2016 Opponent Previews: Northwestern

Saunders

Saunders

Heisman Trophy Winner
Phil Steele

Northwestern made my coveted Most Improved List last year and went from 5-7 to 10-3, doubling their win total. There are some factors pointing down this year. They rate a -5.0 in my Stock Market Indicator (pg 32). They had 5 net close wins LY (pg 24) and had 4 net upsets. Despite their 6-2 Big Ten record they were -39.3 ypg in Big Ten play. On the plus side this team might be more talented. They rate a +17 in all-conf points returning. Despite dropping from 14 ret st’rs to 12, they go from #88 on my Experience Chart up to #46. They have perhaps the best defensive back 7, the top RB’s and a now veteran QB. The do draw Ohio St and Mich St from the B10 East, and 5 of their 9 Big Ten games are on the road. While I do not expect them to get to 10 wins this year, I do expect a bowl game. Two of my 9 sets of power ratings call for 9 wins (including my main one).

https://www.philsteele.com/Pdf/2016_Top_40_Countdown/36_Northwestern.pdf
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CollegeFootballNews.com: After a great ten-win season, can the Wildcats prove it wasn’t a fluke?

Is that sustainable? Is it remotely possible to be that bad offensively, that tight defensively, and get every possible break – or more to what happened last season, create every possible break?

It’s Northwestern, so it’ll never get the top-shelf talent and it’ll never put together a long run of high-end winning seasons since it needs the right mix of things to happen to be a success.

Preview Part : http://collegefootballnews.com/2016/northwestern-wildcats-football-pat-fitzgerald

Preview Part 2: http://collegefootballnews.com/2016/northwestern-wildcats-football-preview-2016

Top Ten Players: http://collegefootballnews.com/2016/preview-2016-top-10-northwestern-football-players
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SBNation: Can Pat Fitzgerald take Northwestern from lucky to just plain good?


Last offseason, I tinkered with a measure called second-order wins. It is basically my version of the Pythagorean Wins concept, where you look at a certain component (usually points or runs scored and allowed) and determine what a team's record probablyshould be as opposed to what it actually is. If you're losing a ton of close games but winning a bunch of blowouts, that's probably a sign that, on average, you would be faring better than you are.

My second-order wins concept looks at the single-game win expectancy figures you see in the 2015 Schedule & Results chart below. The idea behind win expectancy is simple: It takes the key stats from a given game (success rates, explosiveness, field position factors, and other factors that end up going into the S&P+ ratings), mashes them together, and says, "With these stats, you probably could have expected to win this game X percent of the time." Add those figures up over the course of a season, and you get a glimpse of what a given team probably could have expected its record to be.

I have play-by-play data going back to 2005, which means I have data for 1344 FBS teams. Of these 1344, only 15 have managed to finish with a win total at least 2.5 games above what win expectancy would have expected. Nine, meanwhile, have ended up at least 2.5 wins below. This is a few standard deviations from the norm. It happens about once or twice per season.

It happened three times in 2015: Boston College finished 2.9 wins below expectation, and both Houston and Northwestern finished 2.8 wins above.
2016 projected wins: 6.2

Projected S&P+ ranking: 46 (9 in Big Ten)

5-year recruiting ranking: 43 (9 in Big Ten)

Biggest strength: Star LB Anthony Walker and the defense should be awesome once again.

Biggest question mark: Clayton Thorson had a dismal freshman campaign at QB. How much can he improve in a single offseason?
Biggest 2016 game: Nebraska (Sept. 24). Beat the Huskers, and NU could again be a factor in the division race.

Summary: Pat Fitzgerald's Wildcats somehow won 10 games despite awful offense and special teams. Can they shore up their weaknesses enough to account for some inevitable regression to the mean in the luck/randomness department?

http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2016/7/15/12192468/northwestern-football-2016-preview-schedule-roster
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More to come...

 
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Good illustration of how Northwestern probably wasn't as good as their record last year.

For anyone who argues that we were better than our record because of the close losses, Northwestern was the other side of the same coin.


 
Mavric said:
Good illustration of how Northwestern probably wasn't as good as their record last year.

For anyone who argues that we were better than our record because of the close losses, Northwestern was the other side of the same coin.
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Most defintely the ball bounced NW way for most of the year. I have no Idea how they beat Stanford. Stanford must have still been asleep. They played some really good defense most of the year and a good defense will always keep a team in the game.

Conversely the ball didn't bounce NU's way very often. The team acutally had to think up new ways to loose.

 
So someone wanna remind me again why anybody was scared of Northwestern?

Telling ya, 3-9 season is right on track.

 
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