Advanced Scouting...By Accident

After five years of living in Texas I finally made it to my first high school football game last Friday night. As luck would have it the game allowed an early glimpse of a future Husker (perhaps, maybe, we'll see how things shake-out). Anyway, as I was saying I attended the Baytown Robert E. Lee homecoming battle against Port Arthur Memorial H.S. Port Arthur's star player just happens to be one David Whitmore who is currently committed to the Huskers.

So how did I find myself at said contest? Well, my lovely fiance is a proud Baytown Lee Gander (seriously their nickname is the Ganders), as is pretty much her entire family. Kind of like my family full of Rockets from Lincoln Northeast. But I digress...

Now onto the scouting:

From what I could see Whitmore has a lot of developing to do before he contributes in any meaningful manner. He is SKINNY and that means a lot coming from me. That's sort of like Mark Mangino calling someone fat, if you catch my meaning. Whitmore's legs look like they should be holding up popsicles rather than a future DI football player. He does, however, have plenty of height which will certainly come in handy amongst the 6-4 receivers that now dot the Big 12 landscape.

Whitmore wasn't thrown at much on Friday. It was difficult to tell if this was by design becuase Baytown's QB play was spotty at best. Two plays do standout though.

On the first, Whitmore was beaten on a hitch move. This obviously caused an automatic cringe from Jeffie Husker, given Nebraska's recent struggles with this route. What I liked, however, was Whitmore's ability to close on the reciever while the ball was in the air. In fact after making up a large cushion, Whitmore actually put himself in position to intercept the pass on a perfectly timed turn to look back at the ball. Unfortunately, the refs called pass interference on Whitmore for using his hands to gain the advantage while in the air. I thought it was a terrible call based on what the official thought was going to happen, rather than the way Whitmore pulled it off.

On the second play Whitmore had to defend a bubble screen type pass thrown to his side. Despite showing initial hesitancy, Whitmore fended off a block from another receiver and made a pretty nice open field tackle. In fact, Whitmore made in my mind a prototypical CB tackle by simply getting low enough to take out the reciever's legs (or pins - for you Jim Rose fans). That play occurred right in front of me, and I couldn't help but give him a one-man standing ovation. Had it occurred at Memorial Stadium I would have been joined by 85,000 fans as it was clearly a better tackle than any of us have seen this season.

One thing that surprised me, however, was I didn't see Whitmore take even one snap on offense. I know Texas football is different than Nebraska high school football, but the fact that he doesn't crack the offensive starting lineup seems a bit worrisome to me. Overall, I'd say Whitmore has a lot of athleticism and good potential. He showed me plenty of speed and good hips (not the Eva Mendes type), meaning he is already less stiff than Andre Jones. In addition, I came away extremely expressed with his ability to close on receivers and make a play on the ball in the air. You just can't teach those skills.

So we'll see now if Whitmore winds up in Lincoln and if so, how well my attempt at a scouting report pans out.

I Don't Share in Your Enthusiasm Today...Maybe Later

You’ll have to forgive me, as the bottom seems to have fallen out on my optimism for things in Lincoln. While most are reveling in the firing of Pederson and beginning to see the sunrise on the Nebraska horizon, I forecast mostly dark skies in our near future.

I’ve defended Pederson some in the past, mostly because I fear I have a little of his arrogance in the depths of my soul. I’m not afraid to make tough and independent decisions and I’ve heard I can be tough to work for. Couple that with a love for Nebraska football and it bears at least wondering how different we might actually be.

But I’m not upset he’s leaving. It’s more about what his leaving could mean for the future of the program. We’re now everything I didn’t think we were. When I committed myself to the idea of firing a 9-3 coach, I committed myself to giving the new staff plenty of time to alter the direction of the program. Why? Because I thought it was either that or prepare to deal with the ramifications of high expectations coupled with an itchy trigger finger. I hope you’re prepared. The 3-year coaching experiment cannot and will not work in college football. You think Alabama fans imagined it playing out like this after the first time they sent one of the Bear’s successors on his way? That’s the problem, once the revolving door has been set in motion, it takes a rare find to stop it from turning.

While Steve Pederson may have started the door in motion, his firing signifies its building momentum.

More thoughts in non-narrative form:

· Most of my despair hinges on Callahan’s pending departure. But does anyone actually think he’s still here come spring?

· I get sick to my stomach when I think about the impending onslaught of “I told you so’s” coming from the anti-Pederson/anti-Callahan crowd.

· Everyone’s excited about Tom Osborne as Athletic Director. Not only was Solich his hand-picked successor, but he also recommended Pederson for the AD job. Has he suddenly become a better judge of leaders after spending time in politics of all places?

· People point to Oklahoma and compare Callahan to Howard Schnellenberger. That’s fine if we find our Stoops in the next few years. But what if it takes longer than that? Do we throw out the next AD and his coach? And then the next and his coach?

· And how is Husker Nation ever going to agree on our next coach? Right now things seem split between Paul Johnson(?), Bo Pelini and Turner Gill. At the very least, right now today, the new AD pisses off a third of his constituents. Won’t every AD be in some sense a divider, unless we have primaries and run offs for potential head coaching candidates?

· Ok, enough bitching. Just had a case of the Mondays and needed to work out the worse case scenario. This could turn out just fine and I’m aboard no matter what. But until we know more – I play pray for Nebraska.

Losing Sucks. Developing Talent Sucks Worse.

Jonas Gray is a prized 4-star recruit out of Detroit that has committed to the 2008 Husker recruiting class who chose NU over Michigan, Michigan State, Louisville, Ohio State and Florida to name a few. He is ranked the #4 running back and #47 overall by Rivals.com. After seeing what Callahan and Co. have done to develop 5-star recruit Marlon Lucky in his career, I was interested in seeing where this stud recruit is at because obviously he isn’t going to improve once he steps foot on campus under the current regime. Here is a video of his commitment and a work-out.



His straight up and down running style is eerily similar to Dahran Diedrick. It looks like he barely passes the ‘paper test.' The chalk is going to have alot of tackles over the next 4 years. Do you call that skipping or running?

Kenny Demens, his best friend, high school teammate, and 4 star outside linebacker, was suppose to be a package deal with Gray. Where Gray went, Demens would follow. Demens is 6’1, 225 lbs, 4.6 forty and Gray is 5’10, 213 lbs, and 4.44 forty. Both look very impressive by the numbers. The big difference, however, is that Demens' wasn't snowed by the Nebraska coaching staff and was smart enough to realize the reality of the situation.

Now to the point of this rhetoric.

Bottom line is who is going to improve more to get to the next level? Callahan drops his NFL experience to every high school recruit he can. That's the problem. He treats these 'kids' as professional athletes. Sure you can come in and learn a complex NFL playbook, but that's all you'll learn. The fact is that these recruits still need to learn basic football skills and more importantly, what it is to be a college athlete and a part of a team. I remember hearing that Callahan was asked why he wasn't more involved with these players not as a coach but as a mentor. His response? 'My door is always open.'

One thing Callahan supporters have always said is that he can recruit, but for what? If you go by ‘star’ recruits, we should dominate the Big 12 north. Take this as a vent of frustration or take it as a very simple analysis of one recruit. I could be wrong, but I have a feeling, actually I know, that this is just a continuing trend of landing another top recruit that will become victim of an incomprehensible 100 lb. playbook and lack of fundamental coaching.

Gray said that his commitment to Nebraska would bring ‘more power to the class’ and make them ‘a top 3 class’, but who would argue, including Gray, that at this point he would have been better served being part of Demens’ package deal. Regardless if we are a Top 3 class or Top 30 class, it’s all about coaching at this point. Bo Pelini took ragtag players that were terrible the year before to elevate them to the #11 defense in the country in - hold your breath - ONE year. You can’t argue that there is (or was when they first stepped foot on campus) more talent today than then. Not even close.

Sorry Jonas Gray. I am probably wrong and you are probably a really good running back. The only thing I can tell you is that you might be better today than you will be in 4 years. Which is why we, as Husker fans, hope the Bill Callahan experiment has finally come to an end.

Bill, dude, you're done.

Marlon Lucky and Nebraska on Third Down

Who knows what the Missouri game will actually come down to, but Nebraska's ability to convert on third down will certainly be key. Thus far, Nebraska is converting 45.83% of their 3rd down attempts, which ranks us 20th nationally in this statistic. On the road, however, we've been absolutely brutal, converting just 3/15 attempts (20%)at Wake Forest. That's just not going to cut it in Columbia.

