Nebraska vs Purdue (talent discussion)

[cm husker]

From the thread about B1G West talent last week

We are basically even with Purdue on the 2 deep

http://www.huskerboard.com/index.php?/topic/77151-unsportsmanlike-conduct20151027how-talented-is-nebraska/

I read the article and without seeing it in comparison to teams across the country, it doesn't mean as much. What's the scale being used? For instance, if Ohio State is a 5.9, and UCF is a 5.0, the spread is small, and it's not as close as it appears.

The scale is how each service ranks the players
Rivals

The ranking system ranks prospects on a numerical scale from 6.1-4.9.

• 6.1 Franchise Player; considered one of the elite prospects in the country, generally among the nation's top 25 players overall; deemed to have excellent pro potential; high-major prospect
• 6.0-5.8 All-American Candidate; high-major prospect; considered one of the nation's top 300 prospects; deemed to have pro potential and ability to make an impact on college team
• 5.7-5.5 All-Region Selection; considered among the region's top prospects and among the top 750 or so prospects in the country; high-to-mid-major prospect; deemed to have pro potential and ability to make an impact on college team
• 5.4-5.0 Division I prospect; considered a mid-major prospect; deemed to have limited pro potential but definite Division I prospect; may be more of a role player
• 4.9 Sleeper; no Rivals.com expert knew much, if anything, about this player; a prospect that only a college coach really knew about

247

110 - 101 = Franchise Player. One of the best players to come along in years, if not decades. Odds of having a player in this category every year is slim. This prospect has "cant miss" talent.

100 - 98 = Five-star prospect. One of the top 30 players in the nation. This player has excellent pro-potential and should emerge as one of the best in the country before the end of his career. There will be 32 prospects ranked in this range in every football class to mirror the first round of the NFL Draft.

97 - 90 = Four-star prospect. One of the top 300 players in the nation. This prospect will be an impact-player for his college team. He is an All-American candidate who is projected to play professionally.

89 - 80 = Three-star prospect. One of the top 10% players in the nation. This player will develop into a reliable starter for his college team and is among the best players in his region of the country. Many three-stars have significant pro potential.

79 - below = Two-star prospect. This player makes up the bulk of Division I rosters. He may have little pro-potential, but is likely to become a role player for his respective school.

I get that. But see my example about comparison for the range of values. It's important to establish how much weight to give to the variance.

Exactly. That's why back in that original thread, I showed that the variance between NU and MSU is actually smaller than the one between Purdue and NU. And that if you control for walkons, which are clearly not adequately captured in this methodology, NU and MSU are tied and both outpace Purdue by a wide margin.

The entire premise that we should rely on unpaid (or very low paid) rivals recruitniks for determining a kid's ability out of high school based on an arbitrary decimal point is flawed. It actually just idiotic.

 

[84HuskerLaw]

I don't pay attention to star rankings. Could give a sh#t less. Four or five shiny stars beside your name doesn't make you a good football player at this level. It makes you a good football player in high school.

Nebraska has plenty of four star examples on the roster right now that either haven't taken a single snap of football at this level, or haven't had any impact when they've been in there.

Did we look more talented than Purdue to you guys? I didn't see it. Maybe here or there at a couple spots. Westerkamp seems to be the most obvious.

Every play I saw for the most part it looked like we had a player position to make a play and just didn't make the play on defense. Our defensive backs clearly can't play in a system like this. Does that mean Banker should scrap it, or should we try to get some better DB's? I don't know how that will play out.

Lot's of plays where linebackers over ran plays, got lost or out of position, and just plain didn't make the play. I think Young and Banderas are pretty talented guys, Newby too, but where is it? How is it paying off and where are they showing it? You gotta make plays kids.

Can talk about Langsdorf and the offense all game. Scored 29 points in the fourth Quarter correct? It appeared to me when we executed, we seemed to do well. When we didn't execute, it didn't go well. Funny how that works.......

Ozigbo needs to carry the ball. He is talented. I like how Fyfe is able to get the simple completions to our backfield players. We need more of that. Fyfe is simply not an accurate passer of the football. Nor is Tommy consistently......

Five turnovers, tough to win games.

Again, defense is ugly, but I challenge you to find me the plays where the guys were not in position to make the play. For any one instance you can find, I can find ten of them where the player did something wrong or didn't make the play.

Not all on the players, though, I know that's not the popular thing to say. So fire some people! Hooray! That ought to fix it.

