Dave Feit: The Fallacy of ‘Close’

Nebraska football’s final scores in 2021 didn‘t tell the whole story, and the ‘close’ narrative undersells the revamping that began last November.

Dylan Widger photo-USA TODAY Sports

The 2021 Nebraska football team was not “close.”

They were nowhere close to contending in a mediocre division, nor were they even that close to a bowl game.

Yes, you can look at the individual games and see that eight of the nine losses were by 8 points or less. But let’s broaden our scope to the big picture.

In the big picture, the 2021 Huskers were not “close” to anything positive.

Before you start shouting at your screen or sending me nasty messages, here are the bullet points of what we’re going to talk about:

• The final scores – especially in NU’s losses – were often misleading, as the 2021 Huskers often spent large chunks of games playing from way behind.
• Defining the 2021 team as “close” does not properly reflect their legacy. A legacy that is a lot better than “close.”
• Saying the 2021 team was “close” unfairly diminishes the work done by Scott Frost and the leadership of the NU program to prepare for the 2022 season.

Take a deep breath and have an open mind. When we’re done, I’m confident you’ll be okay with acknowledging – if not embracing – the notion that Nebraska was not close in 2021.

Because it means that the 2022 Huskers could be poised for a big turnaround.

***

First, the big question: With the start of the 2022 season just a dozen days away, why the heck are we talking about this now?

A lot of the predictions, hype, and expectations for 2022 will have their roots in the 2021 campaign. I’m a big believer in going into a season with reasonable expectations instead of buying into inflated hype (see also: Lee, Tanner). Believing that NU was “close” a year ago could potentially set us up for another season of disappointment.

And with Frost on the hot seat, the progress made this season (both by Frost and his program) will be critical to his job security. In order to fairly and accurately judge what Frost does this season, we should be brutally honest about where things were a year ago. Saying that Frost was “close” in 2021 makes that starting point higher than it should be.

***

Let’s look at common denominators from Nebraska’s losses in 2021. Across those nine losses:

• Nebraska led for an average of 11 minutes, 7 seconds in their losses.* They were tied for an average of 17:47, and trailed for 31:06 per loss. In other words, Nebraska was tied or trailing for 81.5% of their losses. As you digest those numbers, remember: Nebraska led for almost 47 minutes of the Iowa game.
• In four games (Oklahoma, Minnesota, Ohio State and Wisconsin), Nebraska never led.
• Aside from the Iowa game (15), Nebraska’s largest lead in any loss was seven points.
• Only twice (Purdue and Iowa) did NU lead at halftime in a loss.
• In six of NU’s nine losses, the Huskers never led in the fourth quarter.
• In six games, the Huskers faced a deficit of 11 points or more, including a 21-point deficit in the opener against Illinois.
• In five losses, Nebraska had a two-score deficit in the fourth quarter.

*My thanks to Twitter user @stewmanji for the time data used above.

Again, we can look at the small picture and say that Nebraska was close every time. But when you look at the whole, we see a team that rarely held a lead and often trailed by two or three scores. That is not even horseshoes and hand grenades close.

Yes, I’ve seen the stat that NU finished 1-8 in conference despite scoring the same number of points as they allowed (239). That tells me the same thing I saw with my eyes: the 2021 version of Northwestern was one of the worst Power 5 teams to play in Lincoln in years.

I’ve also seen the guy who ran Nebraska’s 2021 season through a simulator 5,000 times and only returned a 3-9 record twice. Surely that means NU was “close,” right?

I might be able to buy into the “close” narrative if the losses all came down to a single player, position group, or even phase of the team. But we all know that was not the case.

Nebraska lost games due to variety of reasons, across all three phases, with stunningly little consistency. There are several losses that could be chalked up to special teams, but even in those losses there were a variety of other factors* that played a big role. The same thing applies to those who want to blame Adrian Martinez.

*Factors such as – but not limited to – turnover margin, offensive struggles, red zone inefficiency, injuries, penalties, lack of depth, inability to get defensive stops, and more.

***

Okay … that was a little depressing. Let’s change gears and talk about something surprisingly positive: the legacy of a 3-9 football team.

One of the reasons I’m writing this piece is because I believe the false narrative of Nebraska being “close” does not properly reflect what happened – good and bad – in the 2021 season. The legacy of the 2021 team should not be that they were perpetually “close.” I believe that team should be remembered with a better, more accurate label.

The legacy of the 2021 Nebraska football team should be that they never, ever quit.

The 2021 Huskers were a flawed team that faced a number of challenges in all three phases every single week. They had a tough schedule, injury issues, unreliable players at handful of key positions, and played from behind most of the year. If you want to point a finger at the coaching staff, I won’t stop you.

But they never, ever quit.

I know that is not as glamorous a legacy as the 1994 “Refuse to Lose” team,* or other teams throughout NU’s storied history.

*If you want an example of a Nebraska team that truly was “close,” look up the 1993 Huskers. They went 11-0 in the regular season, and played a de facto road game in the Orange Bowl against #1 Florida State. As 17.5-point underdogs, nobody gave them a chance. But if not for some questionable calls and a shanked field goal, it would be one of the greatest victories in school history. That team was close, and they played like it all year long.

I’ll be the first to say that “don’t quit” is the absolute minimum expectation for any Husker team, regardless of sport. But I’m willing to acknowledge that in the last 20 years there have been some Nebraska football teams that have quit – in specific games or for the season. The 2021 team was not one of them.

I suspect it would have been damn easy for the 2021 team to quit when they were down 30-9 in the opener or 23-9 at Oklahoma, or 30-16 against Minnesota, or 28-17 against Purdue, or … Well, you get the point.

In every one of those games, Nebraska kept playing to the final whistle. Often, they had the ball in their hands with a chance to tie or take the lead. The final score only ended up “close” because the 2021 Huskers fought like hell until the bitter end.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be known as somebody who never quit, instead of somebody who perpetually came up short.

***

I won’t argue that you can look individually at any of Nebraska’s nine losses from a year ago and see where they were close to winning that particular game. A play here, a stop there, a special teams fiasco avoided.

But when we look at the big picture, it should be obvious that Nebraska was not close to being where anybody wants the program to be. If we continue to paint the program, circa fall 2021, as “close,” then we severely undersell the efforts that have been made by Scott Frost, Trev Alberts, and others to improve the NU program since last November.

If Frost and/or Alberts thought Nebraska was “close” to a breakthrough, why the hell would they fire four offensive coaches and replace two coordinators? The offense scored 56 points against Northwestern, 29 against #9 Michigan, and 28 against #19 Wisconsin. I’m told the schedule is “easier” this fall.

Many contributors from the 2021 team are back in 2022. NU returns their top four running backs from 2021, their leader in sacks, top punt returner, and the quarterback who helped NU take a 21-6 lead into the fourth quarter against #17 Iowa. Why overhaul the roster by bringing in 15 transfers (many of which are expected to start or play significant snaps) if so many of the guys from the “close” team are coming back?

We don’t get to have it both ways. We can’t in good faith argue that the Nebraska program was “close” to being a winner at the end of 2021 when they have made wholesale changes throughout the offseason.

While you might choose to look at that as a glass half empty opinion on the 2021 season, I see it as a very positive take on Nebraska’s prospects for 2022: Frost saw the deficiencies within his program – in schematics, development, talent, depth, game day roles, and more.

It is easy to argue that he has done something to address every single one.

Will it work? I don’t know. But the optimism surrounding – both within locally and from national pundits – suggests that Nebraska is now a heck of a lot closer to being a winning team than they were in 2021.

Now comes the hard part: putting all of the pieces together.

---