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Learning How to Win

Greatest Fan of All said:
Devaney taught the Huskers how to win...he was a master of winning the close ones against near/equal talent. He built the house to the extent that there weren't many opponents with near/equal talent when he retired to AD. Tom maintained the house and eventually upped the talent level...after that, first we started losing the talent, then we started losing the close games. Tough to flip that around again, but maybe we get on track this year. To the OP though...spot on, we really seem to have lost the will to win recently, ugh.

BTW, as much as I wanted Bo removed as coach...he was clearly a master of winning the close games.
Click to expand...
When Devaney came in ('62), most all the guys on the team were born during WW2, and surely they were instilled with that work ethic from their parents (who grew up during the depression) that just isn't a part of our culture today. So it's just that much bigger of a challenge for coaches today to convince kids to get off the couch and put in the extra effort -- to have that desire to excel.
 

Flat Water said:
But we still have enough talent to beat most of the teams on our schedule. Nevertheless, we keep losing close games against teams with comparable or lesser talent. Put simply, our team does not know how to win.

Why don't we know how to win? Frost's teams at UCF were over- rather than underachievers. And it wasn't simply a matter of getting "his" guys in place, because he mainly did it with guys he inherited from the prior staff. You know, the same staff who went winless in their final season in Orlando. Why hasn't he instilled the same mental toughness in his teams in Lincoln? I wish I knew.
Click to expand...

Just IMO -- it isn't just our players that need to grow. Our coaches need to learn how to win in the BiG. In this league defenses are sound and physical, and most of the coordinators are top level. There aren't as many big plays "out there" as there were in the AAC. It really challenges the "outscore and force turnovers" identity we want. You're success window on offense is tighter, you score less, your opponents aren't forced into taking near as many risks, it's harder to get turnovers.

I personally think we're going to have to change our philosophy a bit to truly succeed in this conference. It'll be fun watching.
 
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There are allot of teams that consistently have loosing seasons. We have unfortunately fallen into that category. Coaching, attitude, perspective, teamwork, preparation, desire, consistent performance, etc. all need to be strong to climb out of a loosing rut like our past 3 years. If a team expects to loose or play average then they most likely will.

myfootballmentor.com

Staying Motivated When Your Team is Losing - MyFootballMentor

Let’s face it, losing just stinks. But despite the sting, or embarrassment, or disappointment, there can be some bright spots if you know how to look for them. Here are five game-changing nuggets that can make a huge difference. Make your adversity your university. You expected this point didn’t...
myfootballmentor.com

Coaching 101: Turning Around a Losing Team | The Sports Doc Chalk Talk with Dr. Chris Stankovich

Coaches sometimes struggle with team building ideas and strategies that can help with overall team culture - and winning more games. Fortunately, there are things coaches can do to immediately help.
drstankovich.com drstankovich.com

Winning The Turnover Battle

It’s one of football’s oldest maxims: the key to winning the game is to win the turnover battle. This works better as an explanation for why a team won rather than as a cause of success — correlation doesn’t equal causation, of course — but that doesn’t mean the stat is useless. We know that
www.footballperspective.com www.footballperspective.com
www.footballstudyhall.com

College football's 5 most important stats

Explosiveness, efficiency, field position, finishing drives, and turnovers are the five factors most directly correlated to winning football games. Check out the numbers.
www.footballstudyhall.com www.footballstudyhall.com

Explosiveness, efficiency, field position, finishing drives, and turnovers are the five factors to winning football games.
  • If you win the explosiveness battle (using PPP), you win 86 percent of the time.
  • If you win the efficency battle (using Success Rate), you win 83 percent of the time.
  • If you win the drive-finishing battle (using points per trip inside the 40), you win 75 percent of the time.
  • If you win the field position battle (using average starting field position), you win 72 percent of the time.
  • If you win the turnover battle (using turnover margin), you win 73 percent of the time.
www.footballoutsiders.com

Varsity Numbers: Four Truths

In this week's Varsity Numbers, Bill Connelly shares some statistical truths and unveils the latest F/+ rankings.
www.footballoutsiders.com www.footballoutsiders.com
www.psychologytoday.com

Success: Winners and Losers

In a world where everyone wants to shine, real champions possess a strong work ethic and a certain amount of humility. They single-handedly alter the playing field by elevating everyone in their midst.
www.psychologytoday.com www.psychologytoday.com
 
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Flat Water said:
Like all of you, I am concerned that we won't have a college football season this year. I'm going to assume that we will have a season because I don't want to consider the alternative.

