Huskers a Huge Outlier When Comparing Turnover Margin to Win Percentage

[ColoradoHusk]

I'm sure people get tired of me beating this drum when Northwestern comes up.

But they have been nowhere near as good as we have.  We have just managed to shoot ourselves in the foot often enough for most of the games to end up being close.

Honestly, Northwestern hasn't been better the past few years against most teams, they seem to want to hang in the game and try to have the other team make mistakes.  It's a good strategy when they are working with inferior talent and it works for them.  But, their success is more dependent on the other team screwing up.

 

[brophog]

Honestly, Northwestern hasn't been better the past few years against most teams, they seem to want to hang in the game and try to have the other team make mistakes.  It's a good strategy when they are working with inferior talent and it works for them.  But, their success is more dependent on the other team screwing up.

It’s not a strategy to be consistently outgained. It’s not like they’re trying to shorten the game or apply some other playing field leveling effort. They’re coached to be a sound football team just like every other coach endeavors to be. From their perspective, they’re “lucky”, and eventually that will catch up with them.

 

[JJ Husker]

Huge outlier is putting it mildly. The trend line (for lack of a more correct term) for that chart is a line running about 30 degrees uphill from left to right. If Nebraska simply were to break even on turnovers and get to zero, that puts us up in the wins territory of OU, tOSU and Bama. It’s crazy that we’ve won as much as we have but crazier when you imagine the effect of even moderate improvement.

 

[Hans Gruber]

Two ways you can look at this.

Positive: Nebraska had THAT many turnovers and still won 60 percent of its games. Think how much better they will be when the turnovers improve.

Negative: Nebraska was lucky to win as many games as it did with THAT many turnovers. Things will balance out now and they will be bad.

Going forward, I think it's the positive one. Glad Frost is in charge now.

 

[ColoradoHusk]

Two ways you can look at this.

Positive: Nebraska had THAT many turnovers and still won 60 percent of its games. Think how much better they will be when the turnovers improve.

Negative: Nebraska was lucky to win as many games as it did with THAT many turnovers. Things will balance out now and they will be bad.

Going forward, I think it's the positive one. Glad Frost is in charge now.

On offense, I think Martinez will reduce his fumbles significantly this year.  His decisions will be MUCH better and he will know how to take a hit, along with being much bigger to absorb those hits.

On defense, I think the D will start to create more turnovers.  One, if NU is up in the game, that forces the opposing offense to be more aggressive, which can lead to turnovers.  Two, I think the pass rushers will do a much better job this year, which will create sack/fumbles and errant throws into the secondary.  Third, with another year of S&C and more depth, that means a faster defense and swarming to the ball carrier.  That means 2nd and 3rd guys coming into the play and punching at the ball.

It's really amazing how NU was able to win as many games as we did, given the turnover situation, but a lot of that is due to out-talenting the other team.  It cost NU in close games, especially against inferior opponents, and it gave NU no chance against teams with equal or better talent.

 

[Red Five]

This is all in all a great read by Dirk.

He goes into detail about both interceptions and fumbles.

First interceptions:

In 15 years, Nebraska’s interception differential is minus-2 — 194 gained, 196 lost. That’s worse than it first appears because winning programs generally have a big edge in interceptions.

Opponents typically fall behind, abandon the run game and throw more passes, often in desperation.

Then he moves on to fumbles:

Nebraska lost 179 fumbles in 15 years. That’s third-worst among all Division I programs

The Huskers are dead-last among all FBS schools during the 15 years — by a wide margin with 101 fumbles gained.

Combine those two fumble categories (offense and defense) and you get a fumble differential of minus-78.  Repeat: Minus-78!

The next-worst teams are Army (minus-46) and Georgia Tech (minus-39). The next-worst team that doesn’t run the triple option? West Virginia at minus-28.

 

[84HuskerLaw]

I wonder what those same stats would be for the 30 years before the past 15.   I am suspecting, despite the 'high risk' (fumble prone supposedly) offenses of Osborne and Solich running options, etc., that we may well have been a net positive team in turnover margin.    Losing the turnover battle is a very strong indicator of a losing outcome.  

Teams that throw the ball alot get INTs typically and sack/fumbles while wishbone and option running squads tend to get more fumbles from bad handoffs/pitches, etc.   

I am not sure whether one or another type of offense is actually more turnover prone.   No doubt somebody has looked at historic numbers.  It is more about individual players than about schemes perhaps.

This is so glaring, I am surprised it hasn't been the focus of much more discussion and analysis.   Perhaps the past 15 years have not been all about the poor coaching and lack of talent as much as having players that are not aggressive and or alert enough on defense to create and collect turnvovers while our offenses have been sloppy and mishandling the ball too much.

I realize those are things coaches are responsbile for as well but fumbling and not catching the INT balls is mostly a function of player failure.