An important component of 3rd down success is the emergence of big play guys who step up when it's time to move the chains. If you think back to 2006, the go-to guy on 3rd down was Maurice Purify. In 2006, Nebraska threw to Purify 23 times on 3rd down resulting in 14 receptions. Of those 14 completions, 11 garnered first downs and three resulted in touchdowns. It's early in 2007, so we're still waiting for our 3rd down weapon to emerge...or are we?

I took a closer look at Marlon Lucky's numbers for the year and was surprised by what I saw from him, especially on 3rd down. In the table below we have Lucky's rushing statistics on 3rd down for 2007.


What jumps out immediately is the eye-popping average yards per carry. Did anyone realize that Lucky is averaging 7.77 yards per carry on third down? That's pretty impressive. By digging a little further I was able to put that figure into perspective.

In this table we have the nation's Top 10 players in average yards per carry on third down plays (with a minimum of 10 carries).


Here we see that Lucky's 7.77 yards/carry rank 4th nationally, ahead of such stars as P.J. Hill, Ray Rice and Darren McFadden. Color me impressed.

But yards per carry is really only way to look at third down backs. Another and perhaps more important variable is the running back's ability to convert on 3rd downs. Once again I looked at the statistics and found that Lucky has turned 8 of his 13 third down carries into first downs. That's a third down conversion percentage of 61.54%.

So how does that stack up nationally? Below we see the Top 10 nationally for running backs in terms of 3rd down conversion percentage (Again minimum of 10 carries). Currently Lucky sits 9th nationally in this category.


These numbers tell me that Lucky's contributions are being overlooked by many of us (myself included). He's proven so far that he can come up big when the offense needs yards and we haven't even talked about his ability to catch passes out of the backfield. To help illuminate this part of his game I also examined his receptions on third down.


I have to admit, I was surprised to see how infrequently we've thrown to Lucky on third down. However, he has had some success proving that he must be accounted for on every down, and is always a danger to move the chains for the Husker offense.

2007 Offensive and Defensive Efficiency

Might as well take a quick look at how Nebraska is stacking up in terms of our offensive and defensive efficiency, thus far in 2007.

Remember offensive efficiency is measured by way of the Scoreability Index. The Scoreability Index is obtained by dividing a team's total yards by total points scored, yielding Yards Per Point Scored. A team that ranks high on the Scoreability Index has the offense that scores most efficiently, marching off a relatively small number of yards for every point it scores.

Nebraska currently has a Scoreability Index of 13.68 which ranks 56th nationally. That means Nebraska is currently scoring one touchdown for every 82 yards of offense they generate. To put this in perspective, a year ago we scored on TD for every 81 yards of offense we generated, so we can call that a wash.

When looking at how the Big 12 stacks up, you might be surprised.

1. Oklahoma
2. Texas A&M
3. Kansas
4. Kansas State
5. Texas
6. Texas Tech
7. Missouri
8. Nebraska
9. Oklahoma State
10. Baylor
11. Colorado
12. Iowa State

Nebraska has just the 8th most efficient offense in the conference. Interestingly that puts the Huskers just one spot below the high powered offense of Missouri. Things should be interesting in two weeks.

Defensive efficiency is measured by way of the Bendability Index. This is the first stat that chronicles the phenomenon of the "bend-but-don't-break" defense. The Bendability Index is obtained by dividing a team's total yards allowed by total points allowed, yielding Yards Per Point Allowed. A team that ranks high on the Bendability Index has the defense that opponents must work hardest to score upon.

You can probably guess how ugly this one is. Nebraska currently has a Bendability Index of 14.03. So far, Nebraska's opponents have had to march just 84 yards to score the equivalent of a single touchdown. A year ago the Blackshirts forced teams to generate 108 yards of offense to score the equivalent of one TD. For those claiming this is the "worst Husker defense I have ever seen" you'd be almost right in terms of defensive efficiency. Cosgrove's 2004 defense was actually worse. That team had a Bendability Index of 13.72 and opponents needed just 82 yards of offense to score the equivalent of one TD. This year's totals would, however, rank as the second least efficient defense since the Osborne Era began.

When looking at the Big 12, things are darn right ugly. All I can say is thank God for Iowa State.

1. Kansas
2. Oklahoma
3. Missouri
4. Texas
5. Kansas State
6. Baylor
7. Texas A&M
8. Colorado
9. Oklahoma State
10. Texas Tech
11. Nebraska
12. Iowa State

But after looking at these numbers I actually feel better about the defense and worse about the offense. While Sam Keller and the offense are racking up yards, we aren't putting up enough points to show for all of that work. That type of inefficiency will come back to haunt us in conference play. Especially if we are going to have to outscore everyone.

Defensively we are obviously bad, but most of the teams going all the way back to the Osborne era had a game or two where the defense imploded. Those games impacted the overall defensive efficiency of the team, but didn't necessarily result in losses. At the very worst, if the defensive numbers continue at this rate we should finish somewhere between the 2002 team and the 2004 team. In other words, we could expect about six wins. Ouch.

Humor as a Defense Mechanism

Idea shamelessly stolen from the guys at MZone.

Not this again...

Well, we're back to this again where I become Callahan’s biggest defender on a fourth down playcall. What is so hard to understand? There was no doubt in my mind that we were going to go for it. Callahan is a gambler when it comes to fourth down. He is going to take a risk if he feels the payoff outweighs the potential costs of such a move. Perhaps he is familiar with the idea, presented once again for clarity by the Football Commentary folks that coaches punt way too often on fourth down, even when going for it would have been in their best interest.

The best their tables provide is the opponent’s 40-yard line with 3 minutes to go and a 3-point lead. Again we were on the 35 with 2 minutes to go. Anyway, the table tells us that Callahan should have believed the play would have a 60% probability of picking up the first down in order to come to the conclusion that we go for it rather than punt. So if he felt 6/10 times in that situation we pick up a first down – we go for it.

One more thing to consider we needed two yards for the first down. On fourth and two a year ago we went for it, and ran the ball twice. Both of those attempts led to first downs. Don’t think that Callahan isn’t aware of that success benchmark from 2006.

I know what you would have done in that situation. You would have punted. Callahan won’t. Just come to terms with that please people.

Nebraska 2006 - Dropped Passes

Well, I’ve finally finished charting all of the plays from the 2006 season including formations, personnel, shifts/motions, etc. I still haven’t figured out exactly how I want to utilize and share the information, however.

Until then I thought I’d start with an easy, but rarely tracked variable – dropped passes*.

First, the good news, as a team the Huskers had just 20 drops by my count. With 411 total passing attempts, that’s not bad at all.

Now for the scoreboard:

Frantz Hardy – 4
Brandon Jackson – 4
Terrence Nunn – 4
Mo Purify – 3
Nate Swift – 2
Todd Peterson – 2
Marlon Lucky – 1
JB Phillips - 1

I was surprised Hardy didn’t have more, as his seemed to stick out more and conventional wisdom around Husker Nation seems to paint him as our least sure-handed WR.

When I looked at which down the drops occurred on, Hardy’s drops became more noticeable. As a team, Nebraska had 7 drops on 3rd down plays. Those are absolute drive-killers, obviously and 3 of Hardy’s 4 drops just happened to occur on 3rd down. Ouch.

Next we have a breakdown of the drops by game:

Louisiana Tech – 3
Texas – 3
Oklahoma State – 3
Oklahoma – 3
Texas A&M – 2
Colorado – 2
Missouri - 2
USC – 1
Kansas – 1
Auburn – 1

Three losses at the top of the list, is I guess not surprising.

Now we have drops by quarter:

1st Quarter – 2
2nd Quarter – 3
3rd Quarter – 8
4th Quarter – 7

And just a little reminder Nebraska’s 2006 scoring by quarter:

1st 117
2nd 135
3rd 49
4th 120

So, there’s that.

Anyway, I’ll be trying to post interesting findings from now until the 2007 season realy gets going. Let me know if there are issues you are interested in from a year ago and I will try to see what the data shows.

*A note on “drops” – My job was a lot like the official scorer at a baseball game deciding between a hit and an error. Solid contact from a defender generally eliminated the scoring of a “drop”. Overall, I was probably fairly conservative in my decision-making.

