Overachieving and Underachieving Coaches & Seasons

Landlord of Memorial Stadium said:
Mavric said:
Biggest Overachieving Seasons:

#36 - 2013 Nebraska - +1.9 wins
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That 2013 team was.... not good. How they got to 9 wins is pretty amazing, moreso than any other Pelini team imo

The W-L of our 9 opponents we beat was 47-64, the W-L of our 3 opponents we lost to was 39-14.
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That was pretty standard of all Pelini coached Nebrask teams. I looked at every opponent record and schedule at at fbsschedules.com during Pelini years. Pelini ran up his coaching record on teams that finished with 5 and 6 or more losses. It has been over a year since I looked but if my memory is correct it seemed that 85% of Bo's W's at Nebraska were over teams that finished season with 5 or more losses. And about 70% of those had minimum 6 losses. The margin in W-L record changes dramatically when looking at teams that finished with 4 or fewer losses.
 
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cm husker said:
What's the context of those stats? Meaning how do other coaches compare, even if I trust your memory of the numbers.
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Considering the bottom half of your own conference is guaranteed to have at least 4 losses, probably five and likely 6+, plus usually three non-conference opponents who aren't great, I'd say it's would have to be pretty extraordinary to NOT beat a bunch of teams that fit that description each year.

Pure statistics would tell you that six teams on your schedule each year will have 6+ losses. So having 6-7 teams with 6+ losses and probably 7-8 teams with 5+ losses is a pretty typical year.

So I would agree with your point that those numbers are probably pretty common. Bo definitely did have much for big wins. But he didn't have much for "bad" losses either - "bad" in this context being teams with losing records. Kind of the story of the on-field results overall - good but not good enough.

 
OK. So I actually had most of this compiled (don't ask).

If you just look at Bo's tenure, we played 73 Power 5 opponents, 16 other FBS opponents, and 5 FCS opponents.

Of the 73 Power 5 opponents, 48 of them (65.7%) had at least 5 losses and 36 of them (49.3%) had at least 6 losses. We were 31-5 against teams with 6+ losses and 39-9 against teams with 5+ losses (including the 6+ loss teams).

We were 6-19 against teams with 4 or fewer losses.

We were 16-0 against non-Power 5 FBS teams but only two of them had fewer than 5 losses and only three had fewer than 6.

We were 5-0 against FCS opponents who all had at least 5 losses and 3 had at least 6.

So overall, we were 47-5 against teams with 6+ loses and 58-9 against teams with 5+ losses.

In seven years we played 52 teams with 6+ losses (7.4 per year) and 67 teams with 5+ losses (9.5 per year). So I was actually a little light on my guess as to how many of those teams we were playing.

But it should be pretty obvious that most of your wins are going to be against those teams because that mostly who you're playing.

 
Mavric said:
cm husker said:
What's the context of those stats? Meaning how do other coaches compare, even if I trust your memory of the numbers.
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Considering the bottom half of your own conference is guaranteed to have at least 4 losses, probably five and likely 6+, plus usually three non-conference opponents who aren't great, I'd say it's would have to be pretty extraordinary to NOT beat a bunch of teams that fit that description each year.

Pure statistics would tell you that six teams on your schedule each year will have 6+ losses. So having 6-7 teams with 6+ losses and probably 7-8 teams with 5+ losses is a pretty typical year.

So I would agree with your point that those numbers are probably pretty common. Bo definitely did have much for big wins. But he didn't have much for "bad" losses either - "bad" in this context being teams with losing records. Kind of the story of the on-field results overall - good but not good enough.
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Fair assumption to make but in reality the shoe just doesn't fit in this case. Especially as one looks at Bo's first few years as Nebraska HC 2008-2010 as member of the Big 12 North. In those three years CU, KSU, ISU, KU were not just bad, they were awful. Will throw Baylor in that group since were crossover opponent from south for 08-09. These 5 schools completed 14 full seasons in those three years, with best year for any of them being I believe KU in 2008, I think they went 8-4. Of the others, there was I think one other winning season, the average record was 4-8. That is dumpster fire bad. Worst division in history over 3 years, of major conference in D1 football bad.

Count those 5 teams plus 2-3 weaklings in OOC and just about any coach falls into 8 or 9 wins. No bad losses? ISU 2009, WI 2012 Big 10 title game to 5 loss team, WI 400 yards rushing.

 
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It's worth noting that the entire subject of the OP disproves the theory that Pelini built his record on a disportionate number of wins over bad treams.

After all, he was among the top 25 in the country in extra wins over expected wins, so at least by this methodology he beat more than than he should have.

 
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drew95 said:
Mavric said:
cm husker said:
What's the context of those stats? Meaning how do other coaches compare, even if I trust your memory of the numbers.
Click to expand...
Considering the bottom half of your own conference is guaranteed to have at least 4 losses, probably five and likely 6+, plus usually three non-conference opponents who aren't great, I'd say it's would have to be pretty extraordinary to NOT beat a bunch of teams that fit that description each year.

Pure statistics would tell you that six teams on your schedule each year will have 6+ losses. So having 6-7 teams with 6+ losses and probably 7-8 teams with 5+ losses is a pretty typical year.

