** 2024 Opponent Preview : Colorado (Game 2) **
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BigRedBuster
Active member
So, they are replacing their entire O line and a lot of the D line with guys that have never played together.
This will be interesting to watch.
We NEED to win this game.
At the end of the year, nobody may care. Maybe one of the teams sucked or both teams sucked or whatever. But going into this game, it's game of the year. Both coaches are selling their ideology when it comes to building a football team. Sanders is pitching that he can build through the portal, Rhule is pitching that he can build through development.
Barring injury, both teams should have a good QB which takes that important element out of the equation. Now it's just looking at the teams as a whole, in game 2 of year 2 where you normally see the biggest improvement in a coach's tenure.
BigRedBuster
Active member
Admittedly, I have the kool-aid flowing through an IV. But, I have to think we should have the upper hand because I firmly believe our lines will be better and it's in our house.
I know I have the koolaid flowing, but the guys making the betting lines usually don't and they have UNL winning a few more games than CU. They usually have a good reason for that.
So, there's an argument out there on offensive line talent vs continuity and what that means for CU. They went out and bought a new offensive line because baby boy got sacked too much. However, sacks are primarily a QB stat and they didn't change the QB. Sanders isn't a bad QB, but he's a frontrunner. When things are great, he looks great, but when you get to those dial a blitz downs and/or his guys don't get open, he doesn't look so good anymore. For a guy some think could be a top QB pick next year, this is a huge red flag, imo. The average pocket time for an NFL offense last year ranged from 2.1-2.7 seconds.
The flipside, and an example that the QB played such a big role in sacks, is Patrick Mahomes. Line was top 4 in most pressures, but the team gave up the 2nd fewest sacks. Receivers couldn't catch, they were chippin for both tackles at times. It was really a mess, but Mahomes wasn't getting sacked because he got the ball out and he's good at extending plays. Their offense wasn't nearly as good as it had been and certainly a lot of that falls on the offensive line....but they weren't taking sacks.
This is why our timing on offense was so big for us to work on this spring. Get to the top of the drop and fire. When you watch Colorado, even when they have a receiver wide open, it still takes Sanders extra time to get rid of the ball. When he gets pressured, instead of working laterally or stepping up, he tends to run backwards. For him, I think it's much less a situation that his offensive line wasn't very good and more that he can't seem to play if they're not great.
BigRedBuster
Active member
Hopefully, we have the talent now to hide pressures and make him have a bad day.I know I have the koolaid flowing, but the guys making the betting lines usually don't and they have UNL winning a few more games than CU. They usually have a good reason for that.
So, there's an argument out there on offensive line talent vs continuity and what that means for CU. They went out and bought a new offensive line because baby boy got sacked too much. However, sacks are primarily a QB stat and they didn't change the QB. Sanders isn't a bad QB, but he's a frontrunner. When things are great, he looks great, but when you get to those dial a blitz downs and/or his guys don't get open, he doesn't look so good anymore. For a guy some think could be a top QB pick next year, this is a huge red flag, imo. The average pocket time for an NFL offense last year ranged from 2.1-2.7 seconds.
The flipside, and an example that the QB played such a big role in sacks, is Patrick Mahomes. Line was top 4 in most pressures, but the team gave up the 2nd fewest sacks. Receivers couldn't catch, they were chippin for both tackles at times. It was really a mess, but Mahomes wasn't getting sacked because he got the ball out and he's good at extending plays. Their offense wasn't nearly as good as it had been and certainly a lot of that falls on the offensive line....but they weren't taking sacks.
This is why our timing on offense was so big for us to work on this spring. Get to the top of the drop and fire. When you watch Colorado, even when they have a receiver wide open, it still takes Sanders extra time to get rid of the ball. When he gets pressured, instead of working laterally or stepping up, he tends to run backwards. For him, I think it's much less a situation that his offensive line wasn't very good and more that he can't seem to play if they're not great.
We're good at disguising things, and that stuff certainly gave them problems all year last year. Twists and stunts (games) gave them a lot of problems last year and it's hard to say that picking 5 new guys out of a hat is going to provide the OL teamwork necessary to be markedly better at managing that.
What we need to do better on defense is getting to the QB without the window dressing. Do we have the pass rush talent to get there with 4 more often and do we have the improved speed on the outside to handle their WR. They have a few that can really burn you for big plays.
We sacked him 8 times last year. They lost more yards via sacks than they ended up in total rushing, but we got beat on way too many big plays.
teachercd
Active member
This! For soooo many reasons, this is such a huge game. And I hope that NU and the fans treat it that way and embrace it.
