Managing expectations

[Hausta01]

Those are preseason rankings and are basically meaningless

No one is really complaining about playing in the East. I’m happy we are in the east.

The reason why it’s been brought up in the context of Purdue, is just that they have an easier path to bowl eligibility so you can’t make an apples to apples comparison between IU and Purdue

https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/ranking/schedule-strength-by-other?date=2017-12-01

That has Purdue's schedule more difficult than IU's, removing Purdue's bowl game as that would likely increase their SOS.

Point is, IU does not have a more difficult path to a bowl based on scheduling 3 OOC games they should win every year. They have a more difficult path to say a NYD bowl, but not just a 6-6 record. Purdue plays more toss-up games, IU plays more games on the extremes, should win or should lose.

 

[87 Rides a Surfboard]

Those are preseason rankings and are basically meaningless

No one is really complaining about playing in the East. I’m happy we are in the east.

The reason why it’s been brought up in the context of Purdue, is just that they have an easier path to bowl eligibility so you can’t make an apples to apples comparison between IU and Purdue

Uh I complain about playing in the east. Yeah, we get more nationally televised games playing in the east but I’d rather have the extra win or two per season playing in the West.

 

[Bowlmania]

You're obviously a rookie who doesn't follow football outside of your cheerleading section. Rutgers may have won three conference games, but they were total garbage by the time they visited IU. They were down to their 3rd string QB, and looked like they had already mailed in the season.

Statistically, they may have been the worst team ever to win three games in the 14 team league. Dead last in ypg and passing. And third to last in scoring differential in league play. Not to mention they lost at home to Eastern Michigan earlier in the season.

Whether you want to admit it or not, IU was able to sub freely during the Rutgers game and didn't have to exert much energy in order to save for the next week. The game was clearly over by halftime, and anyone watching the game would tell you the same. Whatever credibility you think you might have had, just went to ground zero.

Um, who doesn't follow football? Rescigno was elevated to first string QB for Rutgers in mid-October last year after the previous starter began the season 1-4 and was benched. Rescigno was Rutgers' QB for their three conference wins. One of those wins was just two weeks before they played us, so your argument that they were "total garbage" and "mailing it in" late in the season is meritless.

Sure, we were able to sub in the fourth quarter but it's not like we had the luxury of great depth. We were depleted by injuries all season. And, contrary to your assertion, the game was clearly not decided at the half, when the score was 20-0. You probably don't remember this, but I'm sure the coaching staff and many of the players did - - - we blew a 25 point late third quarter lead - - - to Rutgers - - - just two years earlier.
.
IU played its best game of the season against Rutgers. To turn an outstanding performance by an injury-plagued team against a conference opponent into a negative by suggesting, after the fact, that it was essentially a bye week and created a significant advantage the following week is simply ridiculous.

 

[Mr. Jim]

I know I'm not in the majority, but I think there's a chance our defense is better this year than last. CTA was not happy about the D's performance in the red zone last year, and it is hard to imagine us getting fewer takeaways this year - - touch wood! I like our depth on the D line, and the buzzword concerning the freshmen so far in fall camp is SPEED, SPEED, SPEED. I think that wealth of speed has played at least a bit role in a couple of our former young CBs reading the tea leaves and deciding to move on. Despite the abundance of youth among our DBs, they've played a lot of competitive football. I think we can get many of them up to speed (pun wasn't intended but I'll claim it) through the non conference part of the schedule and have better depth than last year when we're in the thick of conference play, which should allow us to be better late in games. I'm optimistic.

Steve, I share the optimism that the IU defense will be better this year than last. Opponents that burned Indiana on the ground in 2017 did it by running outside. Michigan won the game in OT with a touchdown where the RB broke wide. Maryland ran to the outside all day against Indiana as did Purdue. In the Purdue game, their very average RB repeatedly ran 7+ yards to the outside before being touched. As good as Scales and Cov were, they were 4.7 -4.8 guys. Without Ball in the line up, Indiana did not have the speed to stop teams from running wide. Do you believe opponents will have the same success running out side with Roof, Ball and Fitzgerald on the defense? I sincerely doubt it. I believe the DL is as good as last year and the addition of Samuels makes up for the loss of Hoff. Sykes will bring a pass rush that was lacking in 2017. I think our DBs are faster and there is more depth. Caveat being can the guys stay healthy? Losing Ball, Sykes, Robinson for a portion of the season, as well as Riggins were a significant set back in 2017.

