Run game: striking differences between Riley and Langsdorf

[seaofred92]

So, if he could go to Texas or USC, make more money than any other coach in the country and have all the talent in the world within 100 miles of his front door, why would he come to Nebraska? If you are going to play the coaching game, you need to answer that question. Winning at Texas is going to be easier than at Nebraska due to the talent available. He can make as much or more there than here. His wife probably would love the weather much more than in Lincoln.

My answer to that question is that you have to go find that special coach that wants to be here. Simple question right? Well....that might not be the one that all the media thinks is THE hot new coach.

So.....why not get behind the staff that is here and see what they can do. They might just surprise the world.

Also. yes, the .700 mark does mean something for what you said. Hovering around that mark is not a bad thing while the program is building to the point where we actually win championships.

I agree that most "top flight" coaching prospects aren't going to be enticed by Nebraska. I think we saw that twice now following the firing of Solich and Pelini. They have too many other options.

In my opinion, NU's next hire, whether 3 years or 10 years from now, will need to be "risky" in the sense that you gamble on an assistant who may not be on that top 10 list of "proven" HC's from a smaller school or a highly successful coordinator. More than anything, NU needs to get a coach who is an innovator and has a system designed for success at the college level. I prefer an offensive minded HC, and, as a bonus, a guy with Nebraska ties (what can I say, I have a lot of respect for Osborne). That's why I'll keep my eye on Frost, but I have my doubts as to whether the timing will ever be right for bringing him to Lincoln.*

*I say that for two reasons: 1. Riley either does really well and is here 8 to 10 more years or he does very poorly is gone before the 2018 season. In the latter case, I don't see Frost making the jump from UCF after only 2 seasons, but maybe he would. In the former, I think he'll either have failed as an HC or moved on and become ensconced at a top program by the 8 to 10 year mark. 2. From Frost's perspective, he will either do really well at UCF and have opportunities at those "tier 1 resource" programs or he'll do poorly at UCF and Nebraska fans won't want him back in Lincoln.

a) We keep this transition year in his resume. It happened. Nobody is going to forget it. If he fails to win 21 games over the next two year, his average will be below .700. So, we could fire him and move on because he doesn't have a .700 average here.
b) OR....let's say he wins 9 games next year and 10 games the following year. His average is below .700. However, he had one transition year and then greatly improved to be above that .700 mark in those individual years. Let's say also his recruiting classes stay above say an average player rating of .8500. Do you still fire him because his career here after 3 years is below .700? Let's say 2017 shows POB struggling early his first year starting but by mid year he's improving and at the end of the year he is running the offense pretty dang well. We now have 3 years left of a very talented QB to run this system.

Addressing B, I will never ever advocate for firing a coach after a 9/10 win season, unless it's for clear major off the field incidents (e.g., NCAA violations, legal issues by either the coach or his players, academically failing players, etc.). So, if Riley gets to 19 wins during the next two seasons, you won't hear me calling for his head.

But my point simply was that winning .700+ of your games isn't an easy thing to do anywhere, but especially not at a Tier 2 Resource School like Nebraska.

As a final note, I would caution against the belief that POB will come in and light the world on fire. The odds are against him generally, and specifically, in Riley's system, first year QBs have struggled mightily (iirc, Armstrong actually posted better numbers in his first season in the system than most of Riley's QBs at OSU). I can also point to some guys, like Hackenburg, who are supposed to be great QBs from a talent perspective, but who are not very prolific as college playmakers. In fact, I'm struggling to recall a really great playmaking pro-style QB who at the college level. That's not to say "drop back" QBs can't be prolific, but that's generally a product of a system, like what Leach or Briles do, more than their inherent abilities as a QB.

I really think Riley will get it done here beginning next year so this point is moot but if it gets to year 3 and were 5-7/6-6 You pay Tom Herman whatever it takes to get him here.

 

[BigRedBuster]

DP

 

[cm husker]

I didn't say POB was going to light the world on fire his first year. In fact, my example had him struggling at the beginning of his first year and improving as the year goes to a point he is running the offense pretty well. That doesn't mean he's all conference his first year.


r Briles do, more than their inherent abilities as a QB.
There are lots of "drop back passers" that do pretty dang well in college. Cook is one. I don't remember Alabama having a ton of dual threat QBs. USC has done pretty well with them. Also, don't think POB is someone who has concrete feet. He had 640 yards rushing and 13 rushing TDs in 2014. I'm assuming from that, if he needs to run, he can. (I didn't see his senior season stats).

My comment about POB was more general in nature.