Returning QBs and Preseason Favorites

The consensus seems to be that Missouri will win the Big 12 North, as most have them pegged as the preseason favorites. I tend to agree with this assessment for the time being. When I look at both teams on paper and examine the schedules I see Missouri as having a slight advantage over the Huskers.

One of the key areas I focused on in my assessment of the two teams was the quarterback position. Don’t get me wrong, I’m elated to have Sam Keller in the scarlet and cream. However, we have to remember that the guy has just eight career starts and has appeared in just 20 games. Missouri on the other hand, has Chase Daniel who although only a junior, has already started 13 games in his career. Daniel knows what it takes to QB a Big 12 team. While Keller was busy garnering the Scout Team MVP, Daniel was earning 2nd-Team All-Big 12 from the coaches.

I’m not the only one to use the QB position as a key measuring stick for my prognosticating. Coach Callahan addressed that very issue Monday at the Big 12 Media Days. He said:

“Well, my understanding is that the Big 12 writers essentially pick the team to win the division predicated on a number of factors. And the first factor is the quarterback. And since they have a starting quarterback that’s established in their program that's been productive, I can see where that's going.

Personally, no, I don't agree with it. But I love our football team and I think they're capable of doing some great things. And I understand how it all works and why people make the decisions and do the things that they do. And motivation -- we've got plenty of motivation with Nevada, you know, in the opening game. during the regular season. During the 9-3 season we did do a good job like I said with the one faltering -- we faltered against Texas late in the game.”

But before I put all of my preseason prediction eggs in one basket, I wanted to determine if a returning quarterback really mattered in college football. Thankfully, I didn’t have to do the analysis myself. Matt at Statistically Speaking had already done that for me.

I’ll try to briefly describe what he found.

First,

“Teams with a returning experienced quarterback had a collective record of 375-357 (.512) in 2005. When their experienced quarterbacks returned in 2006, their combined record jumped to 469-337 (.582). That's an increase of roughly 7 percentage points in winning percentage.”

Likewise,

Teams who lost their quarterbacks after 2005 had a collective record of 341-309 (.525) in 2005. When they lost their quarterbacks, they regressed to a combined 316-384 (.451) in 2006. That's a decrease of roughly 7.4 percentage points in winning percentage.

You’ll obviously notice that the gain in winning percentage among teams that returned their quarterback is almost equal to the losses in winning percentage of teams that lost their quarterback. What a coinky-dink.

In Part II of his QB analysis Matt stripped away some riff-raff by limiting the teams’ performances to conference play.

Here are the highlights of those findings:

The teams (62 total) that returned an experienced quarterback in 2006:
Went a collective 238-248 in conference play (.490)
Equates to just under a 4-4 record in a standard 8-game conference schedule.

In 2006, those same teams improved to 269-223 in conference play.
This is a winning percentage of .547 and equates to a 4.37-3.63 record in a standard 8 game conference season.
This is an improvement of roughly 1/2 game in the conference standings.

The teams (53 total) that did not return an experienced quarterback in 2006:
Went a collective 214-204 in conference play in 2005 (.512).
Equates to a conference record of 4.10-3.90 in a standard 8 game conference season.

In 2006, those same teams regressed to 188-234 in conference play.
This is a winning percentage of .445 and equates to a conference record of 3.56-4.44 in a standard 8 game conference season.
This is a regression of a little more than 1/2 game in the conference standings.

He also looked at the percentage of teams that improved/declined by a certain number of games. He found:

Of those teams returning an experienced QB:
21 teams (33.9%) improved by at least 2 games in the conference standings.
8 teams (12.9%) improved by at least 3 games in the conference standings.
13 teams (21%) declined by at least 2 games in the conference standings.
5 teams (8.1%) declined by at least 3 games in the conference standings.

Of those teams not returning an experienced QB:
10 teams (18.9%) improved by at least 2 games in the conference standings.
5 teams (9.4%) improved by at least 3 games in the conference standings.
21 teams (39.6%) declined by at least 2 games in the conference standings.
10 teams (18.9%) declined by at least 3 games in the conference standings.

Matt concludes by noting:

“I will say this, it appears that it may not be as valuable to return your starting quarterback (12.9% that returned theirs improved by at least 3 games and 9.4% that did not improved by at least 3 games) as it is damaging to have him leave (more than double the chance--18.9% to 8.1% of declining by at least 3 games).”

Now, I know Sam Keller is considered by many to be a returning quarterback even after sitting a season out and entering a new system. While I agree that his situation doesn’t exactly fit with this model, we have a talented QB who is new, and raw in Callahan’s version of the WCO. The bottom line is that we just don’t know how it will play out. And frankly that’s what makes this upcoming season so great – all of the unknowns. But for now, I stand my preseason selection of Missouri to win the Big 12 North. And I’ll continue to stand by that pick for at least the next few days.

Nebraska and Offensive Efficiency - Part III

Today we’ll look briefly at the historical data concerning Nebraska’s Scoreability Index over time. You can see the entire spreadsheet here. Have fun.

Here are the Top 10 seasons since the Osborne era began in terms of offensive efficiency.

1. 1988 - 9.68
2. 1996 - 9.90
3. 1980 - 10.00
4. 1983 - 10.51
5. 1986 - 10.66
6. 1997 - 10.91
7. 2000 - 11.09
8. 1993 - 11.10
9. 1992 - 11.29
10. 1999 - 11.45

Interestingly only one of our National Championship teams makes the list. This is due in part (I think), to the ways in which certain Nebraska teams dominated their competition. If we consider the 1995 team, which blew out pretty much everyone, you get to a point where that team was just racking up yards with its scrubs, but then taking knee and refusing to put up points. That would certainly hurt its efficiency as calculated by this method. That’s at least my best guess to explain this.

Now we have the worst ten seasons since the Osborne era began in terms of offensive efficiency.

1. 1973 - 17.70
2. 1977 - 15.67
3. 1995 - 14.53
4. 2004 - 14.53
5. 1979 - 14.05
6. 2003 - 13.93
7. 1981 - 13.79
8. 2002 - 13.64
9. 1994 - 13.62
10. 2006 - 13.56

First thing that jumps out at me is that we see both 1973 and 2004 on the list. What do these two seasons have in common? Breaking in a new head coach. We also see that the last two seasons of the Solich era also make this list. This should surprise absolutely no one who was actually paying attention.

Is anybody surprised to see that 2006 made the Top 10 in least efficient offensive performances? In some ways it is unexpected but our performances against teams like KSU, and ISU involved pretty big chunks of yardage and not a lot of point production. That adds up pretty quickly when we use this methodology.

Nebraska and Offensive Efficiency - Part II

In the first part of this series I introduced to the concept of the Scoreability Index. I explained the value of this statistic as a measure of offensive efficiency and attempted to prove that it was worthwhile to track in college football.

In Part II, I will take a closer look at the national rankings in this statistic, with particular attention paid to Nebraska’s offensive efficiency.

First, you can check out the entire Scoreability Index spreadsheet here. This should give you access to how this statistic is calculated and what the rankings look like for all 119 Division I-A teams.

Let’s start by looking at the Top 10 teams in the Scoreability Index:

1. Boise St. 10.60
2. Texas 10.90
3. Ohio St. 11.11
4. Virginia Tech 11.42
5. Rutgers 11.59
6. Oklahoma St. 11.63
7. Pittsburgh 11.72
8. SMU 11.80
9. West Virginia 11.88
10. Nevada 11.89

Right away, you will notice a few surprises, including Pittsburgh, SMU(?) and Nevada. However, all of the teams in the Top 10 had a .500 record or better and combined for an overall record of 94-34 (.734).

Overall, Boise State had the most efficient offense in 2006. The undefeated Broncos scored one touchdown for every 64 yards of offense they generated. You can watch their proficient offense at work in these Fiesta Bowl highlights.



The least efficient offense in 2006 belonged to the Golden Panthers of Florida International. FIU managed just one touchdown for every 146 yards of offense they generated. That’s exactly how you go 0-12. No wonder they was always fightin'.

Now let’s turn our attention to the Huskers. Nebraska finished a modest 43rd nationally in the Scoreability Index, obviously meaning they were the 43rd most efficient offensive unit in 2006. The Huskers produced 428 points, and 5804 yards. This produced a Scoreability Index of 13.56. Thus, the Huskers scored one touchdown for every 81 yards of offense they generated.