I tend to agree with much of this and the sentiment certainly. It is very disappointing. I don't believe the talent is there to play much better. Last year, we were a couple miracles and last second plays from being about 7-5 and maybe could be or should have been worse. We showed we could play at the level of mcneese state guys! This year, the cupboard is almost empty. Truly, I believe our talent is maybe around 75th in the country, especially when you take out the injured guys each week. I read in another post we actually started 6 guys who had no other offers but ours and assume that did not include walk ons. That tells you we are NOT playing with a full deck of decent and above average players. It is hard to win when your opponent is better than you.

I think many Nebraska fans have based their judgement about our talent and recruiting on the hype the LJS and OWH write. Those newspapers and reporters get their news from the PR people who of course are interested in spinning things to promote themselves. We know Pelini was getting desperate in recruiting the past couple years as the AD had to arrange private jets to fly him around and bring in recruits, etc. Our recruiting has not been sufficient to produce top ten teams - there is just no debating this point.

 

[cm husker]

I think Riley and Pederhorst fans base their judgment on NU talent based on results caused by poor coaching.

Before the season, who here looked at our roster and our schedule and predicted NU would be 3-6. Of that small number who argued it would be due to talent deficiencies?

USA Today writer nailed it: all sorts of revisionism going on.

And produce top ten teams??!? Who's arguing that???! How about a top 100 team? Do we have the talent for that? Or to expect wins over teams that aren't top 100?

 

[cm husker]

"75th most talented team in the country" smfh

Fine. Play that game. But NU has maybe the 110th most talented coaching staff. And that isn't going to get better. No matter who you recruit.

A good coach would not be 3-6 with this team.

 

[Joe_5700]

Lets go back a few years to 2013. Purdue was 1-4 when we went to West Lafayette. Armstrong threw for 3 interceptions and really struggled. Walk-on Kellogg had to come in to relieve Armstrong. The score 44-7. Purdue's 2013 squad was bad but played MSU relatively close. Purdue's 2015 squad is just as bad and, well...you know what happened.

Enough with the excuses. We just suffered our worst loss in 50+ years. Hiring Riley was a mistake of epic proportions. This staff is clearly in WAY over their heads and it is not going to improve this season or the next. There is going to be an exodus of current players as well as commits if nothing is done about this. This year, we had a very easy schedule, but next year things could get even uglier if we retain this staff.

 

[SuperBigFan69]

Now that I think about it...Purdue does seem pretty loaded. I am shocked Vegas had them as an underdog.

 

[dergibog]

Purdue isn't as bad as people would have us think, and I'm sick of hearing all the talking heads telling us the Huskers are more athletic and talented than our opponents. Although the Boilermakers were beaten by Minnesota, they played the Spartans to within a field goal.

But what about the Huskers...

Who are our play makers?

Do we have an offensive lineman who could even block an artery?

Can we get one turnover in a game like this?

 

[SuperBigFan69]

Purdue isn't as bad as people would have us think, and I'm sick of hearing all the talking heads telling us the Huskers are more athletic and talented than our opponents. Although the Boilermakers were beaten by Minnesota, they played the Spartans to within a field goal.

But what about the Huskers...

Who are our play makers?

Do we have an offensive lineman who could even block an artery?

Can we get one turnover in a game like this?

Yes...Purdue is just about 256 plays away from having a winning record over the last 3 seasons...

 

[Joe_5700]

Purdue isn't as bad as people would have us think, and I'm sick of hearing all the talking heads telling us the Huskers are more athletic and talented than our opponents. Although the Boilermakers were beaten by Minnesota, they played the Spartans to within a field goal.

But what about the Huskers...

Who are our play makers?

Do we have an offensive lineman who could even block an artery?

Can we get one turnover in a game like this?

YES, THEY ARE. The sad thing is, we are even worse.

 

[cm husker]

People are too focused on perceived talent disparities.

What we should recognize is that Purdue is a very poorly coached team. Hence their record the past 3 years.

And they just lit up NU's staff.

That is the disparity we should be focused on.

 

[Bowfin]

Purdue had the Big Ten player of the week for both offense and defense. I don't begrudge them that or a cathartic win for a struggling program. In fact I am somewhat happy for them, except for the downside that it came at the expense of Ryker Fyfe, Mike Riley, and the rest of the team. Much rather that they had knocked off the Buckeyes and wish that Minnesota could have handed that brown jug to Jerry Kill one last time.

