But we're here to talk about college football. And can anyone fucking stop Clemson or Alabama? The answer is probably no; Clemson has a QB with long luscious golden hair and Alabama is Alabama. But let's take a brief look around the nation to see who is in the rear view mirror and could pose a threat to the dynasty:
Pac-12 - Honestly the Pac-12 should be looking to not be straight ass this year. Washington and Washington State were the only two that broke 10 wins, and Stanford, Oregon, and Utah checked in with 9. Not bad, but no one ever really threatened to be "that team" on the national scale. This year the eyes seem to be on Oregon and Washington early on, and frankly, I just don't see either of them making a national run.
Big XII - The Big 12 definitely fell flat last year with only having Oklahoma and Texas being their two big representatives (insert your daily "lol Texas" here). Iowa State and West Virginia ended up with 8 wins after what looked like promising seasons. Again, not much is changing with Oklahoma and Texas being ranked in the Top 10 in the preseason, which I will rip apart later. Look for Oklahoma to be the national representative, as usual.
Big Ten - The Big Ten is going through a weird phase as a conference. Last year was Ohio State vs. Michigan ft. A Late Collapse by Penn State. And the Big Ten West............yeah. Let's just say you don't want to have your division winner only having 9 wins, despite going 8-1 in conference play. And that's just the beginning. Hot take here is that the Big Ten will regress even further with Michigan being the only national threat as the Big Ten West continues its rebuild. Maybe Nebraska sneaks in. Maybe. Unlikely. But maybe.
SEC - I think everyone knows the story of the SEC by now. However the biggest takeaway from last year was the competitiveness of the SEC East. Georgia, Florida, and Kentucky?!?!? each finished with at least 10 wins, and every team except for Tennessee (insert your daily "lol Tennessee" here) finished with at least 6 wins. Not bad. This year I think we'll see some different surprises challenge Georgia, but for the most part, the power should shift back to the SEC West--I mean Alabama.
ACC - I was reading something prior to getting this typed up about how the ACC is supposed to be deep, and, I mean, depending how you look at it, that argument can maybe be made? Clemson and Syracuse were the only two to finish with 10+ wins, and every team except for Florida State, Louisville, and North Carolina, finished with at least 6 wins, which ties the Big 12 and SEC for the fewest teams that failed to reach the 6 win plateau. But then you have to consider that the ACC and SEC are 14-team conferences, and 11/14 looks nicer than 7/10, so sorry Big 12. But the argument still comes in the form that the SEC had much stronger teams than the ACC last year. I'd easily take most of the middle of the pack SEC teams to beat the middle of the pack ACC teams 9 times out of 10. But I'm ranting. Point is, Clemson will be the only good team out of the ACC.
So if you're keeping score at home, that means my playoff picks are Clemson, Alabama, Oklahoma, and Michigan. Hold me to it fam.
The Big Red Breakdown:
Ugh, that felt weird outlining the national picture before getting into Nebraska's season. New season, new me? Anyway, before I dig too deep on this year, I'd like to highlight this article I read in great detail about the daunting history of Nebraska from a statistical standpoint and G Bless everyone who worked on it and the folks at the Omaha World Herald for publicizing this. Remember to thank your local journalists.
https://www.omaha.com/huskers/plus/chatelain-this-bizarre-husker-stat-is-so-insane-scott-frost/article_c9eadecd-a2e4-5ccc-9226-ecfaf59d38cc.html
It is a very deep, long, and thorough breakdown of the last 15 years of Nebraska football and I'll give some of yall less invested fans the summary, but I encourage everyone to read it:
In the last 15 years, Nebraska ranks dead last in cumulative turnover margin among Power 5 teams (-80!!!), yet they somehow pulled a 60% win rate, which was good for being Top 30 in that category. The article showcases a chart where turnover margin and win rate is correlative, meaning that if your turnover margin is straight ass, you should not be winning games. Conversely, if you're winning the turnover battle, you're also winning your games. The stat that was thrown in there was that teams who were winning the turnover battle were winning roughly 70% of the time. So how the fuck does a team with a -80 turnover margin in the last 15 years still win 60% of its games? Its remarkable honestly.
