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Chatelain: The weird and infuriating statistics of Nebraska football
In 20 seasons covering Nebraska football, I’ve spent enough hours mining unusual statistics to go a little insane. But every once in a while, a new one drops my jaw,
In 20 seasons covering Nebraska football, I’ve spent enough hours mining unusual statistics to go a little insane. But every once in a while, a new one drops my jaw. Like the following:
Nebraska’s national ranking in net yards per play.
In other words, how many yards the Husker offense gains each snap vs. how many yards the Husker defense gives up. It’s a pretty good sorting tool to measure a team’s strength. (Credit college football analyst Todd Fuhrman for the idea).
Focus on the Power Five conferences. Ohio State is No. 1 (3.40 net yards). Georgia is No. 2 (2.98). Cincinnati is third (2.50). Iowa State is fourth (1.82).
And No. 5? Yep. The 3-6 Nebraska Cornhuskers.
Nebraska’s offense produces 6.70 yards per play. The defense gives up 4.96. That’s plus-1.74 yards per play, excluding the FCS Fordham data. It’s 0.02 ahead of the No. 6 team on the list. Perhaps you’ve heard of them.
Alabama.
No kidding. Of all the confounding ways to describe the 2021 Husker season, that one statistic — net yards per play — ranks high. It is not, however, the most stunning number in this column. Stick around for that.
By now, Husker fans — men and women — have pulled out most of their hair trying to figure out why Scott Frost keeps losing close games. But let’s dig a little deeper.
Start with the obvious: According to various analytics, Nebraska resembles a team far better than its record. TeamRankings says NU is the 25th-best team in the country. You have to go all the way to 48th in the predictive rankings to find another losing record (3-5 TCU). Football Outsiders ranks the Huskers 29th. ESPN’s FPI Index says they are 45th.
But how do we pinpoint why the Huskers look so good on paper and so bad in the standings? How do we find the hidden numbers that explain Nebraska’s 1,000-total yard advantage over opponents and a record that might get Frost fired? How could Nebraska have a positive scoring margin against Power Five opponents (+16) and be 1-6 in those games?!?
As noted, yards per play — on both sides of the ball — is impressive. No. 21 on offense, No. 22 on defense. That’s a recipe for a top-10 season. No team in the country has more offensive plays of 60- or 70-plus yards. The Huskers are decent on third down, both offense and defense. Sufficient in the red zone.
But somehow the formula falls apart. Nebraska’s offense, for example, ranks 100th nationally in yards-per-point. Too often the numbers don’t lead to anything.
Why? Let’s focus on five factors — a few of which you’ll expect, a few of which may startle you.
1. Turnover margin.
You knew this was coming.
Nebraska is minus-3 for the season, which ranks 94th nationally and 11th in the Big Ten. Yes, the interceptions and fumbles are a problem. But so is the defense’s inability to produce takeaways.
Only Kentucky, TCU, Miami and Stanford have caused fewer fumbles than the Blackshirts (5). And only eight defenses have recovered fewer (2).
The double whammy of turnovers — committing too many, not forcing enough — has haunted this program since Bill Callahan’s arrival.
Since August 2004, Nebraska is minus-94 in turnover margin. The next-worst Power Five program (Washington State) is minus-62. A difference of 32 turnovers!
Only Kentucky, TCU, Miami and Stanford have caused fewer fumbles than the Blackshirts (5). And only eight defenses have recovered fewer (2).
The double whammy of turnovers — committing too many, not forcing enough — has haunted this program since Bill Callahan’s arrival.
Since August 2004, Nebraska is minus-94 in turnover margin. The next-worst Power Five program (Washington State) is minus-62. A difference of 32 turnovers!
2. Special-teams rating.
Remember how bad the Huskers were a month ago? They aren’t any better today.
Football Outsiders ranks Nebraska special teams dead-last nationally — 130th. ESPN is a little more generous — 123rd.
The metrics include NU’s 25 punt return yards — total. Nebraska’s 2.8-yard per return is 125th nationally and 0.3 yards worse than Santino Panico’s infamous 3.1 average in 2004.