No doubt Huskers have made life a lot more difficult with effectively one arm tied behind our back just to make it fair!

 

[4skers89]

Dirk's been on top of turnovers for a while https://dataomaha.com/documents/husker-turnovers-a-look-at-nebraskas-slippery-slope

» Only eight Division I players lost six fumbles or more. Two of them — Taylor Martinez and Ameer Abdullah — played for Nebraska. 

» Over the past two years, only two Division I players have more than 20 fumbles. Army’s Trent Steelman has 23. Martinez has 29. 

This includes the Ameer and Martinez years who were known fumblers.  I can't find statistics on fumbles but Martinez had 29 interceptions.

 

[ColoradoHusk]

I wonder what those same stats would be for the 30 years before the past 15.   I am suspecting, despite the 'high risk' (fumble prone supposedly) offenses of Osborne and Solich running options, etc., that we may well have been a net positive team in turnover margin.    Losing the turnover battle is a very strong indicator of a losing outcome.  

Teams that throw the ball alot get INTs typically and sack/fumbles while wishbone and option running squads tend to get more fumbles from bad handoffs/pitches, etc.   

I am not sure whether one or another type of offense is actually more turnover prone.   No doubt somebody has looked at historic numbers.  It is more about individual players than about schemes perhaps.

This is so glaring, I am surprised it hasn't been the focus of much more discussion and analysis.   Perhaps the past 15 years have not been all about the poor coaching and lack of talent as much as having players that are not aggressive and or alert enough on defense to create and collect turnvovers while our offenses have been sloppy and mishandling the ball too much.

I realize those are things coaches are responsbile for as well but fumbling and not catching the INT balls is mostly a function of player failure.

No doubt Huskers have made life a lot more difficult with effectively one arm tied behind our back just to make it fair!

Th article from the OWH showed that NU was one of the better/best teams in turnover margin in the 15 years prior from 1989 to 2003.

I think one of the biggest failures that Callahan, Bo, and Riley shared was a lack of attention to detail. Too many times, their teams played sloppy with mistakes in turnovers and penalties. I know Frost’s teams have had penalty issues in the past, but they tend to make up for it with positive turnover margins. 

 

[brophog]

I know Frost’s teams have had penalty issues in the past, but they tend to make up for it with positive turnover margins. 

Penalties gained are a non-intuitive win correlation stat. We all know it’s a fundamentally bad idea to lose yardage, and other lost yardage stats are positive win correlation stats as one would assume, but penalties are inconclusive. It all goes back to how much advantage can I get sticking my hand in that cookie jar if I’m only going to get caught a few times.

 

[ColoradoHusk]

Penalties gained are a non-intuitive win correlation stat. We all know it’s a fundamentally bad idea to lose yardage, and other lost yardage stats are positive win correlation stats as one would assume, but penalties are inconclusive. It all goes back to how much advantage can I get sticking my hand in that cookie jar if I’m only going to get caught a few times.

Great point about penalties. The best teams will push the limit of what penalties will he called against them.  I do get annoyed with false starts, delay of games, and illegal substitution penalties, but the last 2 shouldn’t be much of an issue with Frost’s offense. 

 

[Landlord]

I mean, if I remember right T-Mart led the nation in fumbles (maybe just for quarterbacks, maybe for all players) all of his first three years starting. Ameer also put the ball on the ground more than he should've. The Pelini years are the biggest contributor to this 2004-present stat as his teams were never great with the ball and he never saw fit to really focus on the team getting any better in that regard.

But yeah, we've been one of the weirdest enigmas in college football for the last 20 years. 

 

[I am I]

I remember a thread last year about “biggest concerns” heading into 2018. My number one concern was turnovers. Got a little chaste for that. Others said QB questions, defense, OL, etc....I thought if we could just hold onto the damn ball like we hadn’t for a decade we’d win more.  I defended myself. 

If we just don’t give the damn ball away so much we win a LOT more the last 10-12 yrs. 

i love Frosts quote a couple weeks ago “the only thing Osborne would say dadgummit in practice was when we turned the ball over in practice”. 

I see a real change in this category leading to more wins this season and many many more over the next 27 yrs. 

 

[brophog]

I remember a thread last year about “biggest concerns” heading into 2018. My number one concern was turnovers. Got a little chaste for that. Others said QB questions, defense, OL, etc....I thought if we could just hold onto the damn ball like we hadn’t for a decade we’d win more.  I defended myself. 

Because turnovers carry such weight in the outcome, it’s a trivial response. It’s the next closest thing to suggesting you’d win more if you just scored more points than the other team.

 

[CapoValley]

Honestly, Northwestern hasn't been better the past few years against most teams, they seem to want to hang in the game and try to have the other team make mistakes.  It's a good strategy when they are working with inferior talent and it works for them.  But, their success is more dependent on the other team screwing up.

So.......they’re well coached?