Nebraska's roster Talent (graph) or: "At the Base of the Mountain"

Kiyoat Husker

Kiyoat Husker

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I know this is a tired topic with much debate. I know "talent" is relative, subjective and not easily defined. Its fun to try anyway.

247 has a ranking of roster talent that takes attrition into account. Many posters, including Mavric, have posted a link to this, but I'll do it again. It's the closest thing to accurate as I have seen.

http://247sports.com/Season/2016-Football/CollegeTeamTalentComposite

I wanted to see the data in graphical form, so I entered it into Excel and graphed it:

xycmq.jpg


 
Hopefully you can see the detail. If not, use your desktop. I wanted to see the whole B1G, so I had to go pretty far back.

The main thing I thought was interesting was the steepness of the slope ahead of us, or above us, and the shallowness of the slope behind us.

In other words, we are at the "base of the mountian" and it will be harder to move ahead than fall behind.

 
@IA State Husker

That a good graph. However, looking at that graph, there are some schools ahead of us which have as many, or more, losses as we do, so clearly talent alone is not the answer.

While talent wise we're certainly not at Alabama or Ohio State's level, I sincerely doubt we're as far behind as your graph implies.

Football is the ultimate team sport. And in this ultimate team sport, individual players heart, drive, and will to win determines how a team does. There are also a myriad of other factors:

  • players staying healthy through a season
  • academics staying on track
  • coaching decisions, in week leading up to a game, and in game
  • lucky versus unlucky bounces of the ball
  • referee calls that go/don't go your team's way
  • girlfriends and family situations which can affect a player's focus
  • schedule, having say Iowa, Ohio State and Wisconsin in Lincoln versus the Huskers being on the road

And these are just other factors I can think off right off the top of my head.

My point here: Yes we certainly to need to recruit better, higher end talent. Everyone wants NU to recruit the best talent possible. But talent is simply one ingredient in the winning a championship recipe.

 
I'd like to see graphs like this for each of the last say 10 years and compare it with final season results. I would guess 9 out of 10 NC teams are in the elite talent category

 
For perspective. If Alabama took 0 recruits this season and Nebraska took Alabamas current class. Nebraska would be the equivalent in terms of talent as 1 4* recruit over Bama.

Alabama has an insane class this season. The talent gap is real. This is why paying guys like both coach dubs, Bray, and hopefully Parella becomes very important. Coaching can only get you so far (think of Wisconsin).

 
Nebfanatic said:
I'd like to see graphs like this for each of the last say 10 years and compare it with final season results. I would guess 9 out of 10 NC teams are in the elite talent category
Click to expand...
No question talent is important. But so are all the other things I mentioned above.

Because talent doesn't exist in a vacuum.

 
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Making Chimichangas said:
@IA State Husker

That a good graph. However, looking at that graph, there are some schools ahead of us which have as many, or more, losses as we do, so clearly talent alone is not the answer.

While talent wise we're certainly not at Alabama or Ohio State's level, I sincerely doubt we're as far behind as your graph implies.

Football is the ultimate team sport. And in this ultimate team sport, individual players heart, drive, and will to win determines how a team does. There are also a myriad of other factors:

  • players staying healthy through a season
  • academics staying on track
  • coaching decisions, in week leading up to a game, and in game
  • lucky versus unlucky bounces of the ball
  • referee calls that go/don't go your team's way
  • girlfriends and family situations which can affect a player's focus
  • schedule, having say Iowa, Ohio State and Wisconsin in Lincoln versus the Huskers being on the road

And these are just other factors I can think off right off the top of my head.

My point here: Yes we certainly to need to recruit better, higher end talent. Everyone wants NU to recruit the best talent possible. But talent is simply one ingredient in the winning a championship recipe.
Click to expand...
See: "'talent' is relative, subjective, and not easily defined".

"Tired topic with much debate" - Yes, Making Chimichangas, your point is valid. But you are trying to equate production and talent, and they are different.

247 published their thoughts on talent levels on each team. I think everyone is well aware that talent is an input to production, not the only input.

 
Nebfanatic said:
I'd like to see graphs like this for each of the last say 10 years and compare it with final season results. I would guess 9 out of 10 NC teams are in the elite talent category
Click to expand...
I'll hit you in 10 minutes.

Update: The talent analysis from the OP only contains data for the last two years, so the data isn't readily available
default_sad.png


That said, the last two national champions (Ohio St and Bama) are both in the elite category in their respective year
default_biggrin.png


 
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25th and "Above Average" sounds about the right bucket for Nebraska to be in. Want to see a solid trend into the "Good" range.

Great work on the chart, IA State Husker!

 
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Making Chimichangas said:
Nebfanatic said:
I'd like to see graphs like this for each of the last say 10 years and compare it with final season results. I would guess 9 out of 10 NC teams are in the elite talent category
Click to expand...
No question talent is important. But so are all the other things I mentioned above.
Because talent doesn't exist in a vacuum.
Click to expand...
there are other factors, yes. But that still doesn't change the fact most national champions are in the elite talent category
 
Atbone95 said:
Nebfanatic said:
I'd like to see graphs like this for each of the last say 10 years and compare it with final season results. I would guess 9 out of 10 NC teams are in the elite talent category
Click to expand...
I'll hit you in 10 minutes.
Update: The talent analysis from the OP only contains data for the last two years, so the data isn't readily available
default_sad.png


That said, the last two national champions (Ohio St and Bama) are both in the elite category in their respective year
default_biggrin.png
Click to expand...
Looking at the programs that won titles in the past 10 years it's safe to assume they were either in the elite or great category the year they won.

 
Making Chimichangas said:
Nebfanatic said:
I'd like to see graphs like this for each of the last say 10 years and compare it with final season results. I would guess 9 out of 10 NC teams are in the elite talent category
Click to expand...
No question talent is important. But so are all the other things I mentioned above.

Because talent doesn't exist in a vacuum.
Click to expand...
Yes you are correct that all of that stuff matters, but talent is the most important of those factors. It doesn't matter how good your coach is if you don't have the talent to run your schemes on the field. Yes sometimes coaching can cause a team to not preform up to it's talent level and sometimes good coaching can cause players to over preform their talent level for stretches. But to win on a consistent basis, the team with the most talent is going to win in spite of good or bad coaching. A good example of this is Mac Brown's career at Texass. The guy was a terrible game day coach, but won only because of the talent that he had.

 
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