Tangent Thread - December 2015 Edition

[GBRedneck]

Did you really wonder why a stable of mules didn't work when trying to win the Kentucky Derby?

Didn't Callahan V.1 show that a pass happy, West coast style offense not fit I Lincoln?
Looks like Callahan V.2 is doubling down on the stupid.

It wasn't Callahan's offense that got him fired.

One of the great fallacies is that Callahan ran an effective offense. More times than not, it was offensive failures that led to defensive blow ups. Sound familiar? Look at the Purdue game this year.

Do you carry a little red mao book too? Go back and look at the stats from the Callahan years and early Bo years. It was the defense stupid....

Incorrect. Everything was wrong with Callahan V.1. Remember USC?

CM is 100% correct.

It's funny how those that militantly defend Callahan V.2 also seem to wax nostalgic about Billy C.V.1.

Guess you arent interested in facts. shrugs. All you have to do is look.

Callahan's offense was non-existent against anyone with a pulse. All you have to do is look. 1/8 of the points his offense scored in '07 were in the last five minutes of games where he was behind by three TDs or more.

Even Osborne's teams were guilty of those late game touchdowns. Why that bum!

I don't think you'll find a case where a TO team scored with less than 5 minutes to go while down by more than 21 points. Partly because he was rarely down by more than 21 points. You'll find a few (very few) cases of a TO team scoring in the last 5 minutes when ahead by more than 21. But yes, I remember 3rd string I-backs busting long TDs in the final seconds a few times.

 

[GBRedneck]

When a team loses 5-7 games, it is obvious that a lot of the scoring in the stats column is going to be in the last quarter of games where they are trying to come from behind. That seems like a meaningless point.

it's similar to the complaint that Husker teams rack up stats against weak opponents. Duh....everyone does that. Everyone scores more points against a bad defense than against a good one.

Many times those teams are behind that far in so many games is because the defense couldn't stop anyone.

That's silly. Why would they wait until they're way behind to start scoring?

Most teams put in subs in late game blowouts. Callahan didn't. He poured it on against the other teams' 3rd string to pad his stats.

 

[cm husker]

There was plenty of room for improvement in Bill Callahan's offense. And in Bo Pelini's offense. And now in Mike Riley's.

But it is utter madness to ignore the huge, historic drop off in the Nebraska defense during most of this stretch.

The defense went out and earned the right to be criticized. No idea why some here take much more comfort blaming the offense.

(I'll save you the time: I understand how offensive turnovers and stalled drives make it tougher on a defense. But that excuses next to nothing in terms of the actual problem)

Do you think that could have anything to do with the offensive systems moving away from the ground oriented game?

Frankly, due to the reality of recruiting to NU, NU should deploy a "Navy" strategy where NU minimizes possessions by the other team. A lot of that is about offensive ball control. TOP is a decent stat for that, but I wish I had time to go back and look at the detailed numbers from the 80s and 90s. I would bet a lot of money that NU's opponents averaged less possessions per game against NU than most other teams during those years.

Strategically, philosophically, however you want to frame it, NU won't consistently compete with and beat the top 10/20 programs trying to out recruit them and running a "match up based" system. We have to have a system that out schemes opponents, not one that relies on "my guy is better than your guy," if we are going to stand a chance. Going toe-to-toe is a receipt for average to below average results.

We have the pure talent on the roster to be a 10+ win program if we have the right coach.

 

[Elf]

Did you really wonder why a stable of mules didn't work when trying to win the Kentucky Derby?

Didn't Callahan V.1 show that a pass happy, West coast style offense not fit I Lincoln?
Looks like Callahan V.2 is doubling down on the stupid.

It wasn't Callahan's offense that got him fired.

One of the great fallacies is that Callahan ran an effective offense. More times than not, it was offensive failures that led to defensive blow ups. Sound familiar? Look at the Purdue game this year.

Do you carry a little red mao book too? Go back and look at the stats from the Callahan years and early Bo years. It was the defense stupid....

Incorrect. Everything was wrong with Callahan V.1. Remember USC?

CM is 100% correct.

It's funny how those that militantly defend Callahan V.2 also seem to wax nostalgic about Billy C.V.1.

Guess you arent interested in facts. shrugs. All you have to do is look.

Callahan's offense was non-existent against anyone with a pulse. All you have to do is look. 1/8 of the points his offense scored in '07 were in the last five minutes of games where he was behind by three TDs or more.

