OWH: Real talk on turnover margin

[SuperBigFan69]

A lot of it depends on when and where the turnovers happen.

Up 30 points and 5 minutes left and you fumble, who really cares. Down 30 points with 5 minutes left and you fumble, who really cares.

Hail Mary at the end of the game when a TD won't change the outcome (expect for people that bet on it) who cares.

So out of all the Husker turnovers last season about how many of them were turnovers that really mattered?

 

[admo]

A lot of it depends on when and where the turnovers happen.

Up 30 points and 5 minutes left and you fumble, who really cares. Down 30 points with 5 minutes left and you fumble, who really cares.

Hail Mary at the end of the game when a TD won't change the outcome (expect for people that bet on it) who cares.

So out of all the Husker turnovers last season about how many of them were turnovers that really mattered?

Good point. To me the Miami INT in overtime mattered. The Iowa pick six mattered and the NW pick six mattered. A few more INTs against Iowa happened with the Huskers having the ball around midfield. Maybe some points were lost there. Those stood out the most. Wasn't there some picks thrown against Purdue inside our own 20? Not sure if that mattered too much because the defense was terrible that day.

 

[admo]

Turnovers are part of the game, but the Blackshirts didn't help forcing turnovers. Just 2 INTs and I believe one forced fumble in those 7 losses while the offense turned it over 18 times. Field position, momentum, a tired defense... it changes everything IMO.

 

[SuperBigFan69]

A lot of it depends on when and where the turnovers happen.

Up 30 points and 5 minutes left and you fumble, who really cares. Down 30 points with 5 minutes left and you fumble, who really cares.

Hail Mary at the end of the game when a TD won't change the outcome (expect for people that bet on it) who cares.

So out of all the Husker turnovers last season about how many of them were turnovers that really mattered?

Good point. To me the Miami INT in overtime mattered. The Iowa pick six mattered and the NW pick six mattered. A few more INTs against Iowa happened with the Huskers having the ball around midfield. Maybe some points were lost there. Those stood out the most. Wasn't there some picks thrown against Purdue inside our own 20? Not sure if that mattered too much because the defense was terrible that day.

Yeah those were all pretty big ones!

 

[Mavric]

And you can actually make a pretty good argument that all the turnovers last year weren't that direct of an effect on our record. If we don't completely botch the ends of the BYU, Illinois and Wisconsin games, that would have been 8 wins without changing the turnovers at all. Turnovers definitely dug us in a hole at Purdue but I would argue they were not the cause of us being way behind but rather the effect of perhaps the most ill-conceived game plan in the history of Husker football. We only had one turnover against Northwestern (granted it was a biggie) but could easily have won that game. And even the Miami and Iowa games we could have still won despite multiple turnovers.

So we could (should) have easily won 8 games without and change in turnovers and probably should have been 9 without the debacle in West Lafayette. So while the turnovers definitely didn't help, we still should have been able to overcome most of them to have a respectable season.

True, but we also played a weak schedule.

We were -12 in TO margin, so if we simply committed one less TO per game (putting us at even), we're very likely a 9-10 win team rather easily. Then, if you simply force more turnovers, you're looking at a +12 (ala Iowa) and are suddenly in the running for the playoff, all without being that much more talented.

And that's why the comparisons between Nebraska and Iowa last year being similar even though they had different records make sense. Iowa just didn't commit turnovers, and they gained a more than us. Iowa forced 27 turnovers, and committed 15. Nebraska got 16 turnovers, and committed 27. That's the difference.

Again, I'm not saying we don't need to improve there. And fewer turnovers could have changed the outcome of games just like doing other things differently could have. But we wouldn't have HAD to fix the turnovers to do better last year. We could have done a lot of things just a little differently to get significantly different results.

Iowa did a nice job with turnovers. But I'm pretty sure them being #22 in Total Defense vs. us being #64 had at least as much and probably more to do with their better results than turnovers. Plus they were also #13 in Turnovers Gained while we were #105.

 

[junior4949]

What happened to Bo's philosophy? When he was DC for Solich the Huskers had 32 interceptions.

From the first link above:

it’s worth noting that the 2003 team’s 47 takeaways is a slight outlier. Washington had 48 that year and those two totals are still the first- and second-most for any team, regardless of games played, this century. Forcing that many turnovers is rare.

I was very excited about the 2003 defense. Bohl was terrible the year before, and then Bo comes in and gets 47 TOs. I was under the delusion that Bo would only get better since that was his first year as a DC. I figured 50 TOs would be an average year

I don't think that his one year here in 2003 was indicative of his philosophy or scheme on defense. He basically had an incredible amount of athletic talent in the back 7, and he "freed them up" to go make plays. I think that he did a good job coaching them, but the scheme he installed post-2008 was different.

Josh Bullocks had 10 INT by himself, Super-Demorrio had 128 tackles and 11 sacks, Barrett Ruud had 149 tackles, not to mention Fabian Washington, Daniel Bullocks, T.J. Hollowell, and Jerrell Pippens. LOTS of future NFL guys running around back there.

The bolded part kind of goes counter against Solich's recruiting ability doesn't it? I mean in 03' there couldn't or shouldn't have been any TO recruits left on the field.

 

[Mavric]

What happened to Bo's philosophy? When he was DC for Solich the Huskers had 32 interceptions.

From the first link above:

it’s worth noting that the 2003 team’s 47 takeaways is a slight outlier. Washington had 48 that year and those two totals are still the first- and second-most for any team, regardless of games played, this century. Forcing that many turnovers is rare.

I was very excited about the 2003 defense. Bohl was terrible the year before, and then Bo comes in and gets 47 TOs. I was under the delusion that Bo would only get better since that was his first year as a DC. I figured 50 TOs would be an average year

I don't think that his one year here in 2003 was indicative of his philosophy or scheme on defense. He basically had an incredible amount of athletic talent in the back 7, and he "freed them up" to go make plays. I think that he did a good job coaching them, but the scheme he installed post-2008 was different.

Josh Bullocks had 10 INT by himself, Super-Demorrio had 128 tackles and 11 sacks, Barrett Ruud had 149 tackles, not to mention Fabian Washington, Daniel Bullocks, T.J. Hollowell, and Jerrell Pippens. LOTS of future NFL guys running around back there.

The bolded part kind of goes counter against Solich's recruiting ability doesn't it? I mean in 03' there couldn't or shouldn't have been any TO recruits left on the field.

Not necessarily. You can have good talent in spots but not have the overall team depth necessary.

The Bullocks twins were a big get - Josh had a third of our INTs by himself. Plus Fabian Washington and snagging Demarrio Williams out of JUCO. So we were doing well there. But we weren't doing so well other spots. Jammal Lord was a really good running QB but a terrible passing QB. We were OK at RB but nothing particularly special. We were fortunate to have an in-state gem in Herian at TE but the rest of our receiving corps was kind of average. Our OL was good in a couple spots but I'm not sure how complete it was. And the DL had pretty good starters but I'm not sure how good our depth was.