Game Thread Nebraska v Cincinnati (Kansas City, MO) - Thursday, August 28 8:00pm ESPN

[nscottie]

Essentially if you sim the game 10,000 times with the same box score, stats, turnovers, etc Nebraska wins 36% of the time

Thanks. Not sure I agree with this. Ohio State wins 100% of the time if Manning is still the qb. And Kansas State at 91%, no way. They escaped North Dakota in that game

 

[TampaBaySkers]

Essentially if you sim the game 10,000 times with the same box score, stats, turnovers, etc Nebraska wins 36% of the time

Retarded. Osu’s is even more retarded

 

[Baron Winnebago]

Stats are fun until you use them in the complete absence of any context. Nebraska pissed scoring opportunity after scoring opportunity down it's leg. That ain't in the box score. But if I know anything about football, it's usually the team who goes -2 in turnover margin that wins

 

[CornFed Gregger]

Nebraska should have lost because Bill can use Excel

Yea idk how u can watch tOSU vs Texas & only think tOSU wins 18% of the time. They were hands down the better team

 

[Baron Winnebago]

Yea idk how u can watch tOSU vs Texas & only think tOSU wins 18% of the time. They were hands down the better team

Spoiler: you don't

 

[Kaladin]

Heisman

 

[HCFord1]

Essentially if you sim the game 10,000 times with the same box score, stats, turnovers, etc Nebraska wins 36% of the time

It’d be crazy to watch a team that wins the turnover margin by 2, doubles the opponent’s time of possession, outgains their opponent by 30%, has 3x as many 3rd down conversions as their opponent, goes 2/2 in FG attempts, and downs 3/4 punts inside the 10 yard line, actually lose 6,400 games in that scenario.

 

[herbsinator]

It’d be crazy to watch a team that wins the turnover margin by 2, doubles the opponent’s time of possession, outgains their opponent by 30%, has 3x as many 3rd down conversions as their opponent, goes 2/2 in FG attempts, and downs 3/4 punts inside the 10 yard line, actually lose 6,400 games in that scenario.

Cincy had a yards per play advantage. Teams with a .5 yd/play margin win roughly 60% of the time. I think TOs get discounted because there is a fair amount of luck involved. In those 10,000 simulations you assume the ball bounces differently and Nebraska doesn’t recover those fumbles every time.

 

[Irv]

That Connelly thing is exactly what has me concerned. We were fortunate to win that game.

We won only because of the turnover advantage, full stop. If Cincy makes one less turnover they win (and we maybe score as few as 13 points).

 

[Sous Chef]

That Connelly thing is exactly what has me concerned. We were fortunate to win that game.

We won only because of the turnover advantage, full stop. If Cincy makes one less turnover they win (and we maybe score as few as 13 points).

Right but think of how many games in the past we could have won with just one less turnover on our part. Lets be glad we were on the other side of that and got the win. We aren't going to dominate very many teams this year other than hopefully the next two we face. I don't see us beating Michigan or Penn St. We just don't have the defense this year to do it. Turnovers are probably going to be the most important stat win or lose in the rest of the games we have on our schedule.

 

[HCFord1]

Cincy had a yards per play advantage. Teams with a .5 yd/play margin win roughly 60% of the time. I think TOs get discounted because there is a fair amount of luck involved. In those 10,000 simulations you assume the ball bounces differently and Nebraska doesn’t recover those fumbles every time.

So something about all the other stats being in our favor made it even worse than the standard 60/40 split?

 

[Irv]

Right but think of how many games in the past we could have won with just one less turnover on our part. Lets be glad we were on the other side of that and got the win. We aren't going to dominate very many teams this year other than hopefully the next two we face. I don't see us beating Michigan or Penn St. We just don't have the defense this year to do it. Turnovers are probably going to be the most important stat win or lose in the rest of the games we have on our schedule.

I’m happy to win the game. I just left Thursday feeling like maybe the team isn’t very good, which I hadn’t anticipated.

 

[Sous Chef]

I’m happy to win the game. I just left Thursday feeling like maybe the team isn’t very good, which I hadn’t anticipated.

Translation: You drank the Kool-ade again. I get it. I think they are slightly above middle of the pack in the B1G. I think 8 wins is the ceiling. The scary reality is we are one or two injuries away from struggling to make a bowl game. If I have to express long term concern its that we made no attempt to adress through the portal either of our two biggest weaknesses we currently have. We stood pat on DL and RB. Only time will tell for sure but today that looks pretty dumb.

 

[herbsinator]

So something about all the other stats being in our favor made it even worse than the standard 60/40 split?

I don’t know exactly what all goes into the SP+ model exactly, but Cincy was also more efficient scoring inside the 40 and had a better success rate (ie 50% of yards needed on 1st down, 70% of yards needed on 2nd down and all yards needed on third down).

One thing in Nebraska’s favor was starting field position.

Idk, I’d take all of it with a grain of slaw personally. The metrics in the analytic community are most based on a per play basis and Cincy ran relatively few plays so the numbers are more easily skewed. Nebraska’s D was playing pretty soft at the end of the game to avoid the big plays and Cincy racked up a lot of yards late. The stats would look pretty different going into the 4th quarter.

 

[Baron Winnebago]

Cincy had a yards per play advantage. Teams with a .5 yd/play margin win roughly 60% of the time. I think TOs get discounted because there is a fair amount of luck involved. In those 10,000 simulations you assume the ball bounces differently and Nebraska doesn’t recover those fumbles every time.

It just gets goofy to assume that some stats are deterministic and some stats are stochastic for the purpose of the simulation. It's not super uncommon to do but why would Hunter falling down on a near guaranteed TD not be the same "luck" piece as Dylan getting on an unlikely fumble.

I mean it's also goofy to only give a point estimate when the entire point of the exercise to create an empirical distribution of outcomes but YOLO I guess

 

[Pepe Silvia]

I guess the biggest positive is that this is a game we 100% lose with last year's special teams, so the changes in that part of the game all went exactly as we hoped

 

[herbsinator]

It just gets goofy to assume that some stats are deterministic and some stats are stochastic for the purpose of the simulation. It's not super uncommon to do but why would Hunter falling down on a near guaranteed TD not be the same "luck" piece as Dylan getting on an unlikely fumble.

I mean it's also goofy to only give a point estimate when the entire point of the exercise to create an empirical distribution of outcomes but YOLO I guess

I think it would be foolish to assume that Bill C is a god that has built a perfect model to assess a team’s performance. It’s just one more data point to look at IMO.

 

[vailhusker]

Stats are fun until you use them in the complete absence of any context. Nebraska pissed scoring opportunity after scoring opportunity down it's leg. That ain't in the box score. But if I know anything about football, it's usually the team who goes -2 in turnover margin that wins

We can rightfully talk about the DL, RB, or even OL production but the offense not being able to score is still a big concern.

Offense had one TD, scored another with a short field from a fumble recovery, 6pts special teams.

Defense gives up a TD after a failed 4th down conversation that should have been a Archie punt downed inside of the five. Gives up another TD after Cincy goes right down the field and scores, that needs to be addressed but seems to happen about every game.

Several times the last few years the Defense has done enough to get the win but the Offense's lack of production and Special Team's fiasco have turned it into a loss. Special Teams seems to be fixed with Ekelers arrival.

TLDR: If anyone can fix the scoring issue it is Holgorsen.