The Bizarre Correlation Between Nebraska's Turnovers and Winning Percentage, 2007-2013

[tschu]

And if, like I suspect, we have a good turnover margin in our wins and against weak opponents and a horrific turnover margin against our best competition, then we aren't "winning in spite of ourselves" like Vogel suggests. We're preventing ourselves from taking the next step as a program.

 

[It'sNotAFakeID]

Fascinating stuff from Brandon. I like the work he does. From all the teams, there is a pretty clear positive correlation between TO margin and winning percentage. Teams who turn the ball over and don't force turnovers lose more games. Teams who force more turnovers than they lose win more games.

But that's not the case for Nebraska. And while we can conclude that it's impressive and terrifying at the same time, the research shouldn't stop there. How has Nebraska won in spite of itself should be highly considered.

Are you hinting at an upcoming nerdgasm math thread

I see some ANOVAs and sum of non-squared errors in HuskerBoard's future.

Potentially. Or what about, ANCOVAs?

 

[It'sNotAFakeID]

I'd be curious to get a breakdown of our turnover margin based on the strength of our opponent

As in,

What is our turnover margin per game against teams finishing top-20 in the year's final sagarin predictor rankings?

Against teams finishing 20 thru 40?

40 thru 60?

60 thru 80?

and 80 or below?

It would be interesting to see if we have a reasonable or probably positive turnover margin against the weaker teams, which we can just overcome with our superior talent - whereas we have a massively negative turnover margin against tougher opponents. (Which of course would be more indicting of a coaching issue: ultimately the coaches have to prepare the team for the pressure of bigger games, teach the fundamentals of ball control obviously, and put the kids in situations where it's more difficult to make a big error.)

Maybe if I can climb my sick a$$ out of bed and look into this at some point, I will.

I can do it. But I think we have won in spite of ourselves. I recall a lot of games in which we were negative in the TO column, yet came away with a win.

We've won 2/3 of our games since 2007. I think a negative TO margin coupled with a above 50% winning percentage would suggest that we've won some games where we've been negative in the TO column. Unless of course, in the games we've lost we were wildly negative in TO margin.

 

[irafreak]

Perhaps we are a team that plays high risk high reward and that's why the numbers come out that way.

 

[Huskerzoo]

For those of you that have coached or are just more knowledgeable than I am. How do you cut down on fumbles? What do you train, or what do you do differently?

 

[JJ Husker]

And if, like I suspect, we have a good turnover margin in our wins and against weak opponents and a horrific turnover margin against our best competition, then we aren't "winning in spite of ourselves" like Vogel suggests. We're preventing ourselves from taking the next step as a program.

I +1'd1 your first post because I think you're on to something. However, I've got just a slightly different theory. What if our turnover margin is basically the same for all opponents, good and bad alike? Maybe it's not that our turnover margin is better against lesser competition. Maybe it is just that they're so bad they can't beat us even with us helping them. And when we play better teams, that's why we're seeing the blowouts. It would take some research and analysis, but maybe turnovers are 90% of all our problems. Could be keeping us from blowing out lesser teams, making those games closer than they should be, and might explain the big losses against some of the better teams. MSU loss was definitely due to turnovers. Wiscy CCG blowout definitely had turnovers. I don't recall the turnover situation in the last two UCLA games.

Maybe Bo needs to go old school and have these guys carry a ball around campus.

This also fits my theory that we really haven't been facing many teams at all that should beat us. Maybe we're seeing nine win seasons because we play seven or eight or nine teams that are so bad they virtually cannot beat us. I guess that would explain quite a bit, to me anyway, about why I'm not overly impressed with that nine win stat.

 

[knapplc]

The most telling thing would be to check how many turnovers each opponent forced against opponents of similar caliber to Nebraska, and then compare that to how many turnovers we committed against them.

It's too easy to simply say we lost games because we turned it over more against better opponents. Odds are, everyone turned it over more against those opponents.