Super early line I have seen is NU -7.5
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Xmas32
New member
Colorado is the rare team that can actually affect my mood. I don't know what it is about those gosh darn Buffaloes but it stirs a dislike in me that I normally reserve for the Houston Astros. I would very much like to see Nebraska win this game. If not, I hope to be able to get mentioned on the Husker Radio Show Caller Twitter account for unleashing an unhinged rant!
A few things to note:
A big thing to note is that all such models in the offseason are reliant on some combination of previous year's results, often over a span of years, and things like returning production, recruiting/transfer rankings, and so forth. Offensive stats from year to year tend to be more consistent than defensive stats, and since the QB is so important, that position is weighted accordingly by fpi. Important to note here that Colorado returns a statistically good QB when so much of the country is being docked somewhat for starting transfers.
Systems like Bill Connely's SP+, which operates somewhat similarly, does not have Colorado in such elevated status. He has Colorado at 69 in his post spring rankings vs ESPN FPI at 36.
Colorado's 'improvement' is because they were ranked 77th to finish 2023, and 36th to open 2024. Their predicted 2024 win total via FPI is about 6.3 games, which at a 2 game improvement is in line with historical year 2 jumps that new coaches see. So, at this point, nothing is unexpected here except their FPI ranking takes a big jump.
Why does it go from 77 to 36? IMO, it's because these models don't know how to factor in transfers. In 2023, Colorado was coming off an abysmal season with almost no returning production to its name because everyone was released. I don't know how exactly fpi handles transfers, but I know other systems tend to weigh them more if they're fbs to fbs or power conference to power conference transfers, and the two most significant, Hunter and Sanders, were obviously not.
They're starting at 36 this year, as noted above on the strength of Sanders, but also because they're getting a lot of credit for other people's players since they again return so few of their own players. How a guy's production translates to a new school is something I don't think any model can really predict at this point. Also consider they're replacing their entire offensive line with transfers, which is a positional group tough to model anyhow due to lack of data.
Note that a lot of Nebraska's expected improvement doesn't get credit in these models. From a personnel standpoint, they look at primarily 3 things: returning production from last year, recruiting rankings, and transfer rankings. A lot of potential breakout candidates on Nebraska's offense didn't do a whole lot last year because of injuries, style of play, qb play or whatever but they're also not incoming recruits or transfers.
Keep this in mind. The headlines may say things like 'Colorado is predicted to be the 2nd most improved team by FPI' but the FPI is not intended to measure improvement. It is simply a power index predicting what each team will be relative to others based on things it may or may not have disclosed pubically. The people writing those headlines are just looking at the difference of the final 2023 numbers and the preseason 2024 numbers.
A big thing to note is that all such models in the offseason are reliant on some combination of previous year's results, often over a span of years, and things like returning production, recruiting/transfer rankings, and so forth. Offensive stats from year to year tend to be more consistent than defensive stats, and since the QB is so important, that position is weighted accordingly by fpi. Important to note here that Colorado returns a statistically good QB when so much of the country is being docked somewhat for starting transfers.
Systems like Bill Connely's SP+, which operates somewhat similarly, does not have Colorado in such elevated status. He has Colorado at 69 in his post spring rankings vs ESPN FPI at 36.
Colorado's 'improvement' is because they were ranked 77th to finish 2023, and 36th to open 2024. Their predicted 2024 win total via FPI is about 6.3 games, which at a 2 game improvement is in line with historical year 2 jumps that new coaches see. So, at this point, nothing is unexpected here except their FPI ranking takes a big jump.
Why does it go from 77 to 36? IMO, it's because these models don't know how to factor in transfers. In 2023, Colorado was coming off an abysmal season with almost no returning production to its name because everyone was released. I don't know how exactly fpi handles transfers, but I know other systems tend to weigh them more if they're fbs to fbs or power conference to power conference transfers, and the two most significant, Hunter and Sanders, were obviously not.
They're starting at 36 this year, as noted above on the strength of Sanders, but also because they're getting a lot of credit for other people's players since they again return so few of their own players. How a guy's production translates to a new school is something I don't think any model can really predict at this point. Also consider they're replacing their entire offensive line with transfers, which is a positional group tough to model anyhow due to lack of data.
Note that a lot of Nebraska's expected improvement doesn't get credit in these models. From a personnel standpoint, they look at primarily 3 things: returning production from last year, recruiting rankings, and transfer rankings. A lot of potential breakout candidates on Nebraska's offense didn't do a whole lot last year because of injuries, style of play, qb play or whatever but they're also not incoming recruits or transfers.
Keep this in mind. The headlines may say things like 'Colorado is predicted to be the 2nd most improved team by FPI' but the FPI is not intended to measure improvement. It is simply a power index predicting what each team will be relative to others based on things it may or may not have disclosed pubically. The people writing those headlines are just looking at the difference of the final 2023 numbers and the preseason 2024 numbers.
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