I don't think Cook was a particularly great college QB and I don't think the MSU offense is one to aspire to, generally. They were outside of the top 50 in scoring offense this year and have finished in the top 50 in scoring only once during the past four year.

I'd also take comparisons to Alabama and USC off the table due to the disparities in recruiting situations, though again, I don't think either of those offenses are particularly dynamic or ones to aspire to at Nebraska.

I'm not saying that it's impossible for a drop back QB based offense to have success, particularly when complemented by a great D, but I do think it's going to be difficult, bordering on impossibly improbable, that NU can attain, via that sort of system, the level of success that NU fans want. That system at NU has a low ceiling, imo, and it's prone to inconsistency from year to year because of recruiting challenges inherent in Lincoln.

 

[beorach]

One of the posts that impressed me from this board, around the time I joined, pointed out that even mediocre coaches can maintain the .700 standard at programs like Nebraska (i.e., ones with rich football histories). I don't remember now who it was that did the extensive research but it was the best point about Pelini that I found online.

The problem with your and the original poster's logic is that such a post only establishes that pelini was at least mediocre. Not that he was only mediocre.

I guess we'll see what Riley does, but he has to win at least 11 (and really 13 because 11 reg season wins means a ccg and bowl game) games next season to get to .700.

More "modestly," assuming NU plays 26 games over the next two seasons, Riley has to win 21 of them to get to .700.

I see the "a monkey could win .700+ games at NU" argument from lots of people, including former players, I think it's equal parts idiotic and insulting to the coaches who've done it.

I found the old post and linked it below:

http://www.huskerboard.com/index.php?%2Ftopic%2F72663-bo-is-only-the-fifth-coach-w-9-wins-yadda-yadda%2F

My sense of what the original post was getting at was that the winning percentage shouldn't serve as a basis that Bo was a special coach we couldn't afford to lose. If you think it says something about a monkey instead, well, that's your problem.

 

[cm husker]

One of the posts that impressed me from this board, around the time I joined, pointed out that even mediocre coaches can maintain the .700 standard at programs like Nebraska (i.e., ones with rich football histories). I don't remember now who it was that did the extensive research but it was the best point about Pelini that I found online.

The problem with your and the original poster's logic is that such a post only establishes that pelini was at least mediocre. Not that he was only mediocre.

I guess we'll see what Riley does, but he has to win at least 11 (and really 13 because 11 reg season wins means a ccg and bowl game) games next season to get to .700.

More "modestly," assuming NU plays 26 games over the next two seasons, Riley has to win 21 of them to get to .700.

I see the "a monkey could win .700+ games at NU" argument from lots of people, including former players, I think it's equal parts idiotic and insulting to the coaches who've done it.

I found the old post and linked it below:

http://www.huskerboard.com/index.php?%2Ftopic%2F72663-bo-is-only-the-fifth-coach-w-9-wins-yadda-yadda%2F

My sense of what the original post was getting at was that the winning percentage shouldn't serve as a basis that Bo was a special coach we couldn't afford to lose. If you think it says something about a monkey instead, well, that's your problem.

There are lots of problems with his "analysis" (e.g., using 9-4 as a cutoff when actually, that's a 69% winning percentage and Bo closer to 10-4 as an average). But, his bolded line caught my attention:

So roughly 65% of coaches at major programs in modern history that have coached at their schools for at least 4 years have been able to win just as well as Bo, if not better.

Why the qualifier on "at least 4 years"? So the ones who were utter failures and canned within 3 years don't count somehow? If those are included, what's the percentage?

He also includes a note about Jim Donovan, who failed to win at least 9 games in 50% of the seasons he coached at UGA and his win % at UGA was below .700 (and even the equivalent of 9-4). Similarly, Bill Battle, who may have started strong, went 28-17-2 (.596) over his last four years and 13-10 in his last two years. He also never finished better than 4th in his conference during his final four years (mostly, he was around 6th each year at a time when the SEC was not good).

So, I'd say those inclusions show that his methodology may be flawed (or misapplied) and that the post does nothing to actually disprove the difficulty in winning .700+ games during a tenure, even at a top school.

 

[BigRedBuster]

I really think Riley will get it done here beginning next year so this point is moot but if it gets to year 3 and were 5-7/6-6 You pay Tom Herman whatever it takes to get him here.

That's very easy to say as someone who doesn't actually have the responsibility to come up with the money.

Let's say Saban retires and Texas decides to get a new coach that same year.

How much do you think it would take to get him to come to Nebraska over those two schools and why would he come here instead of one of those?