I remember pro-Callahan message board posters defiantly defending Callahan and his offense. The biggest thing they kept on saying was "There is no garbage time!!!"

Generally speaking, I personally don't believe in "garbage time". If you have a commanding lead and you start subbing in younger players for experience, how is that garbage? Reverse the situation, you're getting your a$$ kicked so you sub in younger players to get some needed experience and protect your starters from injury, how is that garbage? It's only garbage time if the team doesn't get something out of it.

Personally I think the term "garbage time" is more for those who hated Callahan and wanted him gone. Garbage time was their way of marginalizing the offensive accomplishments of a coach they hated.

 

[cm husker]

Did you really wonder why a stable of mules didn't work when trying to win the Kentucky Derby?

Didn't Callahan V.1 show that a pass happy, West coast style offense not fit I Lincoln?
Looks like Callahan V.2 is doubling down on the stupid.

It wasn't Callahan's offense that got him fired.

One of the great fallacies is that Callahan ran an effective offense. More times than not, it was offensive failures that led to defensive blow ups. Sound familiar? Look at the Purdue game this year.

Do you carry a little red mao book too? Go back and look at the stats from the Callahan years and early Bo years. It was the defense stupid....

Incorrect. Everything was wrong with Callahan V.1. Remember USC?

CM is 100% correct.

It's funny how those that militantly defend Callahan V.2 also seem to wax nostalgic about Billy C.V.1.

Guess you arent interested in facts. shrugs. All you have to do is look.

Callahan's offense was non-existent against anyone with a pulse. All you have to do is look. 1/8 of the points his offense scored in '07 were in the last five minutes of games where he was behind by three TDs or more.

I remember pro-Callahan message board posters defiantly defending Callahan and his offense. The biggest thing they kept on saying was "There is no garbage time!!!"

Generally speaking, I personally don't believe in "garbage time". If you have a commanding lead and you start subbing in younger players for experience, how is that garbage? Reverse the situation, you're getting your a$$ kicked so you sub in younger players to get some needed experience and protect your starters from injury, how is that garbage? It's only garbage time if the team doesn't get something out of it.

Personally I think the term "garbage time" is more for those who hated Callahan and wanted him gone. Garbage time was their way of marginalizing the offensive accomplishments of a coach they hated.

Garbage time can mean more than one thing, just not conflicting things.

Garbage time can certainly mean "valuable time to get backups reps."

IT can and does also mean "time when backups are in that makes it easier for first team offenses to score points when the offense's coach keeps said first team in to bolster the stats column and claims that his offensive system isn't incompetent."

If BC was subbing his young guys in during '07 and scoring TDs, maybe (MAYBE) you'd have somewhat of a point. But when I look at games from that season, NU had first teamers in scoring meaningless TDs with less than a minute left while down 21+ points:

Colorado - Starter Ganz TD to Purify to cut lead to 65-51 (of course in that game, Ganz had thrown 3 interceptions, which put NU's D in awful positions, including 2 on the first two drives of the 3rd quarter that led to the spiral)

Kansas - Starter Ganz TD to Purify to cut lead to 76-39 (Ganz with 4 interceptions in that game)

Texas A&M - Starter Keller TD to T. Lawson to cut lead to 45-14.

USC - Starter Keller with 2 TD passes with less than 5 minutes to play (2 picks in that game)

Crazily enough, prior to the Texas game that year (and his start in the next game), Ganz and Lucky had the same number of pass attempts that season: 1 per player.

People are misremembering if they think BC's was a good offense. Or that the system itself is much good

Keller had 10 picks that year. Ganz had 7 picks in 152 attempts that year (NU registered 17 total in 481 attempts). By comparison, NU threw 21 picks on 439 attempts this year.

Armstrong was at 1 in 24 attempts.

A guy who many claim would have been all we needed to win 8 or 9 games this year (Ganz) threw 1 in 21 attempts that year. He improved dramatically in '08 (1 in 38 attempts). I bet Armstrong sees a similar improvement next year, and NU finishes with 8 or 9 regular season wins.

For further comparison/reference:

Zac Lee had 1 in every 30 attempts.

T. Mart had 1 in every 28 attempts in '10. 1 in every 33 attempts over the course of his career, and I think he would have been much better his senior year based on his progression. It was really unfortunately he got hurt; that cost the '13 team at least a win or two.

