Husker Opponent Records a Measure of Success

5 comments so far May 20, 2009 by Tom Cudd

The Husker schedule in 2009 is the theme of the week at Big Red Network. Brandon pointed out that the Sun Belt-heavy schedule may give the Huskers a challenge, but it's the regular season schedule that's truly scary. The end of this year will tell if the Huskers have shown improvement and if Bo Pelini's efforts indicate that he is going to make this team better. By comparing the records of the teams we've played against over the past couple of years, the pattern shows that the combined records of opponents are just another measuring stick with which to compare ourselves.

In 2008, Nebraska was 9-4 with the bowl win. If we take out the bowl opponent, Clemson, the combined record of our opponents in 2008 was 85-68. Those same opponents had a combined record of 86-68 the year before. Without Clemson, six of those teams were in 2008 bowl games and five of those teams were at bowls in 2007. Of course, we're only comparing these two years for the opponent records, but you can see that the strength of the opponent in 2008 could be somewhat predicted by the opponents' schedules in 2007. Most of the years I browsed indicated a similar pattern (the strength of schedule can be pretty accurate when using the previous year's opponent records).

When you look at the combined record of those opponents that we lost to, they had a record of 43-12 in 2008 and 43-10 in 2007. The opponents that we defeated had a combined record of 42-56 in 2008 and 43-56 in 2007. What these numbers tell me is that if Nebraska shows no improvement or even slides a little bit, we will lose to all the teams that had double digit wins and defeat the teams that didn't. Getting another 8-4 regular season would be nothing to feel bad about, but in order to see the improvement, I need to see the Huskers steal one of these four games this year: Virginia Tech, Missouri, Texas Tech, or Oklahoma. In addition to that, they can't slip up on any of the scary games, or they're going to have to steal two of the big games. I'm going to have high expectations as most Husker fans usually do, but I would be more than content with another 8-4 regular season with the possibility of a Big 12 North Championship and another shot at a bowl game.

In 2009, our opponents have a combined 2008 record of 86-67. At this junction in the off season, most pundits, bloggers, and media members are looking at the schedule we have and counting of those "Big Game" losses that Nebraska will "probably" have. Last year, I was accused of having over the top expectations by calling for 9 wins (with a bowl game) so early before the season began. I wanted to make sure that I could carefully analyze the Huskers schedule this year. Would it be over the top to call for another similar year for the Big Red? Probably not. But so far, I find it hard to make that leap and say that the Huskers are going to get 10 somehow this year. A double digit win season starts to put Nebraska in the same sentence as Texas Tech, Texas, and Oklahoma.

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