Here's hoping that it is Nebraska doing the same to Michigan State...and Iowa...that's only fair.

 

[3rd and long]

I don't pay attention to star rankings. Could give a sh#t less. Four or five shiny stars beside your name doesn't make you a good football player at this level. It makes you a good football player in high school.

Nebraska has plenty of four star examples on the roster right now that either haven't taken a single snap of football at this level, or haven't had any impact when they've been in there.

Did we look more talented than Purdue to you guys? I didn't see it. Maybe here or there at a couple spots. Westerkamp seems to be the most obvious.

Every play I saw for the most part it looked like we had a player position to make a play and just didn't make the play on defense. Our defensive backs clearly can't play in a system like this. Does that mean Banker should scrap it, or should we try to get some better DB's? I don't know how that will play out.

Lot's of plays where linebackers over ran plays, got lost or out of position, and just plain didn't make the play. I think Young and Banderas are pretty talented guys, Newby too, but where is it? How is it paying off and where are they showing it? You gotta make plays kids.

Can talk about Langsdorf and the offense all game. Scored 29 points in the fourth Quarter correct? It appeared to me when we executed, we seemed to do well. When we didn't execute, it didn't go well. Funny how that works.......

Ozigbo needs to carry the ball. He is talented. I like how Fyfe is able to get the simple completions to our backfield players. We need more of that. Fyfe is simply not an accurate passer of the football. Nor is Tommy consistently......

Five turnovers, tough to win games.

Again, defense is ugly, but I challenge you to find me the plays where the guys were not in position to make the play. For any one instance you can find, I can find ten of them where the player did something wrong or didn't make the play.

Not all on the players, though, I know that's not the popular thing to say. So fire some people! Hooray! That ought to fix it.

I tend to agree with much of this and the sentiment certainly. It is very disappointing. I don't believe the talent is there to play much better. Last year, we were a couple miracles and last second plays from being about 7-5 and maybe could be or should have been worse. We showed we could play at the level of mcneese state guys! This year, the cupboard is almost empty. Truly, I believe our talent is maybe around 75th in the country, especially when you take out the injured guys each week. I read in another post we actually started 6 guys who had no other offers but ours and assume that did not include walk ons. That tells you we are NOT playing with a full deck of decent and above average players. It is hard to win when your opponent is better than you. I think many Nebraska fans have based their judgement about our talent and recruiting on the hype the LJS and OWH write. Those newspapers and reporters get their news from the PR people who of course are interested in spinning things to promote themselves. We know Pelini was getting desperate in recruiting the past couple years as the AD had to arrange private jets to fly him around and bring in recruits, etc. Our recruiting has not been sufficient to produce top ten teams - there is just no debating this point.

We might not be very talented, maybe we are around the 75th most talented team in the country. Maybe we don't have a bunch of playmakers.

But we're sure as heck every bit as talented (and in reality, more so) than every team we've played. And we're 3-6. So if on any given Saturday our talent is better than theirs and yet we continue to lose, where we do we look? ........At the coaching.

And the stuff about our players not executing or making plays.........well whose job is it to get those players to do so?

 

[GBRedneck]

I don't pay attention to star rankings. Could give a sh#t less. Four or five shiny stars beside your name doesn't make you a good football player at this level. It makes you a good football player in high school.

Nebraska has plenty of four star examples on the roster right now that either haven't taken a single snap of football at this level, or haven't had any impact when they've been in there.

Did we look more talented than Purdue to you guys? I didn't see it. Maybe here or there at a couple spots. Westerkamp seems to be the most obvious.

Every play I saw for the most part it looked like we had a player position to make a play and just didn't make the play on defense. Our defensive backs clearly can't play in a system like this. Does that mean Banker should scrap it, or should we try to get some better DB's? I don't know how that will play out.

Lot's of plays where linebackers over ran plays, got lost or out of position, and just plain didn't make the play. I think Young and Banderas are pretty talented guys, Newby too, but where is it? How is it paying off and where are they showing it? You gotta make plays kids.

Can talk about Langsdorf and the offense all game. Scored 29 points in the fourth Quarter correct? It appeared to me when we executed, we seemed to do well. When we didn't execute, it didn't go well. Funny how that works.......

Ozigbo needs to carry the ball. He is talented. I like how Fyfe is able to get the simple completions to our backfield players. We need more of that. Fyfe is simply not an accurate passer of the football. Nor is Tommy consistently......