I have a masochistic habit of recording all of the Nebraska games each season on my DVR and then re-watching the season in the couple of months before the next season starts. It helps remind me of who our up and coming players are, and it's interesting to watch the evolution (or devolution as the case may be) of the team as the year goes along. So far in watching last season I've only made it through the Colorado game, but watching it reminded me of something that has really bothered me about Husker teams for quite a while now.

People have mentioned the need to improve the overall team talent level, and that is certainly a valid point. We are not going to beat the Ohio States of the world until we close the talent gap. But we still have enough talent to beat most of the teams on our schedule. Nevertheless, we keep losing close games against teams with comparable or lesser talent. Put simply, our team does not know how to win. We were 1-5 in games decided by one score in Frost's first season, and last year we blew games we had good chances to win against Colorado, Indiana, Purdue and Iowa. Although we lost by 16 to Wisconsin, I would even put that game into the category of games that we could have won. We blew several scoring opportunities in the second half. Had we converted those opportunities into points, we would have been in it at the end with a chance to win. Yes, Nebraska beat Illinois and Northwestern last year in close games, but they were bad teams. We didn't win close games against good teams.

What is particularly frustrating is that this is not a new problem. This has been a defining characteristic of Nebraska teams for several years now. If we did nothing else other than win rather than lose a majority of our close games, our record would look much different. Wisconsin wins close games. That's why they are consistently around the ten win mark.

Why don't we know how to win? Frost's teams at UCF were over- rather than underachievers. And it wasn't simply a matter of getting "his" guys in place, because he mainly did it with guys he inherited from the prior staff. You know, the same staff who went winless in their final season in Orlando. Why hasn't he instilled the same mental toughness in his teams in Lincoln? I wish I knew.

We have a tough schedule this year, especially at the back end, but if we show some heart and eke out more close wins against good opponents, I will have hope that Frost is finally turning the corner with this team. For the collective sanity of the State of Nebraska, let's hope we finally see some progress. We have had a very disappointing couple of decades.
Click to expand...

Nice post, yes this team needs to learn how to win, and It has for a long time. Lots of things went wrong last year. Probably the biggest thing that went wrong was the second half meltdown against Colorado. That game really set a tone for the rest of the season. The team needed some good things to happen early and it might of been a completely different year. Losing to CU the way they did was something they just never got out of their system.

When good things happen it can really get momentum going. Minnesota had a great season last year. They got breaks early in the season that helped build momentum and confidence. They struggled against South Dakota St. all night and SDSU was driving with the ball and a 21-20 lead and fumbles on about Minnesota's 35 yard line. Minnesota takes the ball and scores late to win the game. Minnesota was losing late to Fresno St and scored late to tie the game up and then won it in OT. The won a 3 point game against Georgia Southern. They won a 1 possession game against Purdue. They could have easily been 1-3 over there first 4 games. They really weren't playing that well, but they built confidence with every win and really started believing in themselves.

Nebraska needs some good things to happen early and they could have a good season. They need to beat Purdue in the first game of the year and set a tone for the rest of the year.
 



NUinID said:
Nice post, yes this team needs to learn how to win, and It has for a long time. Lots of things went wrong last year. Probably the biggest thing that went wrong was the second half meltdown against Colorado. That game really set a tone for the rest of the season. The team needed some good things to happen early and it might of been a completely different year. Losing to CU the way they did was something they just never got out of their system.

When good things happen it can really get momentum going. Minnesota had a great season last year. They got breaks early in the season that helped build momentum and confidence. They struggled against South Dakota St. all night and SDSU was driving with the ball and a 21-20 lead and fumbles on about Minnesota's 35 yard line. Minnesota takes the ball and scores late to win the game. Minnesota was losing late to Fresno St and scored late to tie the game up and then won it in OT. The won a 3 point game against Georgia Southern. They won a 1 possession game against Purdue. They could have easily been 1-3 over there first 4 games. They really weren't playing that well, but they built confidence with every win and really started believing in themselves.