 

[beorach]

One of the posts that impressed me from this board, around the time I joined, pointed out that even mediocre coaches can maintain the .700 standard at programs like Nebraska (i.e., ones with rich football histories). I don't remember now who it was that did the extensive research but it was the best point about Pelini that I found online.

The problem with your and the original poster's logic is that such a post only establishes that pelini was at least mediocre. Not that he was only mediocre.

I guess we'll see what Riley does, but he has to win at least 11 (and really 13 because 11 reg season wins means a ccg and bowl game) games next season to get to .700.

More "modestly," assuming NU plays 26 games over the next two seasons, Riley has to win 21 of them to get to .700.

I see the "a monkey could win .700+ games at NU" argument from lots of people, including former players, I think it's equal parts idiotic and insulting to the coaches who've done it.

I found the old post and linked it below:

http://www.huskerboard.com/index.php?%2Ftopic%2F72663-bo-is-only-the-fifth-coach-w-9-wins-yadda-yadda%2F

My sense of what the original post was getting at was that the winning percentage shouldn't serve as a basis that Bo was a special coach we couldn't afford to lose. If you think it says something about a monkey instead, well, that's your problem.

There are lots of problems with his "analysis" (e.g., using 9-4 as a cutoff when actually, that's a 69% winning percentage and Bo closer to 10-4 as an average). But, his bolded line caught my attention:

So roughly 65% of coaches at major programs in modern history that have coached at their schools for at least 4 years have been able to win just as well as Bo, if not better.

Why the qualifier on "at least 4 years"? So the ones who were utter failures and canned within 3 years don't count somehow? If those are included, what's the percentage?

He also includes a note about Jim Donovan, who failed to win at least 9 games in 50% of the seasons he coached at UGA and his win % at UGA was below .700 (and even the equivalent of 9-4). Similarly, Bill Battle, who may have started strong, went 28-17-2 (.596) over his last four years and 13-10 in his last two years. He also never finished better than 4th in his conference during his final four years (mostly, he was around 6th each year at a time when the SEC was not good).

So, I'd say those inclusions show that his methodology may be flawed (or misapplied) and that the post does nothing to actually disprove the difficulty in winning .700+ games during a tenure, even at a top school.

If you're so interested, why don't you do the research your way and show us Landlord was wrong? I see that he made a mistake, in the case of Jim Donnan (since his winning percentage at UGA was less than 68%), but there was nothing misrepresented in the case of Bill Battle insofar as I can tell. You seem to be complaining that the post doesn't include enough losers anyway such that it seems like you can't focus on your own point let alone Landlord's. Considering he researched 79 coaches at 15 programs since 1960 and even gave a range for his final percentage, I'm willing to allow a bit of leeway...given that it's free labor for a message board post.

He did this research "[t]o disarm the stupid argument of all of your facebook friends," remember? The streak of 9-win (at a minimum) seasons was and continues to be used by folks to argue that Bo was doing something exceptional at good old Nebraska U. I suspect most of us fanatics didn't need Landlord's post to tell us that wasn't the case but it did speak to that specific argument very well and, to me, not in an idiotic and insulting manner.

Perhaps you could look beyond your original take for a moment and recognize that what Landlord was getting at is something we argue with Iowa fans about. Being one of the blue bloods of college football counts for something (even if the glory days were long ago).

 

[Undone]

Edit: My reading comprehension failed miserably.

 

[NUance]

@Illinois: L 14-13

Illinois has the #62 rushing defense

Illinois has the #16 passing defense (pass yds allowed)

(NU rushing vs. Illinois: 187; NU passing: 105)

The thing I'll say about Illinois though is that if memory serves, we tried over and over and over to pass the ball on first down. Tommy lobbed the ball deep on multiple attempts for incompletions.

Lots of unnecessary three-and-outs in that game. So despite the fact that we happened to have more rushing yards than passing, we should have run more. Specifically with Ozigbo, who had 7 carries for 70 yards (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).

Yeah, I'm not sure what was up with that game. The only thing I can think of for Illinois (and later against Purdue) is that our coaches thought we wouldn't lose those games no matter what we did. So they experimented around a bit to test Tommy's skills in anticipation of getting into it the following week against Wisconsin. In any case, Langsdorf didn't call a very good game in the drizzling rain against Illinois. And our pass defense didn't do much to help us out that day either.

btw, That was the first Husker game I took my 5-year-old son to. I picked a pretty crappy game to take him and the wife to, as it turned out. Oh well. We had fun spending time together.

 

[Dansker]

@Illinois: L 14-13

Illinois has the #62 rushing defense

Illinois has the #16 passing defense (pass yds allowed)

(NU rushing vs. Illinois: 187; NU passing: 105)

The thing I'll say about Illinois though is that if memory serves, we tried over and over and over to pass the ball on first down. Tommy lobbed the ball deep on multiple attempts for incompletions.