 

[JJ Husker]

The most telling thing would be to check how many turnovers each opponent forced against opponents of similar caliber to Nebraska, and then compare that to how many turnovers we committed against them.
It's too easy to simply say we lost games because we turned it over more against better opponents. Odds are, everyone turned it over more against those opponents.

This is fairly valid but it might need to be looked into even deeper. We had five turnovers against the number one defense, but I wouldn't say they "forced" any (1 tops) of them.

 

[TAKODA]

One thing I can say, you guys impress the sh*t out of me by your intense desire and spending your time studying what our coaches should be doing and should already be aware of. Probably not many boards have a Matrix staff like we do here at HB.

 

[huKSer]

Assuming a 2 / 3 slope (that is the slope of the main data bunch), if we had the same turn over rate as Alabama, we would win 110% of our games

 

[It'sNotAFakeID]

My bad with the misordered seasons and the funky graphic at the bottom. This is the first time I've done one of these.

 

[True2tRA]

Forgive me if this is a dumb question. I notice many if the outcomes would have been the same according to your graph, even minus the turnovers. But is this graph indicative of how the game might have changed has we scored a touchdown or field goal on those possessions instead of turnovers? I know its hard to say what Nebraska may have done with those possessions, but if we assume some of them would have been scores, it surely would have changed more outcomes no?

Plus 1 though by the way. You are damn good at this stuff.

 

[It'sNotAFakeID]

Forgive me if this is a dumb question. I notice many if the outcomes would have been the same according to your graph, even minus the turnovers. But is this graph indicative of how the game might have changed has we scored a touchdown or field goal on those possessions instead of turnovers? I know its hard to say what Nebraska may have done with those possessions, but if we assume some of them would have been scores, it surely would have changed more outcomes no?

It's the drive after the turnover that I looked at. If the team immediately scored a drive AFTER the turnover, those are the points I considered. Right now, I don't have the time to discriminate between where we turned the ball over and how that might've affected the points that we could have scored. But I'm sure that turnovers inside our opponent's 30 yard line could have at least ended up with 3 points for us, much like opponents' turnovers inside our 30 could have ended with at least 3 points for them.

Fact is: they didn't. What did happen, was the opponent or us scoring after the turnover happened.

 

[True2tRA]

Forgive me if this is a dumb question. I notice many if the outcomes would have been the same according to your graph, even minus the turnovers. But is this graph indicative of how the game might have changed has we scored a touchdown or field goal on those possessions instead of turnovers? I know its hard to say what Nebraska may have done with those possessions, but if we assume some of them would have been scores, it surely would have changed more outcomes no?

It's the drive after the turnover that I looked at. If the team immediately scored a drive AFTER the turnover, those are the points I considered. Right now, I don't have the time to discriminate between where we turned the ball over and how that might've affected the points that we could have scored.

Cool, thanks. Yea that would probably be difficult to really determine because you just never know, but like I said, I imagine it would have changed a few more of those losses to the win category had we just finished off some drives. Is it just me or is this whole thing just sad and almost depressing anymore? I mean, I've got bigger problems in my life, but it just seems like damn.....if we could just fix a few things, we could really be on track for something special here. Yet, these few things, have been glaring problems for multiple seasons now. Why can't we fix the sh#t?

 

[JJ Husker]

I guess that's what naws at me more than anything also T2tRa. Most of it is glaringly obvious, even to the casual observer, or it is basic fundamentals type stuff. It has to be staring Bo in the face everyday. I don't think he's stupid and I'm sure that is why he laments execution so much. But a coach can fix tackling and fumbling problems if he chooses to fix it. He can change how we approach special teams, especially punt returns, if he wants to. He can recognize, just like us, that this defense, young or not, seems to play much better in more of an attack mode. He can see that when his OC starts to go Watson that maybe it's time to tell Beck to relax and stick with what has been working. I think these issues more than any are why so many are talking about the need for a coaching change. A handful of relatively simple things is all that's holding us back and he does not seem intent on fixing those things. Sorry, didn't want to get that far off the specific topic but it just seems so freakin obvious.