Five turnovers, tough to win games.

Again, defense is ugly, but I challenge you to find me the plays where the guys were not in position to make the play. For any one instance you can find, I can find ten of them where the player did something wrong or didn't make the play.

Not all on the players, though, I know that's not the popular thing to say. So fire some people! Hooray! That ought to fix it.

I tend to agree with much of this and the sentiment certainly. It is very disappointing. I don't believe the talent is there to play much better. Last year, we were a couple miracles and last second plays from being about 7-5 and maybe could be or should have been worse. We showed we could play at the level of mcneese state guys! This year, the cupboard is almost empty. Truly, I believe our talent is maybe around 75th in the country, especially when you take out the injured guys each week. I read in another post we actually started 6 guys who had no other offers but ours and assume that did not include walk ons. That tells you we are NOT playing with a full deck of decent and above average players. It is hard to win when your opponent is better than you. I think many Nebraska fans have based their judgement about our talent and recruiting on the hype the LJS and OWH write. Those newspapers and reporters get their news from the PR people who of course are interested in spinning things to promote themselves. We know Pelini was getting desperate in recruiting the past couple years as the AD had to arrange private jets to fly him around and bring in recruits, etc. Our recruiting has not been sufficient to produce top ten teams - there is just no debating this point.

We might not be very talented, maybe we are around the 75th most talented team in the country. Maybe we don't have a bunch of playmakers.

But we're sure as heck every bit as talented (and in reality, more so) than every team we've played. And we're 3-6. So if on any given Saturday our talent is better than theirs and yet we continue to lose, where we do we look? ........At the coaching.

And the stuff about our players not executing or making plays.........well whose job is it to get those players to do so?

I'm honestly completely at a loss for what some of the posters here think a coaching staff actually does or is supposed to do. From reading some of the comments, some people seem to think that all coaches do is write gameplans, publish playbooks and fill out roster sheets and depth charts.

 

[3rd and long]

I don't pay attention to star rankings. Could give a sh#t less. Four or five shiny stars beside your name doesn't make you a good football player at this level. It makes you a good football player in high school.

Nebraska has plenty of four star examples on the roster right now that either haven't taken a single snap of football at this level, or haven't had any impact when they've been in there.

Did we look more talented than Purdue to you guys? I didn't see it. Maybe here or there at a couple spots. Westerkamp seems to be the most obvious.

Every play I saw for the most part it looked like we had a player position to make a play and just didn't make the play on defense. Our defensive backs clearly can't play in a system like this. Does that mean Banker should scrap it, or should we try to get some better DB's? I don't know how that will play out.

Lot's of plays where linebackers over ran plays, got lost or out of position, and just plain didn't make the play. I think Young and Banderas are pretty talented guys, Newby too, but where is it? How is it paying off and where are they showing it? You gotta make plays kids.

Can talk about Langsdorf and the offense all game. Scored 29 points in the fourth Quarter correct? It appeared to me when we executed, we seemed to do well. When we didn't execute, it didn't go well. Funny how that works.......

Ozigbo needs to carry the ball. He is talented. I like how Fyfe is able to get the simple completions to our backfield players. We need more of that. Fyfe is simply not an accurate passer of the football. Nor is Tommy consistently......

Five turnovers, tough to win games.

Again, defense is ugly, but I challenge you to find me the plays where the guys were not in position to make the play. For any one instance you can find, I can find ten of them where the player did something wrong or didn't make the play.

Not all on the players, though, I know that's not the popular thing to say. So fire some people! Hooray! That ought to fix it.

I tend to agree with much of this and the sentiment certainly. It is very disappointing. I don't believe the talent is there to play much better. Last year, we were a couple miracles and last second plays from being about 7-5 and maybe could be or should have been worse. We showed we could play at the level of mcneese state guys! This year, the cupboard is almost empty. Truly, I believe our talent is maybe around 75th in the country, especially when you take out the injured guys each week. I read in another post we actually started 6 guys who had no other offers but ours and assume that did not include walk ons. That tells you we are NOT playing with a full deck of decent and above average players. It is hard to win when your opponent is better than you. I think many Nebraska fans have based their judgement about our talent and recruiting on the hype the LJS and OWH write. Those newspapers and reporters get their news from the PR people who of course are interested in spinning things to promote themselves. We know Pelini was getting desperate in recruiting the past couple years as the AD had to arrange private jets to fly him around and bring in recruits, etc. Our recruiting has not been sufficient to produce top ten teams - there is just no debating this point.