Nebraska needs some good things to happen early and they could have a good season. They need to beat Purdue in the first game of the year and set a tone for the rest of the year.
Click to expand...
You dont go 5-7 to 9-4 to 4-8 unless things are messed up, not addressed that are messed up, and the staffs direction just doesn't fit .
Knowing you could go 9-4 two times then stumble means you're going backwards.
This staff inherited disastor, too few leaders, kids from two staffs, of which both couldn't be more opposite, many just wanted out, many before this staff, the same.
So, now you've also inherited huge attrition.

So, matching the first years with the previous might be expected, maybe one extra win.
Second year, should have seen a jump, but close games were the norm, much like MR year one.
So better, but no jump.

I think once this staff fully learns, not just what other Big teams are or can do, what opposing coaches can do, if your team isn't meeting your terms as a coach, until they do, you're still learning, which are important lessons, because each year is a new team.
Getting your team up to your levels is paramount first.

Imo, that's this year, young and all.
 
Bean said:
www.footballstudyhall.com

College football's 5 most important stats

Explosiveness, efficiency, field position, finishing drives, and turnovers are the five factors most directly correlated to winning football games. Check out the numbers.
www.footballstudyhall.com www.footballstudyhall.com

Explosiveness, efficiency, field position, finishing drives, and turnovers are the five factors to winning football games.
  • If you win the explosiveness battle (using PPP), you win 86 percent of the time.
  • If you win the efficency battle (using Success Rate), you win 83 percent of the time.
  • If you win the drive-finishing battle (using points per trip inside the 40), you win 75 percent of the time.
  • If you win the field position battle (using average starting field position), you win 72 percent of the time.
  • If you win the turnover battle (using turnover margin), you win 73 percent of the time.
Click to expand...
That's 5 great factors to consider. with 12 games last year, what do you figure our record was for these factors? 10-50?
 
BigRedOhio said:
I think we will have football at Nebraska. Schedule might have to be modified, but I think we will have some sort of football season. The rest of the Big 10, I'm not so sure. Over-cautious governors throughout the conference states are reason for concern.
Click to expand...

There has been a rush to appear the most proactive throughout the country with COVID.

It's time to get on livin', or get on dyin'.
 
Greatest Fan of All said:
Devaney taught the Huskers how to win...he was a master of winning the close ones against near/equal talent. He built the house to the extent that there weren't many opponents with near/equal talent when he retired to AD. Tom maintained the house and eventually upped the talent level...after that, first we started losing the talent, then we started losing the close games. Tough to flip that around again, but maybe we get on track this year. To the OP though...spot on, we really seem to have lost the will to win recently, ugh.

BTW, as much as I wanted Bo removed as coach...he was clearly a master of winning the close games.
Click to expand...
I think maybe Bo had a little fight in him that his team picked up on.

I don't get the Flat Water reference-help me.
 




Frankly tired of timelines (perhaps it's all the never ending COVID speculation) but I'm feeling good & essentially we'll get there when we get there.

Having twice jettisoned 9/10 win/season coaches & twice jettisoned "new" approaches ... kinda done setting milestones, this feels like "our" coach - IMHO he deserved a really long runway when he got here.. now with all this pandemic chaos & disruption - win/loss & timeline discussions all seem subjective & arbitrary. :Sign2cents:
 
coherbie said:
Frankly tired of timelines (perhaps it's all the never ending COVID speculation) but I'm feeling good & essentially we'll get there when we get there.

Having twice jettisoned 9/10 win/season coaches & twice jettisoned "new" approaches ... kinda done setting milestones, this feels like "our" coach - IMHO he deserved a really long runway when he got here.. now with all this pandemic chaos & disruption - win/loss & timeline discussions all seem subjective & arbitrary. :Sign2cents:
Click to expand...
Agreed!

Took TO 15 years to build it into a national title contender year in and year out. It was clear he could probably get us all the way there, if a few things fell in place. Then it was just a matter of getting those few things - tweaking the scheme, recruiting philosophy, etc. - and we hit our program high.
 




Greatest Fan of All said:
In the Omaha tribal language, the word Nebraska (Nibthaska) means "flat water" or something to that effect.
Click to expand...
And the word Nebraska was derived from the word for the Platte River, hence Flat Water.
Sleestak said:
You may be right, but I always thought it was from the Otoe rather than the Omaha. I could be wrong. Anyway, to expand on your explanation, the term was referring to the Platte River being the "flat water."
Click to expand...
You are correct. The term was the Otoe word for the Platte River, which then became the name of the state that we all love.
 
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