If we look at this statistic on a game-by-game basis (this is a less exact science), we can see our offensive efficiency in each match-up. Let’s start with our least efficient offensive performance. I managed to guess this one, and I have a feeling you might have as well. That cold night in KC for the Big 12 Championship, turned out to be our least efficient offensive performance and by quite a margin. In that game, the Huskers generated just 7 points off of 366 yards. That equates to a Scoreability Index of 52.29. In other words, Nebraska needed to produce 314 yards for the equivalent of one TD (six points) against the Sooners. Our other inefficient offensive performances came against USC (21.10), Texas (17.00), KSU (16.95), and Auburn (16.43).

Nebraska’s top three offensive efficiency performances came against non-conference opponents Nicholls St. (8.89), Troy (10.66), and Louisiana Tech (11.92). The Huskers’ most efficient offensive effort in conference play came against Missouri (12.32). The only odd finding overall related to the Scoreability Index came in the Kansas State game. That was the Huskers least-efficient offensive performance in which they managed a win. If we think back to the findings for the Bendability Index, we will notice that the KSU game just happened to be our most efficient defensive performance of the year. See how these statistical measures interplay?

We can put the performance of Nebraska in perspective by examining how the Big 12 shakes out in terms of the Scoreability Index in 2006.

1. Texas 10.90
2. Oklahoma St. 11.63
3. Oklahoma 12.17
4. Kansas 12.90
5. Baylor 13.36
6. Nebraska 13.56
7. Texas Tech 13.80
8. Kansas St. 13.84
9. Missouri 14.15
10. Texas A&M 14.27
11. Iowa State 16.88
12. Colorado 17.84

There are a few surprises here, but first things first. When discussing the Bendability Index, I noted that while Nebraska had a more efficient defense in 2006, the Sooners still won the head-to-head matchup. Now we know a little more about why. Overall, the Sooners offense (even with a WR at QB) was more efficient than that of the Huskers. In addition, see above for an explanation of just how awful our offense was in the Big 12 Championship Game.

Another surprise is Baylor listed ahead of us. That stings obviously, but don’t be too quick to discredit the Scoreability Index as a viable measure. If we look at the teams ahead of us (and that we played in 2006) on this list, you’ll notice that we lost to all but one of them. The one game we won against a team with a better Scoreability Index was Kansas, and we needed OT to sneak by the Jayhawks at home. That trend actually applies to our entire 2006 schedule, as every team Nebraska lost to in 2006 had a more efficient offense than the Huskers.

Still think this Scoreability Index doesn’t matter?

In Part III of this series I will again take a look at Nebraska’s historical performance as it relates to the Scoreability Index.

Nebraska and Offensive Efficiency - Part I

Earlier I introduced to the Bendability Index, a measure of defensive efficiency and one of the "Stats That Matter" at Cold, Hard Football Facts. Today I want to switch sides of the ball and look at offensive efficiency. Cold, Hard Football Facts has a stat for that as well. This is measure is known as the Scorability Index.

According to the site:

Scoreability Index – This is the offensive counterpart of the Bendability Index. The Scoreability Index is obtained by dividing a team's total yards by total points scored, yielding Yards Per Point Scored. A team that ranks high on the Scoreability Index has the offense that scores most efficiently, marching off a relatively small number of yards for every point it scores. This effort is more important than total offense and, in many cases, more important than scoring offense. The Scoreability Index is not purely an offensive yardstick. It is, instead, a great barometer of team success. It is a function of many team-wide factors, including general offensive strength, defense and special teams proficiency, turnover differential and Red Zone offense.

To help explain how this variable works in the NFL, Cold, Hard Football Facts uses the incompetence of the Raiders offense:

Pity poor Oakland. The Raiders will not only go down as one of the most inept offenses in modern NFL history, scoring just 10.5 PPG and averaging a dreadful 4.4 yards everytime they dropped back to pass, they also wasted a lot of effort this season moving the ball up and down the field for no reason.

Oakland needed to generate 23.45 yards to score a single point this season. That's more than twice the effort expended by division rival San Diego, which needed just 11.87 yards to score a single point.

To put it in more concrete football terms, the Chargers scored one touchdown for every 71 yards of offense they generated. The Raiders scored one touchdown for every 140 yards of offense they generated.

As a result, one team has the best record in football. The other team has the worst record in football.

That’s a pretty telling statistic in the NFL, but what about in college football? To find out, I again constructed a spreadsheet ranking NCAA teams in terms of the Scoreability Index for 2006. Next I used SMQ’s methodology for determining the relevance of a particular statistic in CFB. This meant finding the winning percentage of the Top 20 teams in the Scoreability Index category, as well as the winning percentage of the Bottom 20 teams in the Scoreability Index.

According to SMQ this is important because:

“…the relevance of a statistic shouldn't be measured only by the relative success of teams that perform well in a given category, but also by the relative failure of those that don't.”

Next, I calculated what SMQ sees as the most relevant measure of this analysis, the relationship between the winning percentages on the high and low ends of the Scoreability Index. In other words, I subtracted the winning percentage of teams in the Bottom 20 of the Scoreability Index from the winning percentage of the teams in the Top 20 of the Scoreability Index to determine the relative disparity between these two groups. From a statistical standpoint, the greater the level of disparity, the more relevant the particular statistic. Or as a SMQ noted:

“the ‘most important’ category, it would follow, would be the one with the best records at the top, the worst records at the bottom and, therefore, the greatest disparity."

SMQ’s analysis (along with my own additional calculations) found the most relevant offensive statistics based on disparity to be:

Third Down Efficiency +.477
Total Offense +.473
Scoring Offense +.472
Yards/Pass Attempt +.389
Passing Efficiency +.377
Rush Offense +.360
Fourth Down Efficiency +.350
Pass Offense +.182
Time of Possession +.164

Calculating the disparity margin of the Scoreability Index produced a figure of +.485. This means that the Scoreability Index produces the most relevant offensive statistic in terms of winning percentage.

So, just to clarify again:

The Scoreability Index is obtained by dividing a team's total yards by total points scored, yielding Yards Per Point Scored. A team that ranks high on the Scoreability Index has the offense that scores most efficiently, marching off a relatively small number of yards for every point it scores.

This is another interesting statistic and I believe it makes sense to think about teams in terms of how hard they are working to put points up on the board. We also have some evidence that this statistic is relevant in CFB. In fact, it looks to be more important than some of the statistics folks around Nebraska continue to harp on way too much - most notably, Time of Possession and Rushing Offense. These two statistics just didn’t matter in college football in 2006. But the Scoreability Index did. In Part II of this series I will look at how the teams ranked nationally in terms of the Scoreability Index. I will also examine where Nebraska fits in with regard to this statistic.

Nebraska and Defensive Efficiency – Part II

In the first part of this series I introduced to the concept of the Bendability Index. I explained the value of this statistic as a measure of defensive efficiency and attempted to prove that it was worthwhile to track in college football.

In Part II, I will take a closer look at the national rankings in this statistic, with particular attention paid to Nebraska’s performance on this variable.

First, you can check out the entire Bendability Index spreadsheet here. This should give you access to how this statistic is calculated and what the rankings look like for all 119 Division I-A teams.

Let’s start by looking at the Top 10 teams in the Bendability Index:

1. Ohio State (21.96)
2. BYU (21.72)
3. Wake Forest (21.00)
4. Auburn (20.99)
5. Wisconsin (20.96)
6. Virginia Tech (19.95)
7. Boston College (19.81)
8. Penn State (19.78)
9. Louisville (19.65)
10. USC (19.52)

Teams in the Top 10 in this statistic had a combined record of 109-22 (.832). They won five conference championships and played in four BCS bowls. In their bowl games these teams then went 7-3 (Louisville and Wake played each other). Clearly this statistic has some clout.

Overall, Ohio State had the most efficient defense in 2006. The Buckeyes forced opponents to march 132 yards to score the equivalent of a single touchdown. The least efficient defense in 2006 belonged to Turner Gill’s Buffalo squad. Opponents needed to gain just 65 yards to score the equivalent of a single touchdown on the Bulls. Is it any wonder the team went 2-10 last season?

