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The fallacy of "Close"


Dave Feit said:
Close.

No other word is used to define the 2021 #Huskers season more than "close".

But in the big picture, the 2021 Huskers were nowhere close to close.

And that's actually a better thing than you think it is.

Here's why: https://www.si.com/college/nebraska/football/dave-feit-the-fallacy-of-close-huskers-2021-season
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You nailed it. A flawed team that refused to quit. If the coaches can continue that mindset in our current team. I think Garret Nelson will have much to do with that.

And I made the comparison to the 93 team. Not predicting a run at the national title, but grit from the returning players to get over the hump.

Too many failures in the basics to claim "close".

The stark numbers how little Nebraska led In those "close" losses tells a story.
 
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Uncle Buck said:
You nailed it. A flawed team that refused to quit. If the coaches can continue that mindset in our current team. I think Garret Nelson will have much to do with that.

And I made the comparison to the 93 team. Not predicting a run at the national title, but grit from the returning players to get over the hump.

Too many failures in the basics to claim "close".
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Depth,experience lacking,pass rush minimalized.
Learning not to quit often comes before learning how to win.
You find things out about yourself, and your opponents.

All the sudden momentums more than just a word or fleeting excitement.
 



Not sure I totally agree with Mr Feit on this one. With 17 fumbles and 11 ints unless you have a very high powered offense and rock solid D it's pretty hard to beat decent teams. Nebraska continually gave away games by committing a lot of unforced errors. Look at the MSU game? That game was essentially won until a miss placed punt combined with the wrong punt coverage. Could the team have gotten any closer to winning? Of course we then toss an INT in OT?? Good grief!! It was gift wrapped for MSU.

Don't really care we played behind in many games because we came back and had opportunities to win some of those games imo. They weren't garbage points because there was a realistic chance we could have won a few of those 1 score games. Won't disagree we made a lot of mistakes, stupid play calling and unforced errors.

I believe however we had the talent to at least have won 6 or 7 games. We really beat ourselves which is what most teams expect from the Huskers now. To me that's getting very close.
 
cthusker said:
Not sure I totally agree with Mr Feit on this one. With 17 fumbles and 11 ints unless you have a very high powered offense and rock solid D it's pretty hard to beat decent teams. Nebraska continually gave away games by committing a lot of unforced errors. Look at the MSU game? That game was essentially won until a miss placed punt combined with the wrong punt coverage. Could the team have gotten any closer to winning? Of course we then toss an INT in OT?? Good grief!! It was gift wrapped for MSU.

Don't really care we played behind in many games because we came back and had opportunities to win some of those games imo. They weren't garbage points because there was a realistic chance we could have won a few of those 1 score games. Won't disagree we made a lot of mistakes, stupid play calling and unforced errors.

I believe however we had the talent to at least have won 6 or 7 games. We really beat ourselves which is what most teams expect from the Huskers now. To me that's getting very close.
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17 fumbles is a little misleading or misrepresentation when combined with an interception stat. It appears you are trying to say we had 28 turnovers when it was actually 18.
 




cthusker said:
Not sure I totally agree with Mr Feit on this one. With 17 fumbles and 11 ints unless you have a very high powered offense and rock solid D it's pretty hard to beat decent teams. Nebraska continually gave away games by committing a lot of unforced errors. Look at the MSU game? That game was essentially won until a miss placed punt combined with the wrong punt coverage. Could the team have gotten any closer to winning? Of course we then toss an INT in OT?? Good grief!! It was gift wrapped for MSU.

Don't really care we played behind in many games because we came back and had opportunities to win some of those games imo. They weren't garbage points because there was a realistic chance we could have won a few of those 1 score games. Won't disagree we made a lot of mistakes, stupid play calling and unforced errors.

I believe however we had the talent to at least have won 6 or 7 games. We really beat ourselves which is what most teams expect from the Huskers now. To me that's getting very close.
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Those are all symptoms of a team that wasn't really close, when combined with how little of game time they actually led in those games, and double digit deficits.

It was a flawed team that didn't quit
 
imo nebraska was purpose-built to lose close games. a solid defense that could keep the other team's to just a few scores + an offense that could scheme open big plays when defenses had to cover the whole field but couldn't move the ball when they were in obvious pass or run situations (e.g., two minute drills and fourth downs) + bad special teams that created no margin for error = close loses to everybody, whether good (ohio st, umich, etc.) or bad (illinois). they weren't a good team that caught bad breaks; they were a team custom built to lose by under 7 points.
 
cthusker said:
Not sure I totally agree with Mr Feit on this one. With 17 fumbles and 11 ints unless you have a very high powered offense and rock solid D it's pretty hard to beat decent teams. Nebraska continually gave away games by committing a lot of unforced errors. Look at the MSU game? That game was essentially won until a miss placed punt combined with the wrong punt coverage. Could the team have gotten any closer to winning? Of course we then toss an INT in OT?? Good grief!! It was gift wrapped for MSU.

Don't really care we played behind in many games because we came back and had opportunities to win some of those games imo. They weren't garbage points because there was a realistic chance we could have won a few of those 1 score games. Won't disagree we made a lot of mistakes, stupid play calling and unforced errors.

I believe however we had the talent to at least have won 6 or 7 games. We really beat ourselves which is what most teams expect from the Huskers now. To me that's getting very close.
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Saying all three aspects of the team had contributions in losses,and potentially shouldnt be looked at evenly when it was obvious highly impactful negative events came from special teams throughout the year.
I'm not keen on 'throwing out' high scores tobe used one way or another, especially made worse without low score conclusions.

While I dont want to tear the piece apart, some clarity was given in where we're at, but blocked punts for a TD, late fumbles and interceptions and still coming close speaks to our defense holding their own even when those things didnt happen.
But with only a couple of 6th year guys returning this year, the younger guys arent satisfied with close and dont want to hear it.

Thats a good thing and what the piece did capture best of all.
 
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I like this piece in many respects, but I think it poses a false dichotomy. Saying the Huskers were "close" is not inconsistent with saying they never quit. I think you can say both - the Huskers were "close" and they generally didn't quit.

You can also argue that the Huskers needed to make (and in fact appear to have made) good changes with their roster and their coaching staff. They obviously had a lot of room to get better; they were "close" to being in contention for the B1G West; they weren't close to being a playoff team.

Among other things, they needed a better pass rush, an offense with more playmakers that can score points and not just run up the yardage, and a defense that can make stops when it needs to. I'm optimistic that the changes made in the offseason went at least some way towards addressing these needs. We'll see when the season starts.
 
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This writers 1st point is BS. Only two teams had us "way behind" for more than a quarter. They were not who you would expect. ILLINOIS and Minnesota. Approx half we were leading going into the 4th. So I read no further. It took me 5 minutes of research to determine that. BTW I defined "way behind" as more than 10.
 

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