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

There was plenty of room for improvement in Bill Callahan's offense. And in Bo Pelini's offense. And now in Mike Riley's.

But it is utter madness to ignore the huge, historic drop off in the Nebraska defense during most of this stretch.

The defense went out and earned the right to be criticized. No idea why some here take much more comfort blaming the offense.

(I'll save you the time: I understand how offensive turnovers and stalled drives make it tougher on a defense. But that excuses next to nothing in terms of the actual problem)

Do you think that could have anything to do with the offensive systems moving away from the ground oriented game?

Frankly, due to the reality of recruiting to NU, NU should deploy a "Navy" strategy where NU minimizes possessions by the other team. A lot of that is about offensive ball control. TOP is a decent stat for that, but I wish I had time to go back and look at the detailed numbers from the 80s and 90s. I would bet a lot of money that NU's opponents averaged less possessions per game against NU than most other teams during those years.

Strategically, philosophically, however you want to frame it, NU won't consistently compete with and beat the top 10/20 programs trying to out recruit them and running a "match up based" system. We have to have a system that out schemes opponents, not one that relies on "my guy is better than your guy," if we are going to stand a chance. Going toe-to-toe is a receipt for average to below average results.

We have the pure talent on the roster to be a 10+ win program if we have the right coach.

You use words that people who talk about football use, but your logic can't survive a single sentence.

So: We have the pure talent right now, but we can't possibly compete in head to head talent because Nebraska can't recruit pure talent, so we have to rely on a scheme that keeps our offense on the field because we've given up hope that our defense can hold up its end of the bargain. And they shouldn't have to. That's the offense's job. The right coach would understand all this.

Right?

Listen, I know you're busy and who has time to look up ancient TOP stats these days?

So let's speed things up with TOP this year under the wretched stain of Mike Riley and fling-it-all-over-the-place Langsdorf.

Nebraska is 26th in Time of Possession in the NCAA, averaging 32 minutes a game, or two minutes behind #1 Stanford.

That means this year's Nebraska offense had better time of possession than Clemson, Florida, Iowa, LSU, Oklahoma, run-happy Georgia Tech and Houston, TCU, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Penn State, Ohio State and lingering near the very bottom of TOP, Oregon at #111, Baylor at #115 and North Carolina at #126.

TOP doesn't appear to prove much in terms of rushing or defense or winning, because there are a lot of moving parts to the game of football.

A better metric has traditionally been turnover margin, an area where Nebraska truly sucks, at #119, a suckage that extends to our former coaching staff.

You gotta be careful with subjects you don't know much about and information that doesn't fit your agenda.

I know you won't disappoint me.

 

[GBRedneck]

There was plenty of room for improvement in Bill Callahan's offense. And in Bo Pelini's offense. And now in Mike Riley's.

But it is utter madness to ignore the huge, historic drop off in the Nebraska defense during most of this stretch.

The defense went out and earned the right to be criticized. No idea why some here take much more comfort blaming the offense.

(I'll save you the time: I understand how offensive turnovers and stalled drives make it tougher on a defense. But that excuses next to nothing in terms of the actual problem)

Do you think that could have anything to do with the offensive systems moving away from the ground oriented game?

Frankly, due to the reality of recruiting to NU, NU should deploy a "Navy" strategy where NU minimizes possessions by the other team. A lot of that is about offensive ball control. TOP is a decent stat for that, but I wish I had time to go back and look at the detailed numbers from the 80s and 90s. I would bet a lot of money that NU's opponents averaged less possessions per game against NU than most other teams during those years.

Strategically, philosophically, however you want to frame it, NU won't consistently compete with and beat the top 10/20 programs trying to out recruit them and running a "match up based" system. We have to have a system that out schemes opponents, not one that relies on "my guy is better than your guy," if we are going to stand a chance. Going toe-to-toe is a receipt for average to below average results.

We have the pure talent on the roster to be a 10+ win program if we have the right coach.

You use words that people who talk about football use, but your logic can't survive a single sentence.

So: We have the pure talent right now, but we can't possibly compete in head to head talent because Nebraska can't recruit pure talent, so we have to rely on a scheme that keeps our offense on the field because we've given up hope that our defense can hold up its end of the bargain. And they shouldn't have to. That's the offense's job. The right coach would understand all this.

Right?

Listen, I know you're busy and who has time to look up ancient TOP stats these days?

