Nebraska and the masses.

[NUpolo8]

Hi!

Ok so there's a thread out there today by ol' Phil Steele that shows he is of the opinion that Nebraska is not going to be a preseason top 25 team. Is that a colossal big deal? No, of course not. But I do find it a bit odd, I certainly think that Nebraska is plenty talented enough to be ranked, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that thought.

Now, a common theme is that in these polls, Nebraska doesn't get the benefit of the doubt some teams do, or there's even a bias against Nebraska. Now, I think I bias is a bit much, but an argument certainly can be made for a lack of benefit of the doubt--especially when you see Texas and UGA ranked in Steele's article.

So, has Nebraska does anything to merit this? I thought it'd be fun to look at a stat that many people nationally use to judge a team by; point spreads. Obviously, they aren't shown to pick a winner, but they do reflect how a team is expected to do, especially when you see a ton of points piled on a favorite to ensure equal betting on both teams in a game.

So here we go!

2013: Nebraska against the spread (ATS) 7-6 (won without covering against Wyoming, Northwestern, lost while favored against Iowa, Minnesota, and UCLA, lost and didn't best spread against Michigan St)

2012: Nebraska ATS 7-7 (won without covering against Wisconsin (regular season), Northwestern and Iowa, lost while favored against UCLA and the CCG, lost and didn't beat spread against Ohio St and UGA)

2011: Nebraska ATS 5-8 (won without covering against Ohio St, Chattanooga, Fresno St and Washington, lost while favored against Northwestern, lost and didn't beat spread against Wisconsin, Michigan and South Carolina)

2010: Nebraska ATS 6-7 (won without covering against Western Kentucky, Idaho, Iowa St Kansas, lost when favored against Texas, Texas A&M and Washington (bowl game). Note: this is the last time Nebraska has lost and beaten the spread, losing to OU as four point dogs in the CCG)

2009: Nebraska ATS 9-5 (won without covering against KState, CU and Baylor, lost when favored against Texas Tech and Iowa St, lost and beat the spread against VaTech and Texas)

So, one thing I saw from this, is by this rubric, Nebraska actually improved in 2013 over the past few years, so I have to eat a little crow there. Overall though, Nebraska since 09 (the last time by this rubric it overachieved), has a history to the average guy who looks at point spreads as a team that gets by the teams Everyone thinks they should, loses a few each year that stuns everyone, and almost never is competitive against teams thought to be better than them. (One could argue they performed better against the rubric in 2013 as evidence of people finally learning this, but I won't, I'm trying to just present this).

One thing I wanted to do was to find a year from the "glory years". My thinking was the team in say, 1999, might have a similar record to these teams due to the fact that I seem to remember some of the point spreads back then being just ridiculous for Nebraska. But I couldn't. So, I brought up last years Michigan St squad as a yardstick.

2013 Michigan St ATS 9-4-1 (won without covering against Minnesota, Purdue, Southern Florida and Western Michigan, pushed (and lost) against Notre Dame.

So clearly a lot of cupcake out of conference games you can toss as those spreads are ridiculous (both Sparty's and ours show that) but here you see they won the games they were supposed to, a lot they didn't, and was competitive in the one that the masses saw them losing.

Talk amongst yourselves, but I'd prefer you do it here.

 

[knapplc]

That actually follows along with what we know (or think we know) about the focus put on recruiting by this staff over the years. In 2008, not so much focus - we're Nebraska, players will want to play for us. Didn't work out so well. That mindset changed over the next few years and we're beginning to see improvement in the talent coming in and (according to these numbers) the results on the field.

As pretty much everyone agrees, it's not ONLY the wins & losses, it's how we lose - or how badly we lose, when we lose. We've beaten tough teams each year Bo's been here, and we've been competitive in some tough losses.

We've also gotten our asses handed to us in several losses, and been out-efforted in way too many of those losses.

With a better focus on recruiting and a coaching staff that seems to be figuring things out (again, by these numbers), maybe we'll get off the 4-loss plateau. A great first step would be to eliminate the plethora of double-digit losses.

 

[sd'sker]

i think that this should quash a lot of the arguments that people's expectations are outrageous or the the landscape of football has changed too much for us to be competitive.

a lot of people's criticism comes from the fact that the teams do not perform as well as they could. the issue is how far we are from our potential. this post is demonstrative of that because spreads are based on all of the relevant factors at that time and there is no bias.

so this tells me that the team should be doing much better. but it also says the pieces are there, they just need to be put together.

