This is my biggest concern. Coaching 101 is you fit the scheme to your players. Give them their best chance of success. He didn't do that, and he had no clue how to make adjustments all year and especially vs ok state.
We gave up 38 to FSU, that was their second most all season (most coming vs Umass). Toledo did not have a good offense and we gave up 22 or 29 depending on how you look at it. A few teams completely shut down virginia tech. Good defenses slowed UNC down, they had about 550 yards vs us and 34 points.
The 3 man fronts had DEs at the second level and slow lbs at the 3rd level. Completely moronic, and no disguise.
A little bit like when we had the Zeller on thr basketball team and it was always talked about how well he could shoot from the perimeter. Well that’s nice but sure as hell could use 7’1” rebounding, banging, and scoring at the rim more. That’s is like Foskey who was this bad ass speed rusher with a knack for stripping the ball and all we hear is how good he is going backwards and playing in coverage. Well umm neato …but god bless it give me the strip sacks
That's exactly my point, stats don't tell the whole story. Holding Navy to 130 yards means nothing when Air Force holds them to 68. Giving up 29 points to VT is quite a bit, the only teams VT scored more on were Middle Tennessee and Syracuse. Stats tell half the story, people need perspective to get the full picture.
Thus, "opponent adjusted". It doesn't make any more sense to rank a unit off their best performance than their worst.
I put Fremeau's model up there with 2016 election predictions. There, I said it.
"FEI says something I don't agree with therefore it's wrong!" is an odd take, especially since none of the other rankings are outlandish by any means.
That's true. Our defense likely got too much credit for that specific game. But that's only one of 13 data points. Fremeau's model is still far more objective than everyone here arguing our defense was hot garbage last year because our roster had some growing pains in 3- down looks.
Putting all your faith in a model that doesn't account for all factors is an odd take, especially since we were above teams like Michigan in that list. Do you honestly feel like our defense was better than a Michigan team that held tOSU's high powered offense to 27 and held Georgia to the same number of points as Alabama in the playoff? Like any model it's a measure of a team's strength, but it can only measure the data points available. It doesn't account for injuries, weather, and other factors. If FEI was so perfect then Iowa State was the 11th best team according to overall FEI last season. Instead they had a record of 7-6. Keep banging that drum though.
No, it’s not perfect, but it has it’s merits. The issue at hand is not the under or overinflated ranking of ND’s defense, but more that it was likely somewhere not far off from great, all things considering, but also not exceptional with things to improve upon. The defense had to deal with a lot of terrible positions that the offense put them in as well. This is not an easy factor to account for, much like missing competitors from other teams.
Yeah, because Iowa states problem last year wasn't it's offense or it's defense.....it was special teams...where FEI has them at 101. The takeaway there should be that a terrible special teams unit can turn a team with a very good offense and a very good defense into a 7-6 team. 2021 COLLEGE FOOTBALL SPECIAL TEAMS FEI RATINGS | Football Outsiders
They were ranked 11th overall for FEI, is that not an average of all facets? I'm not completely shitting on the model here, my point is it's only built on numbers. That's it. It doesn't take into other factors, like a normally excellent Virginia team having to start a backup against ND. Said backup throws 2 INTs and takes 7 Sacks. To the model ND looks awesome defensively, but it's an anomaly. If we played Virginia with Armstrong starting we likely don't post those numbers and it's a much closer game. We're the only team last year that had to face Virginia's backup. Armstrong was averaging close to 400 yards passing a game, his backup had half that against us. It's not because our depleted defense was that good, we got lucky.
Well, after DeShawn Pace's interception Cincinnati MARCHED 8 grueling yards to a touchdown
Hold on, Iowa State was legitimately really good last year. They beat Oklahoma State (which we couldn't do) in spite of getting absolutely abused by the refs and came very close to beating Baylor. They had fairly close losses against Oklahoma, Iowa, and Clemson. I don't bat an eye at #11 at all, even if their overall W/L record doesn't look like it.
They had a good offense and a good defense.....and horrific special teams which cost them 2-3 games.
Should we discuss the other 375 yards… D still gave up the 3 tds? Yes offense was main reason we lost no doubt. But cinci averaged 6.3 yards per play, that’s not good.
He's listed as the top punt returner on Rivals' post-spring depth chart projections
Correct