Lots of unnecessary three-and-outs in that game. So despite the fact that we happened to have more rushing yards than passing, we should have run more. Specifically with Ozigbo, who had 7 carries for 70 yards (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).

Yeah, I'm not sure what was up with that game. The only thing I can think of for Illinois (and later against Purdue) is that our coaches thought we wouldn't lose those games no matter what we did. So they experimented around a bit to test Tommy's skills in anticipation of getting into it the following week against Wisconsin. In any case, Langsdorf didn't call a very good game in the drizzling rain against Illinois. And our pass defense didn't do much to help us out that day either.

btw, That was the first Husker game I took my 5-year-old son to. I picked a pretty crappy game to take him and the wife to, as it turned out. Oh well. We had fun spending time together.

Hey, we all had crappy days during the Illinois/Purdue games buddy, lol. Those were hands down, the strangest Husker games I have ever witnessed. Had they made better coaching decisions, the general consensus is we would be 8-5 which would have felt a helluva lot better than 6-7.

 

[cm husker]

If you're so interested, why don't you do the research your way and show us Landlord was wrong? I see that he made a mistake, in the case of Jim Donnan (since his winning percentage at UGA was less than 68%), but there was nothing misrepresented in the case of Bill Battle insofar as I can tell. You seem to be complaining that the post doesn't include enough losers anyway such that it seems like you can't focus on your own point let alone Landlord's. Considering he researched 79 coaches at 15 programs since 1960 and even gave a range for his final percentage, I'm willing to allow a bit of leeway...given that it's free labor for a message board post.


He did this research "[t]o disarm the stupid argument of all of your facebook friends," remember? The streak of 9-win (at a minimum) seasons was and continues to be used by folks to argue that Bo was doing something exceptional at good old Nebraska U. I suspect most of us fanatics didn't need Landlord's post to tell us that wasn't the case but it did speak to that specific argument very well and, to me, not in an idiotic and insulting manner.

Perhaps you could look beyond your original take for a moment and recognize that what Landlord was getting at is something we argue with Iowa fans about. Being one of the blue bloods of college football counts for something (even if the glory days were long ago).

I don't think anyone wants a year old thread bumped, but maybe I will if you're going to insist on creating strawmen and relying on inaccurate or misleading evidence.

Let's try breaking down Landord's premise in that thread:

Original Argument (by most CFB observers) - Winning at least 9 games every year to start your career is pretty rare among CFB coaches

Counter Argument (by LOMS) - maintaining a .700+ winning percentage at a "blue blood" program is fairly easy (see his odd % listings of 62%, 68% and then settling on 65% of coaches at a "winningest programs" having maintained a .700+ record).

Counter Argument Evidence - "Of those 79, 49 have been able to win 70% or more of their games, or 62% of them. If you remove West Virginia as a seemingly outlier, it is 48 out of 71 coaches, or 68%. So roughly 65% of coaches at major programs in modern history that have coached at their schools for at least 4 years have been able to win just as well as Bo, if not better." [my note: no idea what math pretzeling went into getting to 62%, then adjusting to 68%, all before settling at 65%, but maybe LOMS will weigh in]

The fault in that argument: Why is this evidence faulty? Mainly because it doesn't account for the difficulty in maintaining that standard year in and year out, which was/is the premise of the the original argument that LOMS attacked. But secondarily, the evidence itself is flawed (manipulated?) by (a) not pointing out that a guy like Battle actually had a steadily declining record of sub-9 win seasons when he was fired, and (b) it rather arbitrarily drops all coaches who lasted fewer than four seasons.

Why is part (b) particularly misleading? Mainly, it automatically skews the results in favor of good coaches because the bad ones tend to be weeded out quickly, especially at programs like Michigan and Oklahoma. So, just for example, let's look at those two schools that have enjoyed mixed success since 1960 (again, the rather arbitrary benchmark chosen by LOMS): Michigan and Oklahoma

Since 1960, Michigan has employed 7 coaches who finished at least a season with the Wolverines. Of those, 4 qualify as maintaining a .700 record, but dropped from LOSM's methodology are Hoke and Rich Rod. If the argument is that it's easy to win at a blue blood program, it is entirely disingenous to drop those two coaches from the evidence just because they fell on their faces (despite the theory that it's easy to win at a blue blood). Same goes for OU, which has employed 9 coaches since 1960 (including BW), but had only 4 coaches that maintained the .700+ standard (let alone never dropped under 9 wins a season). Under LOMS's methodology, the failings (and evidence) of coaches like Jones, Shnelly and Blake is inexplicably ignored.