 

[NUpolo8]

That actually follows along with what we know (or think we know) about the focus put on recruiting by this staff over the years. In 2008, not so much focus - we're Nebraska, players will want to play for us. Didn't work out so well. That mindset changed over the next few years and we're beginning to see improvement in the talent coming in and (according to these numbers) the results on the field.
As pretty much everyone agrees, it's not ONLY the wins & losses, it's how we lose - or how badly we lose, when we lose. We've beaten tough teams each year Bo's been here, and we've been competitive in some tough losses.

We've also gotten our asses handed to us in several losses, and been out-efforted in way too many of those losses.

With a better focus on recruiting and a coaching staff that seems to be figuring things out (again, by these numbers), maybe we'll get off the 4-loss plateau. A great first step would be to eliminate the plethora of double-digit losses.

Actually,the issue is that Nebraska is not competitive in tough losses, at least not anymore.

The last time NU lost and covered the spread was the 2010 CCG against OU as four point dogs. Since, they've lost games people thought they were favorites in, or they got their doors blown as dogs.

The last time they won as dogs (probably should have included this) was the gator bowl this January, and Michigan last year. Before those two times, it was 2011. (Michigan St I believe).

 

[RedDenver]

i think that this should quash a lot of the arguments that people's expectations are outrageous or the the landscape of football has changed too much for us to be competitive.

a lot of people's criticism comes from the fact that the teams do not perform as well as they could. the issue is how far we are from our potential. this post is demonstrative of that because spreads are based on all of the relevant factors at that time and there is no bias.

so this tells me that the team should be doing much better. but it also says the pieces are there, they just need to be put together.

Spreads are most certainly biased. The bets are made by people, who have their own individual biases. And the number of bets for each side is not even, only the money is.

 

[Redux]

For the record I dont think the landscape has changed so drastically that Nebraska CANNOT be competetive no matter who the coach is. I simply meant alot of programs who were behind us in the 80's and 90's have caught up to us and surpassed us in recruiting, strength and conditioning, etc etc. These are fixable problems, we just have to get there.

The other big thing was our appeal being so visible. Now everybody is just as visible as us, if not more. Success breeds visibility though so with wins the exposure will return. Look at Bama, they have been crammed down our throat for the better part of a decade now.

 

[Landlord]

Interesting numbers, but they don't really mean anything if we don't have the same numbers for some teams in similar contexts (traditional powers with poor 2013 campaigns), since the topic is about whether we deserve the benefit of the doubt in national conversations.

 

[walksalone]

When you start winning games against better teams and teams ranked higher than you, then you start generating conversation...

Then people can stop worrying about if "we're relevant" or not...

Winning solves everything...

 

[BigRedBuster]

I really don't give a rip how we do against the spread. The spread is a gambling stat that means nothing outside of that.

 

[knapplc]

That actually follows along with what we know (or think we know) about the focus put on recruiting by this staff over the years. In 2008, not so much focus - we're Nebraska, players will want to play for us. Didn't work out so well. That mindset changed over the next few years and we're beginning to see improvement in the talent coming in and (according to these numbers) the results on the field.
As pretty much everyone agrees, it's not ONLY the wins & losses, it's how we lose - or how badly we lose, when we lose. We've beaten tough teams each year Bo's been here, and we've been competitive in some tough losses.

We've also gotten our asses handed to us in several losses, and been out-efforted in way too many of those losses.

With a better focus on recruiting and a coaching staff that seems to be figuring things out (again, by these numbers), maybe we'll get off the 4-loss plateau. A great first step would be to eliminate the plethora of double-digit losses.

Actually,the issue is that Nebraska is not competitive in tough losses, at least not anymore.

The last time NU lost and covered the spread was the 2010 CCG against OU as four point dogs. Since, they've lost games people thought they were favorites in, or they got their doors blown as dogs.

The last time they won as dogs (probably should have included this) was the gator bowl this January, and Michigan last year. Before those two times, it was 2011. (Michigan St I believe).

The underlined is the "what." I was trying to guessplain the "why" by talking about recruiting efforts. Certainly coaching and culture play a huge role in that lack of competition as well.