Now let’s turn our attention to the Blackshirts. Nebraska finished a respectable 15th nationally in the Bendability index, obviously meaning they were the 15th most efficient defensive unit in 2006. The Huskers surrendered 256 points (2nd highest total in the Top 20), and 4646 yards. This produced a Bendability Index of 18.15. Thus, the Blackshirts forced opponents to march 109 yards to score the equivalent of a single TD last season.

If we look at this statistic on a game-by-game basis (this is a less exact science), we can see our defensive efficiency in each match-up. Let’s start with our least efficient defensive performance. Any guesses? My first thought was Oklahoma State and our implosion in Stillwater. Close, that was our second least efficient game. The least efficient defensive performance actually came in the Cotton Bowl against Auburn. The War Tigers managed 17 points on just 178 yards. That equates to a Bendability Index for the game of 10.47. In other words Auburn needed to drive just 63 yards for the equivalent of a single touchdown in the Cotton Bowl. Clearly the outcome was also decided by Nebraska’s offensive inefficiency and the dreaded fake punt call. As I said other inefficient defensive performances came against OSU (BI = 12.1), USC (14.3), OU (14.62), and Texas (15.82). All losses.

Nebraska’s most efficient performance came against Kansas State. Rojo actually made mention of this on HuskerPedia. The Wildcats put up 294 yards, but managed just 3 points. That works out to an incredible Bendability Index of 98.00! Again, if we extrapolate from that figure we find that it would have taken KSU driving 588 yards to put up the equivalent of one TD. Quick note – the Troy game had to be taken out, as the shut out made calculating the Bendability Index unpossible (stupid zeros and division). Most of our other efficient defensive performances came against non-conference opponents. In the Big 12, the defensive was particularly proficient against ISU and Colorado. The rest of the Big games involved performances that were less efficient than the season average (BI < 18.15).

We can put the performance of the Blackshirts in perspective by examining how the Big 12 shakes out in terms of the Bendability Index in 2006.

1. Nebraska 18.15
2. Oklahoma 16.61
3. Missouri 16.39
4. Texas 16.24
5. Texas A&M 15.71
6. Colorado 15.32
7. Kansas 14.83
8. Kansas State 14.54
9. OSU 14.21
10. Texas Tech 13.30
11. ISU 12.76
12. Baylor 12.53

Not surprisingly the two teams that met in the conference championship game fill the top two spots in the conference in Bendability Index. The order might be somewhat surprising to some, given the salty reputation of OU’s defense and their success in the head-to-head match-up. If I had to guess the reason for this discrepancy, I would say that Oklahoma enjoyed a more efficient offense in 2006 than did Nebraska. Again this might surprise you, but stay tuned and I’ll address this is in a later post.

The next level of teams includes three more you would expect in Missouri, Texas, and Texas A&M. Texas had problems in the defensive backfield, which accounted for a lot of yards, but their ranking is about what I expected. Missouri, despite the attacks on Pinkel, actually put up defensive numbers that were quite comparable to Nebraska’s a year ago. The team with the better defense between these two schools in 2007 will likely win the North (really going out on a limb there!). The biggest surprise is 2-10 Colorado at 6th in Big 12. But don’t forget that the Buffs’ defense was pretty stingy in our match-up a year ago. We relied on some key trick plays to account for both yards and points. Their offense, however, was absolutely horrible and was one of the least efficient in the nation. Oklahoma State and Texas Tech were two other teams that relied more on high-powered offenses which allowed for less efficient defensive play. Iowa State and Baylor round out the conference. They are, well, Iowa State and Baylor.

Ok, I think I’m starting to ramble a bit. Can you tell my summer teaching duties are over? Very nice. Part III of this series will put Nebraska’s defensive efficiency into historical context. How much history is yet to be decided. I don’t like to give people data that allows them to compare across the various coaching staffs. So I might just focus on the three years of the Callahan regime. We’ll see.

Nebraska and Defensive Efficiency - Part I

As you can probably tell, I am fascinated by the world of sports statistics. I spend many evenings banging out spreadsheets filled with stats and variables related to Nebraska football and college football as a whole. I am constantly searching for some way of quantifying success/improvement or of determining which statistics matter and which don’t.

Recently I’ve been thinking more about the defensive side of the ball. On Monday I noticed that the poster Rojo had started a thread at both HuskerPedia and the Red Sea Scrolls about Nebraska’s Pass Defense. As always, Rojo presented some great information. This post actually led to very little meaningful discussion on HuskerPedia, although I was surprised it didn’t quickly become a Pelini – Sanders – McBride- Cosgrove – Elmassian debate. Side note – HuskerPedia currently has a poll question asking who fans would rather have as their DB coach and over 70% support Marvin Sanders. That’s a lot of support for a guy who is currently out of work. But I digress.

Anyway, Rojo opened his post with this statement:

Let’s be clear: The most important thing for a defense is keeping the other guys out of the end zone.

Technically, the most important thing is winning, but I agree that keeping the other team out of the endzone goes a long way towards this. While I enjoyed Rojo’s information, I was thirsty for more. That brought me back to some data I had put together some time ago. This data related to the "Stats That Matter" analysis at the Cold, Hard Football Facts, an NFL site. One of the most interesting statistics they track is the Bendability Index. According to the site:

Bendability Index – This is the first stat that chronicles the phenomenon of the "bend-but-don't-break" defense and provides a measure of defensive efficiency. The Bendability Index is obtained by dividing a team's total yards allowed by total points allowed, yielding Yards Per Point Allowed. A team that ranks high on the Bendability Index has the defense that opponents must work hardest to score upon. This effort is more important than total defense and, in many cases, more important than scoring defense. The Bendability Index is not purely a defensive yardstick. It is, instead, a great barometer of team success. It is a function of many team-wide factors, including general defensive strength, offense and special teams proficiency, turnover differential and Red Zone defense.

This is exactly what I was looking for, a measure of defensive efficiency. In their discussion Cold, Hard Football Facts notes that this statistic is quite telling in the NFL.

“NFC North champion Chicago not only gave up the fewest points (202) in football last year, it topped the Bendability Index, too. The Bears forced opponents to march 134 yards to score the equivalent of a single touchdown. Chicago boasted more than a tough defense; they fielded a ferociously efficient defense.”

In addition, if we measure teams by the Bendability Index:
The top seven defenses made the playoffs.
9 playoff teams ranked in the Top 10 (and 10 in the Top 11).
The playoff teams ranked from No. 1 to No. 17 – the narrowest spread.

But before I got too excited, I needed to determine if the statistic carried as much weight in college football. To do this I first constructed a spreadsheet ranking NCAA teams in terms of the Bendability Index for 2006. Next I used SMQ’s methodology for determining the relevance of a particular statistic in CFB. This meant finding the winning percentage of the Top 20 teams in the Bendability Index category, as well as the winning percentage of the Bottom 20 teams in the Bendability Index.

According to SMQ this is important because:

“…the relevance of a statistic shouldn't be measured only by the relative success of teams that perform well in a given category, but also by the relative failure of those that don't.”

Next, I calculated what SMQ sees as the most relevant measure of this analysis, the relationship between the winning percentages on the high and low ends of the Bendability Index. In other words, I subtracted the winning percentage of teams in the Bottom 20 of the Bendability Index from the winning percentage of the teams in the Top 20 of the Bendability Index to determine the relative disparity between these two groups. From a statistical standpoint, the greater the level of disparity, the more relevant the particular statistic. Or as a SMQ noted:

“the ‘most important’ category, it would follow, would be the one with the best records at the top, the worst records at the bottom and, therefore, the greatest disparity."

SMQ’s analysis found the most relevant defensive statistics based on disparity to be:

*Scoring Defense: + .546
Passing Efficiency Defense: + .467
Rush Defense: + ..448
Total Defense: + .396
Third Down Efficiency Defense: + .375
Fourth Down Efficiency Defense: + .253

*SMQ did not actually calculate the relevance of scoring defense. I was able to throw it together and come up with this figure.

When I calculated the disparity margin for the Bendability Index, I was surprised to discover it was + .522. In other words, Bendability Index actually appears to be a more relevant defensive statistic in terms of winning percentage than all but scoring defense.

So, just to clarify again:

“The Bendability Index is obtained by dividing a team's total yards allowed by total points allowed, yielding Yards Per Point Allowed. A team that ranks high on the Bendability Index has the defense that opponents must work hardest to score upon.”