We could do this with other programs, too. Just off of memory, USC had something like 8 or 9 coaches in the past 50 years. Only 3 have maintained a record of .700+, again ignoring the original argument which is that never dropping below 9 wins is a tough standard.

I know that many of you want to pillory Pelini, and used to (and may still want to) diminish the success of Solich, but winning .700+ games is not an easy standard, even at the blue bloods. And speaking of, just because NU is a winning program historically doesn't mean there's any inertia or inherent right to wins at Nebraska.

Nebraska is very much a "Tier 2" resource school, especially when compared to that list of "blue bloods." Ranking that list in terms of "inherent" advantages such as proximity to recruits and perceived prestige/commitment to football, I would put NU around 13th to 16th on that list of 16 teams, behind only West Virginia for sure and maybe Auburn and Tennessee. So comparing the "ease of winning" at schools like Notre Dame and FSU isn't quite fair to coaches at Nebraska. Here's the list again, for your reference:

• Michigan
  
• Notre Dame
  
• Texas
  
• Nebraska
  
• Ohio State
  
• Oklahoma
  
• Alabama
  
• Tennessee
  
• USC
  
• Georgia
  
• LSU
  
• Penn State
  
• Auburn
  
• West Virginia
  
• Florida
  
• Florida State
  

 

[BRV920]

Great post CM. I get do pissed when people say a 9 or 10 win season is mediocre. Is it what we are striving for? Nope! But it's a hell of a lot better than setting thru this football season.

 

[beorach]

What we have here is a failure to communicate. You seem to think that I don't get what you're trying to tell me for some reason. Allow me to clarify in case we're not both feeling the same way at this point.

I have no problem with Landlord doing the comparison with "four-year plus" coaches because I don't think he was trying to say that any monkey could coach the Cornhuskers to a similar level of success. Your insistence that it's what the post was about doesn't make it so. I think what was being demonstrated was that, at a school ranking in the top fifteen for all-time winning percentage, winning at that clip wasn't necessarily an indication that you had a great coach at the helm. We knew we had a good coach (so dropping the bad ones out of the comparison, again, was fine by me) but wanted greatness and didn't want to fire him if it seemed reasonable to believe he might be building toward something great.

As for your qualification of Nebraska's membership in the blue blood club, I think you need to remember that we rarely play any other teams that belong to it. Nebraska may not be Notre Dame but the difference is negligible when our favorite team is playing a schedule like the most recent one.

 

[cm husker]

What we have here is a failure to communicate. You seem to think that I don't get what you're trying to tell me for some reason. Allow me to clarify in case we're not both feeling the same way at this point.

I have no problem with Landlord doing the comparison with "four-year plus" coaches because I don't think he was trying to say that any monkey could coach the Cornhuskers to a similar level of success. Your insistence that it's what the post was about doesn't make it so. I think what was being demonstrated was that, at a school ranking in the top fifteen for all-time winning percentage, winning at that clip wasn't necessarily an indication that you had a great coach at the helm. We knew we had a good coach (so dropping the bad ones out of the comparison, again, was fine by me) but wanted greatness and didn't want to fire him if it seemed reasonable to believe he might be building toward something great.

As for your qualification of Nebraska's membership in the blue blood club, I think you need to remember that we rarely play any other teams that belong to it. Nebraska may not be Notre Dame but the difference is negligible when our favorite team is playing a schedule like the most recent one.

No failure to communicate. Just an unwillingness to confront the obvious flaws a post you referred to as impressive, it looks like.

Anyway, that's not actually what Landlord argued when he was attempting to "disarm the stupid argument of all of your facebook friends" regarding the impressiveness of winning at least 9 games in each of a coach's first 7 seasons. Of course the 7 season qualifier is another thing LOMS ignored (i.e., an honest comparison would have included ALL coaches or been limited to coaches who lasted at least 7 seasons at their school, but we've belabored that point enough).

In any event, the bolded is interesting thought... I guess you'd have to line up the 49 coaches on that list and demonstrate what percentage of them were at least great (let alone elite and HOF-quality).

My guess is that a tiny percentage of those 49 coaches rank as less than great. If you can identify 10 (~20%), I'd be very surprised, though we probably need a benchmark. For example, I think Solich is a great coach, but I'd bet you and some others would argue against that.

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

If you wanted a program with every recruiting advantage in the world, a history of churning out NFL talent, the means and willingness to hire top flight coaches, and a place reserved in every preseason Top 25, you'd have UCLA.

Just sayin'.