knapplc
International Man of Mystery
I compiled this data a while ago, and meant to post it around Fan Day, but I never found the time. The original post was going to be huge, full of charts & graphs & thoughtful analysis.
Instead, you're getting what amounts to a data dump, and you're just going to have to like it. I'm not sorry.
The time frame covers our first three years in the conference, beginning with our Friday, August 19th, 2011 soccer match against North Carolina (our first-ever competition as a member of the Big Ten) and ends with baseball's loss to Cal State Fullerton on June 1th, 2014.
I compiled the W/L records of Nebraska's top three Men's & Women's sports and threw them into a spreadsheet. The sports:
Men's: Football, Basketball, Baseball
Women's: Volleyball, Basketball, Softball.
In the first set of charts, I've included all wins & losses, conference & non-conference & post-season. No pre-season or exhibition games/matches are included.
The general trend over these six major sports is up. We finished our first year of competition in the Big Ten with a .639 winning percentage overall and .588 against conference competition.
That improved to .646 overall in 2012/2013, and .639 in conference, winning one percent more games overall, and five percent more in conference.
By year three Nebraska had their feet firmly under them, winning 71% of all games, and 73% of conference games. 2013/2014 was also the first year in conference that none of our major sports had a losing record, either overall or in conference.
Unsurprisingly, gaining familiarity in our surroundings has paid dividends in competition.
That covers all competition. Time to focus specifically on our conference foes.
This set focuses solely on in-conference competition. I included any games/matches we played against Maryland and Rutgers (both here and above) because I can and you can't stop me.
Oddly, the only conference foe against whom Nebraska doesn't have an overall winning record is Purdue. We're .500 against them overall in all sports. We have a winning record against every other conference foe (Maryland wasn't a conference foe until now).
Football
Of course, the elephant in the room is football. It's the cash cow, the major sport, the sport upon which we hang our collective hats.
On the positive side, we have beaten every single conference foe we've played. The Big Ten in their wisdom has seen fit to keep us from playing Indiana on the gridiron, but we've played everyone else so far, and we're doing pretty good.
We have winning records against eight of the ten teams we've played, including zero losses to Illinois, Penn State and Purdue. We have a .500 record against Ohio State and a losing record against only one conference foe - Wisconsin. Hopefully we can get back to .500 against the Badgers this year.
We've won 68% of our conference football games in our first three years, not great by any means, and not terrible by any means. Kinda just "meh." But we've had some pretty damned exciting games, and the venues have been pretty cool.
The Battle For NU
Ostensibly, The Battle For NU covers football bragging rights only, but I included all six sports for this breakdown. In football only, Nebraska owns a 2-1 record against the Compass Points, including two come-from-behind victories and three quite entertaining - if nerve-wracking - games.
If we expand TBFNU to cover all sports, Northwestern would have won the trophy in 2011 with a 6-5 all-sport win. The past two years have been a bit different, however. Nebraska swept NW 9-0 in all sports in 2012/2013, and went 9-4 in 2013/2014. In the overall series, in all major sports, Nebraska holds a 23-10 advantage, an overall .697 winning percentage.
So, there you have it. That's a bow put on the Legends/Leaders era of the Big Ten.
Instead, you're getting what amounts to a data dump, and you're just going to have to like it. I'm not sorry.
The time frame covers our first three years in the conference, beginning with our Friday, August 19th, 2011 soccer match against North Carolina (our first-ever competition as a member of the Big Ten) and ends with baseball's loss to Cal State Fullerton on June 1th, 2014.
I compiled the W/L records of Nebraska's top three Men's & Women's sports and threw them into a spreadsheet. The sports:
Men's: Football, Basketball, Baseball
Women's: Volleyball, Basketball, Softball.
In the first set of charts, I've included all wins & losses, conference & non-conference & post-season. No pre-season or exhibition games/matches are included.
The general trend over these six major sports is up. We finished our first year of competition in the Big Ten with a .639 winning percentage overall and .588 against conference competition.
That improved to .646 overall in 2012/2013, and .639 in conference, winning one percent more games overall, and five percent more in conference.
By year three Nebraska had their feet firmly under them, winning 71% of all games, and 73% of conference games. 2013/2014 was also the first year in conference that none of our major sports had a losing record, either overall or in conference.
Unsurprisingly, gaining familiarity in our surroundings has paid dividends in competition.
That covers all competition. Time to focus specifically on our conference foes.
This set focuses solely on in-conference competition. I included any games/matches we played against Maryland and Rutgers (both here and above) because I can and you can't stop me.
Oddly, the only conference foe against whom Nebraska doesn't have an overall winning record is Purdue. We're .500 against them overall in all sports. We have a winning record against every other conference foe (Maryland wasn't a conference foe until now).
Football
Of course, the elephant in the room is football. It's the cash cow, the major sport, the sport upon which we hang our collective hats.
On the positive side, we have beaten every single conference foe we've played. The Big Ten in their wisdom has seen fit to keep us from playing Indiana on the gridiron, but we've played everyone else so far, and we're doing pretty good.
We have winning records against eight of the ten teams we've played, including zero losses to Illinois, Penn State and Purdue. We have a .500 record against Ohio State and a losing record against only one conference foe - Wisconsin. Hopefully we can get back to .500 against the Badgers this year.
We've won 68% of our conference football games in our first three years, not great by any means, and not terrible by any means. Kinda just "meh." But we've had some pretty damned exciting games, and the venues have been pretty cool.
The Battle For NU
Ostensibly, The Battle For NU covers football bragging rights only, but I included all six sports for this breakdown. In football only, Nebraska owns a 2-1 record against the Compass Points, including two come-from-behind victories and three quite entertaining - if nerve-wracking - games.
If we expand TBFNU to cover all sports, Northwestern would have won the trophy in 2011 with a 6-5 all-sport win. The past two years have been a bit different, however. Nebraska swept NW 9-0 in all sports in 2012/2013, and went 9-4 in 2013/2014. In the overall series, in all major sports, Nebraska holds a 23-10 advantage, an overall .697 winning percentage.
So, there you have it. That's a bow put on the Legends/Leaders era of the Big Ten.
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