The metrics include just 128 kickoff return yards, 123rd nationally.
The metrics include six missed field goals — no Power Five team has missed more. And four missed extra points — no Power Five team has missed more.
The Big Red special-teams dumpster fire quietly keeps burning.
3. It’s not just field position or missed kicks.
Nebraska’s offense and special teams are directly hurting the Blackshirts defense.
The offense has given up 16 points this year (one scoop-six, one pick-six, one safety). Special teams have yielded another 11 (one punt return TD, one safety and a two-point return). That’s 27 points, while defense/special teams has added zero to the Husker side.
I tallied up NU’s past decade in this odd category. Of course, 2021 is last. Next worse are 2017 (minus-21) and 2018 (minus-14).
If you removed those 27 points, the Blackshirt defense would rise from 26th nationally in scoring defense to 12th.
Even with those flaws, Nebraska still should have a winning record, right? It doesn’t because it can’t perform under pressure.
4. Clutch offense.
Against Illinois, the Huskers grabbed the ball with 9:23 left and drove 91 yards in 19 plays. Boom! Except the touchdown only cut the lead to 30-22.
Against Minnesota, the Huskers drove 75 yards in the final 2 minutes. But they were down 14. They really needed the score during the four drives before that. All failures.
Against Purdue, Nebraska mounted a 94-yard drive in the final 3 minutes. Again, it trailed by two scores, not one. The previous seven drives produced nothing.
The Husker offense is like the golfer who never contends but shoots 65 on Sunday to grab a nice paycheck. So far in 2021, when the margin was eight points or less (winning or losing) after halftime, Nebraska’s offense had 23 opportunities to score.
Twenty-three drives. It scored 24 points.
One third-quarter field goal against Michigan State, a go-ahead touchdown against the Spartans and two go-ahead TDs against Michigan, one set up by an interception return to the 13-yard line. That’s it. Six punts, five turnovers on downs, two interceptions, two fumbles, two missed field goals, one safety and one time expiration.
In the final 5 minutes of games, Nebraska is even worse in the clutch. Not a single point in eight crunch-time possessions.
That statistic leads us to the final metric — luck.
5. Luck.
TeamRankings compiles all the important numbers, determines how many games a team should win based on its performance and compares it to the actual win total.
That’s the “luck rating.”
Entering November, Northern Illinois ranks first — 2.5 wins more than expected. Ohio ranks 129th — minus-1.7 wins. Everyone is clustered pretty tightly.
Except Nebraska. The Huskers’ “luck” rating is dead-last nationally. Minus-2.7!
It is the worst “luck” rating since Notre Dame’s -3.3 in 2016. Of college football’s 647 teams the past five seasons, none had a worse “luck” rating than 2021 Nebraska.
But it gets worse.
Notre Dame played 12 games that year; the Huskers have played only nine. So per game, only one FBS team since 2003 (when the database began) compares to Nebraska’s minus-0.3 per-game average. That was 2015 Georgia Tech, whose -3.6 “luck rating” — according to the TeamRankings guru I contacted — is statistically too similar to separate from Nebraska’s.
In plain English, this is what it means: In 19 years, roughly 2,500 FBS teams completed a football season. None statistically underachieved more than Nebraska has thus far in 2021, at least not in relationship to its performance level.
You can take that paragraph and argue that indeed Frost is closer than the standings indicate. That once his team breaks through mentally, the record will improve dramatically. Paul Johnson followed his 3-9 season at Georgia Tech with 9-4. Brian Kelly followed his 4-8 season with 10-3 in 2017, then 12-1.
Or you can take that paragraph and further indict Frost. Because bad luck isn’t really “luck” when it’s an annual pattern. The Huskers’ “luck” ranked 75th, 114th and 118th the previous three seasons. They might look good enough on a stat sheet, but you don’t play games on paper.
Regardless of your conclusion, that paragraph surely does one thing: It complicates the life of Trev Alberts.