I like this statistic and think we have some proof that it matters in CFB. In addition, it seems to add to the statistic of scoring defense by accounting for overall defensive efficiency or the number of yards necessary for a team to put up points on a defense. In Part II of this series I will look at how the teams ranked nationally in terms of the Bendability Index. I will also examine where Nebraska fits in with regard to this statistic.

Nebraska and Home Field Advantage

An interesting take on the concept of home field advantage at The Straight Dope of all places. The Straight Dope is a question and answer site run by Psuedonymous columnist Cecil Adams. If you have a question about just about anything, chances are The Straight Dope have attempted an answer.

Regarding home field advantage (HFA), The Straight Dope says:

What explains HFA? Several possibilities are often cited, including familiarity with home turf, no travel stress, and what football fans call "the 12th man," the home crowd. But establishing what's most important isn't easy. Take familiarity — one study of 7 baseball, 17 basketball, and 13 hockey teams that moved to new stadiums (without changing cities) between October 1987 and April 2001 showed a significant reduction in HFA in the season following the move. However, other studies purport to show that MLB teams do better in a new stadium. One clear-cut case of HFA arising from venue familiarity is the Colorado Rockies, who consistently display the largest differential between home and away records of any MLB team. All agree that's because only the Rockies are acclimated to high-altitude Coors Field.

Crowd effects are easier to demonstrate, at least in some sports. A study of more than 5,000 English soccer matches found that teams scored an average of 1.5 goals at home vs only 1.1 on the road, with the difference growing by 0.1 goals per 10,000 spectators. The researchers attribute this to cowed refs' giving the visitors more penalties. Schwartz and Barsky thought crowd effects explained why HFA for baseball and football was lower than for hockey (in the 70s anyway) and basketball — the latter two sports are invariably played indoors, where the noise is more intense. Travel stress is probably a minor factor, since HFA persists even among teams that are geographically close.

Whatever the reason, a home field advantage certainly exists in Lincoln.

Nebraska was 7-1 at home in 2006 and has won at least six home games in 17 of the past 19 seasons.

Nebraska is 116-11 at home in the last 18 seasons (since 1989), including a pair of losses against teams that went on to win the national championship–Colorado in 1990 and Washington in 1991.

Since 1986, only seven different schools have left Memorial Stadium with a victory (Colorado, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Southern Miss., Texas, Texas Tech, Washington).

During Nebraska’s run of success at home in the past 25 years, Nebraska has had three home winning streaks of 20 or more games.

Nebraska had a school-record 47-game home winning streak from 1991 to 1998, a 26-game home streak from 1998 to 2002 and a 21-game win streak in the early 1980s.

Nebraska has not been shut out at home since a 12-0 loss to Kansas State in 1968 (245 games), and has posted 40 unbeaten and untied home seasons.

All-time Nebraska is 481-129-20 (.779, 630 games, 117 years) in Lincoln.

The Huskers are 356-106-13 (.763, 475 games, 84 years) in Memorial Stadium (since 1923).

Ranking the Coaches Based on...Um, Coaching

I'm sure many of you remember Tom Dienhart's attempt at ranking all of the BCS coaches. Like most of Dienhart's columns the piece seemed to be based on little other than personal opinion. That's fine as he gets paid to have an opinion, but there had to be a more scientific approach to the endeavor.

Well, it turns out there was a better approach, like the one taken by LD at the The Corporate Headquarters of the San Antonio Gunslingers.

LD based his rankings on several key factors:

Longevity
National Titles
Conference Titles
Winning Percentage
Winning Percentage As Against School's Historic Winning Percentage

I've said it before, but this is another example of how the mainstream media gets outdone by bloggers. Anyway, you can see the spreadsheet of LD's rankings here.

Here are some of LD's comments related to Nebraska and Bill Callahan

Winning Percentage As Against School's Historic Winning Percentage:

Biggest upgrade by Dienhart from where a coach would be rated by this objective category: Bill Callahan (from 50th up to 21st).

Coaches upgraded by Dienhart by more than 10 spots (my guess at a reason, and here I don't consider a bad program as a good reason since it's already accounted for): Hawkins (small sample), Bobby Johnson (???), Bill Callahan (???), Mark Mangino (???), Greg Schiano (???), Jim Leavitt (Shouldn't be listed here - he's the only coach at the program, so his comparison to history is neutral), Houston Nutt (???), Lloyd Carr (title), Kirk Ferentz (???), Tom O'Brien (???), Tommy Tuberville (???, near-title?), Frank Beamer (longevity), Nick Saban (title), Mack Brown (title), Rich Rodriguez (???), Jim Tressel (title).

Looking at the various objective criteria, I think Dienhart overrates and underrates a few coaches, based upon their accomplishments.

OVERRATED: Mark Mangino, Bill Callahan, Bobby Johnson, Rich Rodriguez, Kirk Ferentz, Tom O'Brien.

UNDERRATED: Phil Fulmer, Ralph Friedgen, Mark Richt, Charlie Weis, Jeff Tedford, Les Miles, Tommy Bowden, Bret Bielema, Tyrone Willingham, Karl Dorrell, Bill Doba.

A few more specific nits to pick considering all the categories discussed:

Houston Nutt at #20 isn't defensible. Guys behind him that best or equal him in every category: Tedford, Richt, Leach, Friedgen, Fulmer, Tiller, Bielema, Miles. Nutt's objective rankings put him right in line with Tommy Bowden, whom Dienhart ranks 47th (though, arguably he shouldn't be that low).

Matt at Statistically Speaking also introduced another variable into attempts at rating coaches. He created a formula that looks like this:

Win % Last Season (50%) + Win % 2 Yrs Ago (20%) + Win % 3 Yrs Ago (10%) + .500 (20%)

The four components are winning percentage for the previous three seasons; with each season decreasing in importance as the distance from the current season increases and the final component is a winning percentage of .500 as teams tend to trend towards .500. Including this component ensures we don’t penalize coaches coming off undefeated seasons because improving upon a 100% winning percentage is impossible. Additionally, we don’t reward coaches who go winless because we assume they will improve at least marginally. Next we just subtract the team’s expected winning percentage from their actual winning percentage. This number is the coach’s rating.

Here are the best and worst coaches in each conference according to Matt's formula:

Best

ACC
Jim Grobe (Wake Forest) +.389

Big East
Greg Schiano (Rutgers) +.340

Big 10
Bret Bielema (Wisconsin) +.235

Big 12
Dennis Franchione (Texas A&M) +.215

Pac 10
Mike Riley (Oregon State) +.208

SEC
Rich Brooks (Kentucky) +.309

Conference USA
Todd Graham (Rice) +.296

MAC
Frank Solich (Ohio) +.271

Mountain West
Bronco Mendenhall (BYU) +.372

Sun Belt
Larry Blakeney (Troy) +.166

WAC
Dick Tomey (San Jose State) +.392

Worst

ACC
Chuck Amato (NC State) -.294

Big East
Randy Edsall (Connecticut) -.203

Big 10
Pat Fitzgerald (Northwestern) -.205

Big 12
Dan Hawkins (Colorado) -.367

Pac 10
Walt Harris (Stanford) -.354

SEC
Mike Shula (Alabama) -.185

Conference USA
Tommy West (Memphis) -.427

MAC
Shane Montgomery (Miami, Ohio) -.467

Mountain West
Chuck Long (San Diego State) -.181

Sun Belt
Darrell Dickey (North Texas) -.127

WAC
Jack Bicknell (Louisiana Tech) -.329

Obviously neither of these systems is perfect, but they have to be better attempts than what Dienhart and most pundits provide.

Pythagorean Projection - Nebraska and Expected Wins

The Pythagorean projection is an approximation of a team’s wins based solely on points scored and allowed. This concept was made famous by baseball analyst Bill James who discovered that the record of a baseball team could be very closely approximated by taking the square of team runs scored plus the square of team runs allowed.

Later statistician Daryl Morey of STATS, Inc. attempted to apply the formula to many sports. The basic Pythagorean projection formula looks like this:


What Morley found was the formula worked best for other sports if the exponent was tweaked. For example, for the NFL, the exponent is 2.37 instead of 2. The Pythagorean projection works remarkably well for the NFL. According the 2006 Football Prospectus:

"Out of 18 Super Bowls played since the 1987 strike season, 11 were won by the team that led the NFL in Pythagorean Wins, while only seven were won by the team with the most actual victories".