The "proving point" if you will, of this article is that if Nebraska is already winning 60% of its games with that shit margin, just think of how much better off Nebraska would be if they had at least a neutral turnover margin during that span. We're talking 10 win seasons, possible conference championships, the list goes on. But instead this is what we're dealt with. And after reading this article, I kind of agreed that, off the top of my head, yeah, our defense hasn't exactly been generating turnovers (which is pointed out in the article), which is half the battle. Obviously the other half is that you don't want to be giving away the ball either. But that is something I want to research a little more as I had an interesting conversation with someone who thinks it is mostly the defense's lack of aggressiveness. I think Nebraska has had some shit QB play. Let's look:
Quarterbacks with at least 50 attempts were selected for this sampling, and I apologize for the long, somewhat hard to read list here:
2004 - Joe Dailey 17 TD, 19 INT, 310 Attempts (1 INT every 16 Attempts, only QB with a negative ratio)
2005 - Zac Taylor 19 TD, 12 INT, 430 Attempts (1 INT every 36 Attempts, ratio about 1.5:1)
2006 - Zac Taylor 26 TD, 8 INT, 391 Attempts (1 INT every 49 Attempts, ratio north of 3:1)
2007 - Sam Keller 14 TD, 10 INT, 325 Attempts (1 INT every 32.5 Attempts, ratio south of 1.5:1); Joe Ganz 16 TD, 7 INT, 152 Attempts (1 INT every 22 Attempts, ratio north of 2:1)
2008 - Joe Ganz 25 TD, 11 INT, 420 Attempts (nice) (1 INT every 38 Attempts, ratio almost 2.5:1)
2009 - Zac Lee 14 TD, 10 INT, 302 Attempts (1 INT every 30.2 Attempts, ratio almost 1.5:1); Cody Green 2 TD, 2 INT, 62 Attempts (1 INT every 31 Attempts, even ratio)
2010 - Taylor Martinez 10 TD, 7 INT, 196 Attempts (1 INT every 28 Attempts, ratio close to 1.5:1); Cody Green 3 TD, 1 INT, 60 Attempts (Think that looks self explanatory)
2011 - Taylor Martinez 13 TD, 8 INT, 288 Attempts (1 INT every 36 Attempts, ratio about 1.5:1)
2012 - Taylor Martinez 23 TD, 12 INT, 368 Attempts (1 INT every 31 Attempts, ratio almost 2:1)
2013 - Taylor Martinez 10 TD, 2 INT, 110 Attempts (1 INT every 55 Attempts, 5:1 ratio); Tommy Armstrong 9 TD, 8 INT, 131 Attempts (1 INT every 16 Attempts, almost 1:1 ratio); Ron Kellogg III 6 TD, 3 INT, 134 Attempts (1 INT every 45 Attempts, 2:1 ratio)
2014 - Tommy Armstrong 22 TD, 12 INT, 345 Attempts (1 INT every 29 Attempts, almost 2:1 ratio)
2015 - Tommy Armstrong 22 TD, 16 INT, 402 Attempts (1 INT every 25 Attempts, ratio south of 1.5:1); Ryker Fyfe 5 TD, 5 INT, 55 Attempts (1 INT every 11 Attempts, even ratio)
2016 - Tommy Armstrong 14 TD, 8 INT, 294 Attempts (1 INT every 37 Attempts, ratio of about 1.5:1); Ryker Fyfe 4 TD, 1 INT, 99 Attempts (Self explanatory)
2017 - Tanner Lee 23 TD, 16 INT, 428 Attempts (1 INT every 27 Attempts, ratio of almost 1.5:1)
2018 - Adrian Martinez 17 TD, 8 INT, 347 Attempts (1 INT every 43 Attempts, ratio north of 2:1)
Grand Totals: 314 TD, 186 INT, 5649 Attempts (1 INT every 30 Attempts, TD:INT ratio of roughly 1.6:1. Yikes)
And yes I know looking only subjectively at a QB's TD:INT ratio along with their Interception rates isn't super indicative of the overall play of said QB, but it kind of does speak a lot. We can still identify Nebraska's better offensive years came with solid QB play. Namely 2006 Zac Taylor, 2008 Joe Ganz, you can argue for 2013 Martinez if he didn't get hurt, and last year with Adrian Martinez after he was healthy and turned a corner. (And yes, I'm aware of a thing called "fumbles" but that's a whole nother category that I didn't want to dig into because of 1) Time and 2) The aforementioned article covers that as well, please read that!)