So I would agree with your point that those numbers are probably pretty common. Bo definitely did have much for big wins. But he didn't have much for "bad" losses either - "bad" in this context being teams with losing records. Kind of the story of the on-field results overall - good but not good enough.
Click to expand...
Fair assumption to make but in reality the shoe just doesn't fit in this case. Especially as one looks at Bo's first few years as Nebraska HC 2008-2010 as member of the Big 12 North. In those three years CU, KSU, ISU, KU were not just bad, they were awful. Will throw Baylor in that group since we're crossover opponent from south for 08-09. These 5 schools completed 14 full seasons in those three years, with best year for any of them being I believe KU in 2008, I think they went 8-4. Of the others, there was I think one other winning season, the average record was 4-8. That is dumpster fire bad. Worst division in history over 3 years, of major conference in D1 football bad.

Count those 5 teams plus 2-3 weaklings in OOC and just about any coach falls into 8 or 9 wins. No bad losses? ISU 2009, WI 2012 Big 10 title game to 5 loss team, WI 400 yards rushing.
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See my numbers above to see that the shoe does in fact fit. Other than I was actually a little light on my guess.

When 79% of your games are against teams with 5+ losses, it shouldn't be that surprising that most of your wins came against those teams. You can make the argument that our record wouldn't have been as good if we played a tougher schedule but you can only beat who you play.

 
drew95 said:
Mavric said:
cm husker said:
What's the context of those stats? Meaning how do other coaches compare, even if I trust your memory of the numbers.
Click to expand...
Considering the bottom half of your own conference is guaranteed to have at least 4 losses, probably five and likely 6+, plus usually three non-conference opponents who aren't great, I'd say it's would have to be pretty extraordinary to NOT beat a bunch of teams that fit that description each year.

Pure statistics would tell you that six teams on your schedule each year will have 6+ losses. So having 6-7 teams with 6+ losses and probably 7-8 teams with 5+ losses is a pretty typical year.

So I would agree with your point that those numbers are probably pretty common. Bo definitely did have much for big wins. But he didn't have much for "bad" losses either - "bad" in this context being teams with losing records. Kind of the story of the on-field results overall - good but not good enough.
Click to expand...
Fair assumption to make but in reality the shoe just doesn't fit in this case. Especially as one looks at Bo's first few years as Nebraska HC 2008-2010 as member of the Big 12 North. In those three years CU, KSU, ISU, KU were not just bad, they were awful. Will throw Baylor in that group since we're crossover opponent from south for 08-09. These 5 schools completed 14 full seasons in those three years, with best year for any of them being I believe KU in 2008, I think they went 8-4. Of the others, there was I think one other winning season, the average record was 4-8. That is dumpster fire bad. Worst division in history over 3 years, of major conference in D1 football bad.
Count those 5 teams plus 2-3 weaklings in OOC and just about any coach falls into 8 or 9 wins. No bad losses? ISU 2009, WI 2012 Big 10 title game to 5 loss team, WI 400 yards rushing.
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You really need to look at the B12N from '04 to '07 to understand why your hyperbole is misplaced. That was a worse body of performance by a division, and that was despite having a Callahan coached team to beat on.

Heck, just this year the B10W had four teams finish with losing records.

I don't think you're being fair in your assessments because you're ignoring the context of the "facts."

 
drew95 said:
cm husker said:
What's the context of those stats? Meaning how do other coaches compare, even if I trust your memory of the numbers.
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Why does there need to be context past facts that I presented. Just take it for what it is.
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You mean context past numbers, not facts. There's a difference. Anyone can pull numbers out of a hat, but the true value is in examining what those numbers actually mean.
 
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cm husker said:
It's worth noting that the entire subject of the OP disproves the theory that Pelini built his record on a disportionate number of wins over bad treams.

After all, he was among the top 25 in the country in extra wins over expected wins, so at least by this methodology he beat more than than he should have.
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Huh?? You must be a liberal. Spinning and twisting facts as you see fit. The facts are there. In bold, screaming out. Pelini did build his record over bad teams. The facts bare that out. Just an example; Wins over Mich and Ohio St were when they each had 5 loss or in Ohio St case, a 7 loss season. But, when Michigan and Ohio St had solid seasons, they whipped our a$$. Games weren't even close

 
saunders45 said:
drew95 said:
cm husker said:
What's the context of those stats? Meaning how do other coaches compare, even if I trust your memory of the numbers.
Click to expand...
Why does there need to be context past facts that I presented. Just take it for what it is.
Click to expand...
You mean context past numbers, not facts. There's a difference. Anyone can pull numbers out of a hat, but the true value is in examining what those numbers actually mean.
Click to expand...
is there really need to make everything more difficult than it needs to be? Take it as it is, they are what they are.

 
I don't get why there is all the hand-ringing over Bo's record against "bad" teams. Part of being a good coach is beating the teams you are supposed to beat. What makes a coach "great" is beating nearly every team he should, along with winning the games against the tough opponentns. I know that it's frustrating when NU was losing to the top teams in the conference, and that's why Bo was fired. I was in favor of Bo getting fired, because of his record against the top programs in the conference.

However, Mike Riley doesn't get a pass from me because NU was able to pull off a big win against Michigan State and a decent win against UCLA. NU lost to 2 horrible teams (Illinois and Purdue) and I also thought the losses to BYU and Northwestern should be considered "bad losses". Riley's teams have a history of being wildly inconsistent, and that's what concerns me about him and his coaching staff.

 
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