Using this information as a starting point, I have attempted to examine the Expected vs. Actual Wins for Nebraska from the Osborne era through Callahan’s first three years. For my analysis I utilized the 2.37 figure of the NFL. The results of the analysis are listed in the table below.

Coach	Year	Games	Points For	Points Against	Expected Wins	Actual Wins
Callahan	2006	14	428	256	10.8	9
	2005	12	296	252	7.13	8
	2004	11	275	298	4.98	5
Solich	2003	13	322	188	10.16	10
	2002	14	383	335	8.10	7
	2001	13	449	189	11.52	11
	2000	12	456	213	10.3	10
	1999	13	411	150	11.91	12
	1998	13	383	183	11.08	9
Osborne	1997	13	565	197	12.01	13
	1996	13	512	153	12.30	11
	1995	12	421	150	11.04	12
	1994	13	421	145	12.04	13
	1993	12	421	176	10.65	11
	1992	12	427	172	10.75	9
	1991	12	454	208	10.37	9
	1990	12	413	147	11.05	9
	1989	12	492	174	11.06	10
	1988	13	474	182	11.78	11
	1987	12	423	133	11.27	10
	1986	12	416	150	11.02	10
	1985	12	398	136	11.13	9
	1984	12	359	105	11.38	10
	1983	13	624	186	12.30	12
	1982	13	493	137	12.40	12
	1981	12	349	103	11.37	9
	1980	12	439	93	11.70	10
	1979	12	380	131	11.11	10
	1978	12	444	216	10.16	9
	1977	12	315	200	8.95	9
	1976	13	416	181	11.41	9
	1975	12	367	137	10.94	10
	1974	12	373	132	11.06	9
	1973	12	306	163	9.80	9

Some have since utilized the formula as a crude measure of whether a team has over- or under-achieved. From this perspective if actual wins < than expected wins a team has “under-performed”. Likewise, if actual wins > than expected wins that team has “over-achieved”. Notre Dame blog The Blue-Gray Sky completed a similar analysis of their team last year. Like BGS, I tend to see the formula more as a measure of a team’s luck over the course of a season. As BGS states:

“...because what the Pythagorean method really measures is how many games you were supposed to win based on a strict measurement of points scored and points given up; it's not a measurement of how good a team really is. Perhaps another way to talk about it is in terms of Fate: which teams were "luckiest", and which teams were snakebitten.”

So we could see the 2006 Huskers as a team that under-performed according to this measure. After all, the team’s expected wins were 10.8 and their actual wins were 9. Or we could think about the luck or lack of break’s the team experienced. Like say a 22-20 loss to Texas on a late fumble or a 17-14 loss to Auburn that included a “risky” fake punt.

But whichever way you choose to view the Pythagorean projection (and there are many), it is an interesting statistic in college football. I continue to hope that CFB moves toward the statistical analysis that is now commonplace among the MLB blogosphere. My plan is to continue to help usher Nebraska football coverage into the “Moneyball” era with pieces such as these.

As it stands, the analysis was hardly earth-shattering, but was an interesting undertaking nonetheless. Some things of note:

Check out how consistent Nebraska was during the 1980s and early 90s. Even managing to score 421 points three straight years.

One of the first things I did was jump to some years I felt the Huskers under-achieved (1987,1992,1998). Lo and behold, the formula agrees!

I don't see a whole lot of "over-achieving" going on. Have we really been that unlucky through the years?

You can read more about the Pythagorean projection at:
Pigskin Pythagoras
Football Outsiders

Nebraska’s 2009 Schedule is Mortifying

I don’t know how else to say it. We have officially lost all ability to rag on Kansas State and the creampuff-laden schedules of the Bill Snyder era. We are what we hate.

Exhibit A – The Huskers’ 2009 Football Schedule

09/05 Florida Atlantic
09/12 Louisiana-Lafayette
09/19 Virginia Tech
09/26 Arkansas State
10/03 Missouri
10/17 Texas Tech
10/24 Iowa State
10/31 Baylor
11/07 Oklahoma
11/14 Kansas
11/21 Kansas State
11/27 Colorado

Not one, not two, but THREE(!) teams from the Sun Belt Conference. This is college football purgatory. If I wanted to watch teams from the Sun Belt, I would, you know…cheer for teams from the Sun Belt. Instead I chose the magic, the wonder, the tradition that is NEBRASKA FOOTBALL. And what do I get for my years of dutiful obsession? Owls and Ragin’ Cajuns and Indians.

This is why the rest of the college football world refuses to take us seriously. This is why ESPN displays its so-called “Husker bias”. This is why starting 4-0 or 3-1 means nothing. This is why our non-conference games are only televised on a pay-per-view basis. This is why I’m starting every sentence with “This is why”.

But just how bad is the Sun Belt? As a conference it has only been around since 2001. But its members have been playing Division I teams for quite some time. This is how Sun Belt Conference teams have fared against the other major conferences.


To say that they have been less than competitive against the BCS conferences is a bit of an understatement. To say they belong on the field with Nebraska is a travesty.

Oh where have you gone strength of schedule component? We miss thee.

Charting Our Progress - Time of Possession

Today we look at another of college football’s great axioms – time of possession, in our charting the progress series. I’d harbor a guess that this was one of the most discussed (or at least mentioned) variables during the Osborne era. Win the time of possession, win the game. Right? Maybe not.

According the work of SMQ, this statistic means very little, only slightly more than yards penalized in college football.

Here is what SMQ’s tables tell us about time of possession:


Really not much to look at there. Time of possession, just doesn't seem to be all that important in college football. Or at least it wasn't in 2006.

So it appears we have another reason to turn the volume to mute during televised college games – too much discussion about a variable that just doesn’t seem to matter. But why doesn’t time of possession matter like we think it should? Well there are actually already some pretty good explanations already out there, so let’s start with those.

First we have a fantastic rant from Brian at MGoBlog from a point last season in which Michigan was leading the nation in TOP (they ultimately finished 2nd behind Texas A&M).

Time of possession is a fraud. It is a fraud for these reasons:

You cannot "keep the ball away from your opponent" any more than a basketball team can keep the ball away from their opponent. When you score or turn the ball over, they get the ball back, no exceptions. Unless you attempt an onside kick, your opponent is getting the ball back after you're done with it. They will have the exact same number of possessions you do, plus or minus one depending on end-of-half and end-of-game hijinks.

It describes the actions of teams after they acquire a big lead and not what they do to get said lead. One of the primary reasons Michigan is #1 in time of possession: they've jumped out to massive leads in many games and cruised home. Opponents like Michigan State and Notre Dame have spent entire halves in a spread hurry-up emphasizing quick movement of the ball. Meanwhile, Michigan leisurely pounds the ball into the line until the game is over. Result: in the second half Michigan three-and-outs can take more time than 80-yard touchdown drives by the opponent. This is hugely distorting and tells us nothing more than "Michigan has a big lead."

It places undue emphasis on the run game. Michigan features a crushing ground game and a crushing run defense. Result: lots of Michigan runs and very few opponent runs. This naturally helps TOP, but the reason Michigan is good isn't because they possess the ball for relatively large amounts of time but rather those crushing units. Time of possession obscures the real reasons for Michigan's success.

Well played. I suspect TOP obscuring the real reasons for success can be said for a lot of folks. But we'll come back to that.

There is also real, academic research that also contradicts the implied importance of TOP. Harold and Daniel Sackrowitz in an issue of Chance, argued against the use of a ball-control, TOP-favoring offense. They claim:

that "a team using ball control may reduce the number of possessions and points scored by its opponent, but it will lose more often than if it did not use ball control."

In their study, the Sackrowitz team developed a mathematical model for evaluating the efficacy of three styles of play: unconstrained (a team's normal mix of offensive maneuvers and actions), time-consuming (using additional time), and hurry-up (using less time than normal).

Beware dorky math mumbo-jumbo ahead.

They modeled a typical time-limited game by a multidimensional Markov chain -- a sequence of random vectors, each of which can be written as a string of numbers. The first three numbers, or coordinates, may indicate which team has possession, the current point difference between the teams, and the amount of time remaining. The remaining numbers of a given vector could represent the values of other variables deemed important for the particular game being considered, such as the number of time-outs remaining. Such a vector describes the state of the game at the beginning of each possession.