But perfect segue into this year's squad. Martinez strikes back. After starting abysmally 0-6, Nebraska turned the corner and went 4-2 in their last 6 to finish 4-8, with almost upsetting Ohio State on the road as the highlight during that stretch. We saw flashes of what the young offense could do last year in the second half of the season, but now we need to see if they can translate that success further with probably this year and next year being the key years of this offense. Martinez, Spielman, Warner, the tight ends, and Washington (if he stays out of trouble) highlight the returning starters, while they also add Wandale Robinson, who is supposed to be the Deluxe Model of Rondale Moore from Purdue, to add another level of offensive threat to this side of the ball. As usual, defense doesn't change too much except holy shit we have this thing called depth now. And by god, if Nebraska can keep the penalties down, there is a reason why they're favored to win the Big Ten West because let's take a look at this easy breezy cover girl schedule they have:
Game 1 vs. South Alabama - Will discuss further, W
Game 2 @ Colorado - Nebraska should have won last year, and with facing an even worse Colorado team this year, they won't make this close this year. W
Game 3 vs. Northern Illinois - Last time Northern Illinois came to town, they scraped by with a win, but accelerated the firing of the old staff, so honestly thanks fam. A much different team this time around should yield different results. If they do win again, then maybe they'll get another staff fired. W
Game 4 @ Illinois - When I was typing this I completely forgot about Illinois being on our schedule. That just tells ya how I think this game will go. W
Game 5 vs. Ohio State - Hottest take here is that I have Michigan winning the Big Ten. Why? Because I think Ohio State is overrated as fuck this year. This is still a tough game, but having Ohio State at home makes this NOT the hardest game on Nebraska's schedule. W, but a toss up.
Game 6 vs. Northwestern - Northwestern surprised some people last year with their interesting Big Ten run. And they always come prepared to play and are never an easy out. W, but I'll mark them as a toss up for now.
Game 7 @ Minnesota - MiNnEsOtA iS a GoOd TeAm. They say as they almost lose to South Dakota State. W
Game 8 vs. Indiana - Not much to discuss at the moment, Indiana has improved but they're never really a threat. W
Game 9 @ Purdue - Now THIS team from Indiana I'm scared of. Which are words I'd never thought I'd say "I'm scared for Purdue". Purdue has made some incredible strides and unless something collapses halfway through the season, they have a great shot at burning Nebraska with their offense. The only surefire L
Game 10 vs. Wisconsin - PLEASE BEAT WISCONSIN FOR ONCE THIS IS THE YEAR TO DO IT. W, but a toss up
Game 11 @ Maryland - Maryland has shown flashes of brilliance lately but hasn't quite brought it together yet, I'm not scared of them yet. W
Game 12 vs. Iowa - There's something about Iowa that always gives Nebraska a scare, but barring some changes through the first 11 games, this should be Nebraska's year. W, but a toss up.
To those who can't count, that is a best case 11-1 with a worst case of 7-5, and reasonably I've been saying winning at least 9 shouldn't be a challenge. It all depends on the defense though. But I honestly think that if things break the right direction, this is the schedule to go undefeated, unlike last year's nightmare schedule where all of the hard games were on the road.
Which brings us to Game 1! There really isn't a ton to say about South Alabama. They come from the Sun Belt, which yes a team from the Sun Belt beat Nebraska last year. But that was a good Sun Belt team. This is a bad one. Nebraska is favored by 36, or 5 touchdowns and a point, which at first glance I thought was a bit generous, but when you think about the fact that 56-14 covers that spread, I actually think that's a very manageable score to hit. Much like what the Akron game was supposed to be, this game will be a good test to see what Nebraska is truly capable of, and whether or not we need to pull the Kool Aid IV out and come back down to earth a little bit.
The Matchup:
Nebraska O vs. USA D: Advantage Nebraska. Too Fast Too Furious. Just focus on staying healthy.
Nebraska D vs. USA O: Advantage Nebraska. Not saying Nebraska's defense is going to be overwhelming, more of the fact that South Alabama's strong suit is their run game, which well, Nebraska usually covers pretty well.
Special Teams: Spielman and Robinson headline the return game and I got excited reading and typing that.
The Prediction:
Much like any good first game of the season, this is a good warmup to see what works and what doesn't. The highlight will definitely be the offense, but all eyes will be on the defense to see what they will be working with throughout the year. It's a manageable schedule, they just need to take it one game at a time.
Nebraska 52, South Alabama 10