We might not be very talented, maybe we are around the 75th most talented team in the country. Maybe we don't have a bunch of playmakers.

But we're sure as heck every bit as talented (and in reality, more so) than every team we've played. And we're 3-6. So if on any given Saturday our talent is better than theirs and yet we continue to lose, where we do we look? ........At the coaching.

And the stuff about our players not executing or making plays.........well whose job is it to get those players to do so?

I'm honestly completely at a loss for what some of the posters here think a coaching staff actually does or is supposed to do. From reading some of the comments, some people seem to think that all coaches do is write gameplans, publish playbooks and fill out roster sheets and depth charts.

It always makes me wonder. I watch games where players (and often, almost the entire team) are so fundamentally sound at the basics, blocking and tackling. Not all of those kids came out of high school that solid. Someone is teaching them during practice to make those kids even more proficent at the basics.

 

[GBRedneck]

I don't pay attention to star rankings. Could give a sh#t less. Four or five shiny stars beside your name doesn't make you a good football player at this level. It makes you a good football player in high school.

Nebraska has plenty of four star examples on the roster right now that either haven't taken a single snap of football at this level, or haven't had any impact when they've been in there.

Did we look more talented than Purdue to you guys? I didn't see it. Maybe here or there at a couple spots. Westerkamp seems to be the most obvious.

Every play I saw for the most part it looked like we had a player position to make a play and just didn't make the play on defense. Our defensive backs clearly can't play in a system like this. Does that mean Banker should scrap it, or should we try to get some better DB's? I don't know how that will play out.

Lot's of plays where linebackers over ran plays, got lost or out of position, and just plain didn't make the play. I think Young and Banderas are pretty talented guys, Newby too, but where is it? How is it paying off and where are they showing it? You gotta make plays kids.

Can talk about Langsdorf and the offense all game. Scored 29 points in the fourth Quarter correct? It appeared to me when we executed, we seemed to do well. When we didn't execute, it didn't go well. Funny how that works.......

Ozigbo needs to carry the ball. He is talented. I like how Fyfe is able to get the simple completions to our backfield players. We need more of that. Fyfe is simply not an accurate passer of the football. Nor is Tommy consistently......

Five turnovers, tough to win games.

Again, defense is ugly, but I challenge you to find me the plays where the guys were not in position to make the play. For any one instance you can find, I can find ten of them where the player did something wrong or didn't make the play.

Not all on the players, though, I know that's not the popular thing to say. So fire some people! Hooray! That ought to fix it.

I tend to agree with much of this and the sentiment certainly. It is very disappointing. I don't believe the talent is there to play much better. Last year, we were a couple miracles and last second plays from being about 7-5 and maybe could be or should have been worse. We showed we could play at the level of mcneese state guys! This year, the cupboard is almost empty. Truly, I believe our talent is maybe around 75th in the country, especially when you take out the injured guys each week. I read in another post we actually started 6 guys who had no other offers but ours and assume that did not include walk ons. That tells you we are NOT playing with a full deck of decent and above average players. It is hard to win when your opponent is better than you. I think many Nebraska fans have based their judgement about our talent and recruiting on the hype the LJS and OWH write. Those newspapers and reporters get their news from the PR people who of course are interested in spinning things to promote themselves. We know Pelini was getting desperate in recruiting the past couple years as the AD had to arrange private jets to fly him around and bring in recruits, etc. Our recruiting has not been sufficient to produce top ten teams - there is just no debating this point.

We might not be very talented, maybe we are around the 75th most talented team in the country. Maybe we don't have a bunch of playmakers.

But we're sure as heck every bit as talented (and in reality, more so) than every team we've played. And we're 3-6. So if on any given Saturday our talent is better than theirs and yet we continue to lose, where we do we look? ........At the coaching.

And the stuff about our players not executing or making plays.........well whose job is it to get those players to do so?

I'm honestly completely at a loss for what some of the posters here think a coaching staff actually does or is supposed to do. From reading some of the comments, some people seem to think that all coaches do is write gameplans, publish playbooks and fill out roster sheets and depth charts.

It always makes me wonder. I watch games where players (and often, almost the entire team) are so fundamentally sound at the basics, blocking and tackling. Not all of those kids came out of high school that solid. Someone is teaching them during practice to make those kids even more proficent at the basics.

Not only teaching it, but reinforcing it and motivating the players to want to keep improving even more.