Such a computational model allowed the researchers to check game outcomes over a broad range of possible situations involving weak and strong teams adopting different styles of play at different times. A consistent pattern emerged in all the cases studied: An unconstrained strategy is preferable to either the time-consuming or the hurry-up strategies for both teams, even when one team is demonstrably weaker than the other.

And what the hell does that mean?

"The results also force us to the realization that, despite what one feels emotionally, a proficient ball-control offense reduces the number of possessions for both teams," the authors note. "Thus, if anything, one might guess that the better team would decrease its probability of winning by using ball control, particularly if it had reduced its probability of scoring."

But what about seemingly irrelevant Super Bowls involving the Big Tuna?

In a 1993 New York Times article about football coach Bill Parcells, the reporter stated, "His masterpiece was the 1991 Super Bowl, in which his Giants defused the powerful and innovative offense of the Buffalo Bills through the simple expedient of denying Buffalo the use of the football."

The Sackrowitzes have a different view. "Even in the supposed ultimate endorsement of ball control, the 1991 Super Bowl, the Bills had ten possessions (but punted six times)," they remark. "In that game, a great defense helped to create the illusion that ball control is effective."

Hopefully you are at least starting to understand that time of possession is not a key to college football success.

Now let's look at Nebraska's time of possession under Bill Callahan.


Here we see some pretty amazing progress during Callahan's tenure. Unfortunately it is in a statistic that we have highlighted to be irrelevant to success. But wait, here is where it gets a bit tricky.

If we look at Nebraska in 2006 we will notice that the Huskers actually went 8-2 in games in which they won the time of possession battle. They were just 1-3 in games their opponents had the ball longer. So TOP does matter then in Nebraska, right? Wrong.

Time of possession is still a shaky predictor of success. It looks like the football equivalant of a "red herring". We think it matters, but research and a little better understanding of its ability to mask other, more important variables (that I will be focusing on later), allows us to see it a more appropriate fashion.

But for those that are still a bit confused, or who insist on hanging on to the importance of TOP, here is a bit more.

In 2006, Nebraska finished fifth in the country in TOP, but our record was just 9-5. Arkansas State finished one slot ahead of us at fourth in the nation. They finished the season with a 6-6 record.

In 2005 Nebraska won four games when they possessed the ball more than their opponent. The Huskers also won four games when their opponent won the time of possession battle.

It just doesn't matter. Or at least not to the degree we might think it does.

Charting Our Progress – Yards Penalized Per Game

With the rebirth of this series I have decided to look at the statistical categories in order of relevance from least important to most important according to the fine work of SMQ. To accomplish this I have combined both parts of his stats relevance watch to determine which statistic was the least relevant in terms of W-L record and Top 25 ranking in 2006.

The overall loser was yards penalized per game. You can see its lack of relevance in CFB in the following table.


Now, here is the chart of Nebraska’s standing relative to the national average in this statistic.


And here is how they ranked nationally in each of those three season.

2004: 46th; 51.00 yards/game
2005: 63rd; 57.75 yards/game
2006: 41st; 43.86 yards/game

I could spend time analyzing Nebraska’s progress in this statistic, and it might actually be interesting to do so. But I won’t. Why spend time analyzing a statistic that has been shown to be irrelevant. How irrelevant? In 2006, Nebraska went 4-2 in games where they were penalized less yards than their opponent. In games the Huskers racked up more penalty yards they were 5-2 (the Cotton Bowl was a push as Nebraska and Auburn were both penalized 45 yards).

Therefore, I thought it would be interesting to examine why this statistic might not be as important as the casual observer might think.

First, let’s go with what SMQ said. After Part I:

“First counterintuitive result: the most penalized teams were slightly better as a whole than the least penalized teams. Penalty yardage, over the course of an entire season, had no discernible effects on winning and losing. You can probably think of a situation that would specifically argue otherwise, cuz penalties are definitely bad, mmmkay?, but they're bad more as situational mistakes than an overall, cumulative drain.

Then after Part II:

”Again, penalty yards stand out as utterly meaningless; as in Part One, higher penalty yardage actually correlates slightly more with success, which makes no sense and should not indicate that jumping offsides is desirable or even, in the short term, meaningless (hello, Louisville), but the overall, cumulative consequences of flags were apparently nil.”

Perhaps surprisingly, SMQ wasn’t actually the first to discover the lack of correlation between fewer yards penalized and success. Football Outsiders also examined this finding in the NFL back in 2003. They point out that this phenomenon was actually first noted in a 1988 book, The Hidden Game of Football written by Bob Carroll, Pete Palmer and John Thorn. However, according to Football Outsiders these authors made a key error in describing it, when they said:

“[Penalties] don’t make a whole lot of difference. Over the course of a season, they tend to even out. For every drive-killing holding penalty, there’s an interference call that keeps a drive going.”

Football Outsiders doesn’t buy the “even-ing out” hypothesis, because:

”The truth is, penalties don’t even out. Looking at the whole of last season, it’s clear that some teams were consistently penalized more than other teams. The difference is equal to a few hundred yards, which is also the difference between the best teams and the worst teams in punt return yardage. Would we say punt returns don’t really matter and even out over the course of the season? Certainly not.”

Football Outsiders goes on to discuss that:

What is perhaps even more surprising is the discovery that the majority of Super Bowl champions have actually been more prone to penalties than their opponents in the regular season. In fact, of the 37 Super Bowl champions, 23 actually had more penalty yards than their opponents.

From here the article goes on to do the work for me. The talented Michael David Smith of Football Outsiders provides his theories for the finding that many of the most successful teams are actually penalized more in the NFL. I would guess that we could also apply these theories to college football as well. I will present each of Smith’s theories in italics and then provide my response after these.

1. Good teams have the lead late in the game, which means they’re on defense against the pass more often. This makes them more likely to be called for defensive pass interference, which is the only penalty that can cost more than 15 yards.

I never would have thought of this, but it seems like a possible explanation in the NFL. It is less helpful for college football given that pass interference is still just a 15 yard penalty.

2. Good teams are more likely to decline their opponents’ penalties and have their own penalties accepted. All the NFL’s statistics are for accepted penalties only; declined penalties are treated as if they never occurred. It would make sense that a good team is more likely to have a successful play and therefore decline an opponent’s penalty, whereas a bad team is more likely to have an unsuccessful play and take the penalty yards.

Another thought provoking hypothesis, that would be difficult to prove or dispel.

3. Good teams are more aggressive, and while aggressiveness is usually a positive trait in football, it can lead players to be penalized.

I actually like this hunch. It was the first one that came to mind. Think Florida State in the 90s.

4. Winning teams could be smarter about taking penalties at the right times. For instance, it’s often advantageous to take a delay of game penalty rather than waste a timeout. (This only happens a few times a season and probably isn’t statistically significant.)

I certainly agree with the lack of statistical significance portion of this hypothesis.

5. When discussing penalties, it’s important to keep in mind that, contrary to what coaches and commentators tend to say, penalties shouldn’t really be called “mistakes.” When an offensive lineman holds Michael Strahan, he didn’t do it on accident. He did it on purpose because he knew Michael Strahan would beat him otherwise. He just hoped he wouldn’t get caught. Ditto a defensive back interfering with Randy Moss. Yes, there are some penalties that are mistakes — offsides, false starts, delays of game — but even those would seem to happen more often against better opponents. I’d expect a tackle to be called for illegal procedure much more often against Jason Taylor than against some practice squad scrub. So when you see that the Giants’ opponents were flagged for more penalties than any other team’s opponents last year, don’t assume the Giants just got lucky. The Giants certainly played a role in it. Also keep in mind that NFL officiating crews are not all created equal. Some crews call more penalties than others. But even if one team was stuck with a flag-happy crew more times than another team, it would make no difference in the net penalties shown here.

Now we’re talking! This is one that definitely needs to be considered and should probably be analyzed more carefully. It certainly doesn’t clarify the entire picture, but no one ever seems to bring this one up.

Ok, let’s conclude this piece by keeping our wits about us. Teams should continue to attempt to avoid penalties whenever possible. And we should not expect to hear coaches come out and endorse a high number of penalties, but at the same time we now know a little bit more than most announcers about their relative importance. As Football Outsiders concludes:

So does this data say that penalties don’t matter? It most certainly does not. We’ve all seen penalties that had game-altering implications. But penalties are probably less important than coaches and commentators would have us believe. And this probably deserves further study.