So let's speed things up with TOP this year under the wretched stain of Mike Riley and fling-it-all-over-the-place Langsdorf.

Nebraska is 26th in Time of Possession in the NCAA, averaging 32 minutes a game, or two minutes behind #1 Stanford.

That means this year's Nebraska offense had better time of possession than Clemson, Florida, Iowa, LSU, Oklahoma, run-happy Georgia Tech and Houston, TCU, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Penn State, Ohio State and lingering near the very bottom of TOP, Oregon at #111, Baylor at #115 and North Carolina at #126.

TOP doesn't appear to prove much in terms of rushing or defense or winning, because there are a lot of moving parts to the game of football.

A better metric has traditionally been turnover margin, an area where Nebraska truly sucks, at #119, a suckage that extends to our former coaching staff.

You gotta be careful with subjects you don't know much about and information that doesn't fit your agenda.

I know you won't disappoint me.

HAHAHAHA! You're focusing on TOP, when he said it was a decent stat, but he was really focusing on number of possessions. Did you not read this sentence? " I would bet a lot of money that NU's opponents averaged less possessions per game against NU than most other teams during those years."

As fast as teams scored against Banker's porous D, TOP will be a bit deceptive if you're really looking for number of possessions. And turnover margin has very little to do with number of possessions by either team. Not sure why you suggested that one???

I think your post reveals a new variation on Skitt's law.

 

[cm husker]

Pure talent to win at least 10 games. Not the talent to ride that to a CFB like Alabama has with a fairly basic offensive scheme.

Someone did some analysis, but surprisingly, Bama consistently under produces based on their perceived talent levels (recruiting ranking, draftees, etc.).

NU can't run that type of system and hope to win championships. At best, we'll be like Wisconsin. But I doubt that even, considering the real recruiting advantages Wisconsin has over NU.

 

[cm husker]

I agree that turnover margin is key. And asking your first year in the system QB and a walkon QB to chuck it up to the tune of 40 attempts isn't helping in that column.

It's not like this is a player issue. Riley teams have been plagued by turnovers and poor turnover margin throughout his career.

I don't quote because on the phone and pain to scroll.

 

[NUance]

It's not like this is a player issue. Riley teams have been plagued by turnovers and poor turnover margin throughout his career.

Is this true? Link? (I'd like to read more about it.) What is it about Riley's teams that causes all these turnovers?

 

[cm husker]

It's not like this is a player issue. Riley teams have been plagued by turnovers and poor turnover margin throughout his career.

Is this true? Link? (I'd like to read more about it.) What is it about Riley's teams that causes all these turnovers?

Yes, in often 60th or worse in picks thrown. Including almost dead last in 2011 at 119th (1.7 picks per game). Best ranking I saw in the category going back a few years was in the high 30s.
Google team rankings if you want more stats.

 

[NUance]

Google team rankings if you want more stats.

Yeah, I've heard of Google. I just figured if you had actually looked it up you'd know right where to find it.

 

[GBRedneck]

Google team rankings if you want more stats.

Yeah, I've heard of Google. I just figured if you had actually looked it up you'd know right where to find it.

http://web1.ncaa.org/stats/StatsSrv/rankings?doWhat=archive&sportCode=MFB

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

There was plenty of room for improvement in Bill Callahan's offense. And in Bo Pelini's offense. And now in Mike Riley's.

But it is utter madness to ignore the huge, historic drop off in the Nebraska defense during most of this stretch.

The defense went out and earned the right to be criticized. No idea why some here take much more comfort blaming the offense.

(I'll save you the time: I understand how offensive turnovers and stalled drives make it tougher on a defense. But that excuses next to nothing in terms of the actual problem)

Do you think that could have anything to do with the offensive systems moving away from the ground oriented game?

Frankly, due to the reality of recruiting to NU, NU should deploy a "Navy" strategy where NU minimizes possessions by the other team. A lot of that is about offensive ball control. TOP is a decent stat for that, but I wish I had time to go back and look at the detailed numbers from the 80s and 90s. I would bet a lot of money that NU's opponents averaged less possessions per game against NU than most other teams during those years.

Strategically, philosophically, however you want to frame it, NU won't consistently compete with and beat the top 10/20 programs trying to out recruit them and running a "match up based" system. We have to have a system that out schemes opponents, not one that relies on "my guy is better than your guy," if we are going to stand a chance. Going toe-to-toe is a receipt for average to below average results.

