NU history of penalties & turnovers since Devaney (graphs included)

I would be really curious to see the the offensive vs defensive penalties. Offensive penalties are always bad, always. Defensive ones are not always bad, teams with nasty aggressive defenses tend to have more penalties. And sometimes a DPI is a good play when it prevents a TD or a 50 yard gain.

 
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+! for creativity and hard work.

One could make an argument that the frequency of penalties being called nowadays in both college and professional football has increased dramatically over the past 50 years. Due to pressure to make the game safer and implementation of more rules and changing rules, like late hits, high hits, intentional grounding, offensive and defensive pass interference, returner interference, chop blocking, clipping, low hit on an engaged player, facemask, horse collar, etc.

 
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We should throw out all the penalties we were given during our Big 12 sendoff season. Most of them were bogus especially against Eric Martin and all of those in the A & M game.

 
Nice work nexus.

I think one stat that would be relevant to turnovers would be time of possession. ie. The more time the offense possesses the ball would likely increase the occurance of turnovers. Not making any claim one way or the other, just sayin. The two things that stick out to me are; 1 Pelini's teams are on par with our historical turnover rate and 2 it would appear that penalties are noticeably worse under Pelini. Of course his average is still heavily weighted by our final season in the Big 12 (where wewere mercilessly shafted often) and two seasons in the B1G where IMO the officiating has been subpar. And there is probably some validity to the assertion that Bo's sideline demeanor doesn't lend itself to getting any breaks.

 
Great work, Nexus! That is outstandingly well-done and very sweet lookin'.

Question, could INT % (per pass attempts) be easily obtained as well? With our somewhat strong fluctuation in passing attempts over the years and the relative infrequency of interceptions, I thought that would be interesting. I suppose a similar number for Fumble %.

 
zoogies said:
Great work, Nexus! That is outstandingly well-done and very sweet lookin'.

Question, could INT % (per pass attempts) be easily obtained as well? With our somewhat strong fluctuation in passing attempts over the years and the relative infrequency of interceptions, I thought that would be interesting. I suppose a similar number for Fumble %.
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I don't have access to fumble % because of its situational nature; ie. punt & kickoff fumbles, WR catching ball and then fumbling, QB and RB fumbles, etc.

However, I went ahead and looked up pass attempts to interceptions and here's how it breaks down:

Devaney

155/10 = 6.45%

124/7 = 5.64%

158/13 = 8.22%

187/12 = 6.41%

192/9 = 4.68%

245/15 = 6.12%

251/11 = 4.38%

325/15 = 4.61%

275/12 = 4.36%

300/6 = 2%

332/15 = 4.51%

TOTAL AVG. = 5.21%

Osborne

255/19 = 7.45%

223/15 = 6.72%

246/6 = 2.43%

306/13 = 4.24%

209/9 = 4.30%

229/10 = 4.36%

206/9 = 4.36%

174/6 = 3.44%

181/11 = 6.07%

214/4 = 1.86%

192/6 = 3.12%

160/9 = 5.62%

144/11 = 7.63%

168/10 = 5.95%

162/11 = 6.79%

163/9 = 5.52%

168/3 = 1.78%

157/12 = 7.64%

205/8 = 3.90%

199/7 = 3.51%

201/6 = 2.98%

210/7 = 3.33%

228/6 = 2.63%

222/3 = 1.35%

182/4 = 2.19%

TOTAL AVG. = 4.36%

Solich

208/5 = 2.40%

184/5 = 2.71%

172/8 = 4.65%

199/11 = 5.52%

235/12 = 5.10%

192/10 = 5.20%

TOTAL AVG. = 4.26%

Callahan

322/23 = 7.14%

444/13 = 2.92%

411/8 = 1.94%

481/17 = 3.53%

TOTAL AVG. = 3.88%

Pelini

433/11 = 2.54%

364/12 = 3.29%

282/8 = 2.83%

293/8 = 2.73%

351/11 = 3.13%

TOTAL AVG. = 2.90%

 
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Interceptions highest (by number) during Callahan era.... no surprise.

Penalties highest (by number and by yardage) during Pelini era.... also no surprise.

Wonder how many penalties are personal fouls. Would also agree that in the last 5-10 years more penalties in general are called all across college football... particularly pass interference and targeting / roughing calls, both of which we are prone to do.

 
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What this shows me is how slight increases or decreases affect the team or at least perception of the team. You listen to some fans and it's like they believe Tom's teams never were penalized, never fumbled and never threw an interception. There is always room for improvement. But, this team (in these three categories) isn't the horrible train wreck that some fans claim they are.

 
HuskerNationNick said:
kchusker_chris said:
HuskerNationNick said:
Nexus said:
evaney Avg. = 53/508 - 31/17 - 11

Osborne Avg. = 62/567 - 33/17 - 9

Solich Avg. = 73/649 - 31/15 - 9

Callahan Avg. = 79/614 - 24/12 - 15

Pelini Avg. = 94/831 - 33/15 - 10
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This right here shows me that putting the ball on the ground has always been an issue for us. For those who sit here and call out Bo for fumbles, when they also admire TO, should realize that its a reoccurring thing, and since TO was a great coach, there are somethings you can not teach obviously. On average, Pelini's term, we turn the ball over less on fumbles :)

Devaney: 54.8%

Osborne: 51.5%

Solich: 48.3%

Callahan: 50%

Pelini: 45.4%

In all seriousness, its not a great statistic. Something we need to get a grasp on, but coaching is not to blame, as we DO play our best players.

Penalties are a case of an undisciplined team. Some are not called for, as we have seen this year, and quite questionable, but that only accounts for 1/10 of the total penalties.
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the option lended itself to more fumbles IMO. when we are finishing almost dead least in fumbles every year then something is wrong. There are 100 teams that are better than us. However, we run the ball more than most of them, which obviously means we are going to fumble more.

I'd like to see fumbles per rush attempt. But that's likely a lot of work.
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A lot of our fumbles this year came from Special Teams, 5 or 6 I think it was. Two players come to mind when you say the word "fumble", Taylor Martinez and Niles Paul. Taylor has accounted for most of our fumbles in Bo's Tenure, and Paul had a lot as well. Taylor makes up for his mistakes though, especially this year.
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I thought one of the most telling stats shared during the CCG was when the announcers said that Martinez has been either tied for and had the most fumbles outright in each of his 3 years...not on the team, but IN ALL OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL.

Just a guess here, but I highly doubt any Husker has ever put together a string like that before. Definitely not a record Martinez can be proud of, but certainly one that adds to the enigma that is Taylor Martinez.

 
The best thing to compare this to would be to do the exact same thing for our opponents. This would allow us to see where all the coaches compared to turnovers and penalties of their opponents. I can tell you from my own research that Bo on average incurs more penalties, yardage and turnovers than his opponents. That's the problem.

 
billdozer15 said:
The best thing to compare this to would be to do the exact same thing for our opponents. This would allow us to see where all the coaches compared to turnovers and penalties of their opponents. I can tell you from my own research that Bo on average incurs more penalties, yardage and turnovers than his opponents. That's the problem.
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Nebraska is ranked 33rd nationally for the number of penalties this year, with 156. We are then #26 for yards given up on penalties with 1,474. Averaging 9.4 yards/penalty.

 
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