the past couple of seasons. Get to 7 wins and a bowl game, and I’ll be happy at this point. They've been inconsistent previously but who's to say they do going forward. Last year Nebraska improved during the season. There is 7 games left and we can improve. 2 Quote Link to comment
CapoValley Posted September 30, 2019 Share Posted September 30, 2019 Tier three includes an undefeated team that will likely still be undefeated and favored against us when we go to Minneapolis to play them. I declare these tiers faulty at best. 1 Quote Link to comment
Saunders Posted September 30, 2019 Share Posted September 30, 2019 Realistically, I don't think it's going to happen. But.. I don't see 8-4 or better as out of the question if we simply stop turning the ball over. Quote Link to comment
BIGREDIOWAN Posted September 30, 2019 Share Posted September 30, 2019 We HAVE to stop turning the ball over, right now I don't know how we beat Wisconsin to win the west. They are really good and I'm scared of what their lines will do to us. Iowa is beatable because their offense isn't built to score a lot of points in a game. They grind you down with fundamental football so if we get them out of their game and don't let them do that we win that game. I think we should get them in a track meet type game because they can't handle that. We have to beat them because it's unbearable living in Iowa with these damn Iowa fans! Of course if we make it to Indy somehow I don't think we beat OSU and at this point I'd be shocked if we ended up there. All the other games outside of Iowa and Wisky should be wins because those teams just aren't good enough at this point. Quote Link to comment
Waldo Posted September 30, 2019 Share Posted September 30, 2019 9 minutes ago, hskrfan4life said: They've been inconsistent previously but who's to say they do going forward. Last year Nebraska improved during the season. There is 7 games left and we can improve. Besides the NIU game, this team has played 3 good quarters of football on both sides of the ball. I’d rather go with the tangible evidence, than a feeling. I don’t think it’s pessimistic to believe we get 7 wins either. That’s an improvement from last year and finishing 4-3. Our only power 5 win currently is against Illinois. We will learn a lot from how this team responds to NW. Quote Link to comment
PoloWearingBeaver Posted September 30, 2019 Share Posted September 30, 2019 https://amp.reddit.com/r/CFB/comments/dbbgs2/win_total_probability_distributions_per_sp/?__twitter_impression=true Nebraska is only the favored team in 2 remaining games in the SP+ 2 1 Quote Link to comment
BigRedBuster Posted September 30, 2019 Share Posted September 30, 2019 Great thread and, I agree, the west championship is still possible. We probably have the easiest path to it. But, like everyone has proclaimed, we have got to stop turning it over. I rewatched the game last night. I was actually surprised at how we were moving the ball in the first half.....and then an interception. We have got to clean that up. The staff knows it, the players know it, 2AM knows it. I believe it will get cleaned up. I just hope it's in time to make this thread not meaningless. Quote Link to comment
Cdog923 Posted September 30, 2019 Share Posted September 30, 2019 This is fantastically laid out.....but at the moment, I would put Nebraska at the bottom of Tier 3, maybe at the top of Tier 4. That, and there shouldn't be any more "should beats" in our vocabulary. This team, as it is currently playing, is more likely to go 2-5 than 5-2. 4 Quote Link to comment
Nebfanatic Posted September 30, 2019 Share Posted September 30, 2019 15 minutes ago, Waldo said: Besides the NIU game, this team has played 3 good quarters of football on both sides of the ball. I’d rather go with the tangible evidence, than a feeling. I don’t think it’s pessimistic to believe we get 7 wins either. That’s an improvement from last year and finishing 4-3. Our only power 5 win currently is against Illinois. We will learn a lot from how this team responds to NW. Tangible evidence says Frost coached teams get better over the course of the season. We hadn't put together a ton of good football at 0-5 last season, but we got better. I expect the same this season. 2 Quote Link to comment
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