We have the pure talent on the roster to be a 10+ win program if we have the right coach.

You use words that people who talk about football use, but your logic can't survive a single sentence.

So: We have the pure talent right now, but we can't possibly compete in head to head talent because Nebraska can't recruit pure talent, so we have to rely on a scheme that keeps our offense on the field because we've given up hope that our defense can hold up its end of the bargain. And they shouldn't have to. That's the offense's job. The right coach would understand all this.

Right?

Listen, I know you're busy and who has time to look up ancient TOP stats these days?

So let's speed things up with TOP this year under the wretched stain of Mike Riley and fling-it-all-over-the-place Langsdorf.

Nebraska is 26th in Time of Possession in the NCAA, averaging 32 minutes a game, or two minutes behind #1 Stanford.

That means this year's Nebraska offense had better time of possession than Clemson, Florida, Iowa, LSU, Oklahoma, run-happy Georgia Tech and Houston, TCU, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Penn State, Ohio State and lingering near the very bottom of TOP, Oregon at #111, Baylor at #115 and North Carolina at #126.

TOP doesn't appear to prove much in terms of rushing or defense or winning, because there are a lot of moving parts to the game of football.

A better metric has traditionally been turnover margin, an area where Nebraska truly sucks, at #119, a suckage that extends to our former coaching staff.

You gotta be careful with subjects you don't know much about and information that doesn't fit your agenda.

I know you won't disappoint me.

HAHAHAHA! You're focusing on TOP, when he said it was a decent stat, but he was really focusing on number of possessions. Did you not read this sentence? " I would bet a lot of money that NU's opponents averaged less possessions per game against NU than most other teams during those years."

As fast as teams scored against Banker's porous D, TOP will be a bit deceptive if you're really looking for number of possessions. And turnover margin has very little to do with number of possessions by either team. Not sure why you suggested that one???

I think your post reveals a new variation on Skitt's law.

You're right. It's kinda funny.

If the issue is keeping your defense off the field -- and it was -- Time of Possession is the metric, not number of possessions, a figure which could reflect a horrible 3 & Out offense.

A high number of possessions could indicate a successful big play offense like Baylor, TCU and Oregon. If a team scores quickly and often, the other team's # of possessions goes up, too.

A grind-it-out rushing offense might generate fewer possessions and better time of possession. Which works great, as long as you have a defense that doesn't give the points right back within seconds.

See how this works?

So why did I suggest considering Turnover Margin?

Because everyone who understands football considers Turnover Margin.

It's a real problem for Nebraska.

We're not a bad running team. We're not a bad passing team. We're better than most on third down conversions, total offense and scoring offense.

We are categorically a bad turnover team -- both giving up and generating -- one of the worst in the nation.

The only category where Nebraska ranks worse than turnover ratio is Pass Defense, where we're #121.

For reasons unclear to me, our historically bad defense is the offense's fault, and we can't talk about it.

Interceptions would go down if we threw the ball fewer times. No doubt about that. They would also go down if our particular QB threw fewer interceptions per attempt. It's really not too much to ask.

We could run the ball more, as we did with Abdullah, Cross and Martinez, but if that produces more fumbles (it does) we'd have to agree it's not the fault of running the ball more often. It's a discipline and execution issue.

Now just for fun take yourself back to the mid-90s. Remember those awesome Nebraska offenses? Now imagine them turning the game over to a 2011 - 2015 Nebraska defense. Do you think we'd still be celebrating those three National Championships?

 

[NUance]

Google team rankings if you want more stats.

Yeah, I've heard of Google. I just figured if you had actually looked it up you'd know right where to find it.

http://web1.ncaa.org/stats/StatsSrv/rankings?doWhat=archive&sportCode=MFB

TURNOVER MARGIN (the stats start at 2012 in the link you provided)

2012

NU #105

OSU #27

2011

NU #67

OSU #100

2010

NU #62

OSU #35

2009

NU #33

OSU #31


2008

NU #107

OSU #58

Granted, Oregon State's turnover margin is nothing to write home about. Little better than average, I'd say. But out of the last five years Oregon State was better than Nebraska four out of five times in turnover margin. Am I reading this wrong, or is the data saying pretty much the opposite of your statement above? Or maybe it's because you cherry picked one stat (interceptions, but not fumbles) in one year to support your statement. Is that what it is, cm husker?