 

[Chriselli]

Um, who doesn't follow football? Rescigno was elevated to first string QB for Rutgers in mid-October last year after the previous starter began the season 1-4 and was benched. Rescigno was Rutgers' QB for their three conference wins. One of those wins was just two weeks before they played us, so your argument that they were "total garbage" and "mailing it in" late in the season is meritless.

Sure, we were able to sub in the fourth quarter but it's not like we had the luxury of great depth. We were depleted by injuries all season. And, contrary to your assertion, the game was clearly not decided at the half, when the score was 20-0. You probably don't remember this, but I'm sure the coaching staff and many of the players did - - - we blew a 25 point late third quarter lead - - - to Rutgers - - - just two years earlier.
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IU played its best game of the season against Rutgers. To turn an outstanding performance by an injury-plagued team against a conference opponent into a negative by suggesting, after the fact, that it was essentially a bye week and created a significant advantage the following week is simply ridiculous.

As one of the 200 people that waited out the weather delay in the third quarter, I can tell you that I have never seen a B1G team lay down like Rutgers did that day. I, too, am scarred by the Rutgers homecoming debacle of 2015, but the Scarlet Knights were more likely to be struck by lightning last November than they were to score a touchdown.

 

[Upset Alert]

Um, who doesn't follow football? Rescigno was elevated to first string QB for Rutgers in mid-October last year after the previous starter began the season 1-4 and was benched. Rescigno was Rutgers' QB for their three conference wins. One of those wins was just two weeks before they played us, so your argument that they were "total garbage" and "mailing it in" late in the season is meritless.

Sure, we were able to sub in the fourth quarter but it's not like we had the luxury of great depth. We were depleted by injuries all season. And, contrary to your assertion, the game was clearly not decided at the half, when the score was 20-0. You probably don't remember this, but I'm sure the coaching staff and many of the players did - - - we blew a 25 point late third quarter lead - - - to Rutgers - - - just two years earlier.
.
IU played its best game of the season against Rutgers. To turn an outstanding performance by an injury-plagued team against a conference opponent into a negative by suggesting, after the fact, that it was essentially a bye week and created a significant advantage the following week is simply ridiculous.

Rescigno was and is a total scrub. Career barely above .500 completion percentage. Only thrown for 7 career td passes. Never was an opening day starter and was merely a fill in option both years. Rutgers finished 268th in the country in total offense. He would not start on any other Big10 team. If I remember somewhat correctly, Rutgers may have had two first downs the first half. The game was never in doubt by halftime.

 

[RBB89]

It takes a really special type of person to turn a 41-0 conference win into a negative.

 

[Upset Alert]

Wasn't a negative, only pointing out the silly notion by a few, who actually think the Rutgers game was ever in doubt midway through, allowing us extra rest for the Bucket game. But apparently IU only suited up 30 players that day so I could be wrong.

 

[Crimson Crush]

Wasn't a negative, only pointing out the silly notion by a few, who actually think the Rutgers game was ever in doubt midway through, allowing us extra rest for the Bucket game. But apparently IU only suited up 30 players that day so I could be wrong.

Unless you are up 25 points midway through the 3rd quarter and you call the dumbest offensive game ever in the 2nd half, right? Seen that dog and pony show before. Since when does any IU fan in his right mind use the phrase “never in doubt?”

Have you been drinking?

 

[MJE]

A number of years back I realized my July and August enthusiasm was (usually) at odds with reality, as viewed from early December.

I was always guilty of assuming (hoping) we'd win all the games we were supposed to, and most of the games we thought were winnable, and some the games we thought might be within the realm of possibility, and thus concluded we could win 7, 8, hell, even 9 games.

So one year, I decided to try a different approach. I threw together an Excel spreadsheet where I put down my expectations for each game in terms of a percentage chance of winning.

For example, I'd guess IU has about an 85% chance of beating FIU. We *should* win, but if we played that game 10 times, most of us probably wouldn't be too surprised if blew it once or twice.

The spreadsheet is basically a monte carlo simulation, and it spits out a graph of the likelihood of winning 4, 5, 6, 7 games, etc.

I have IU at about a 55% chance of getting to 6 wins, and a 30% chance of getting to 7 wins (and even a 3% chance of getting to 9 wins!). On the other hand, there's about a 45% chance of only getting 5 wins.

The good news is that of the games I think are in the toss up range (40% to 60% chance of winning), 4 of those 5 are at home (Virginia, Iowa, Maryland, Purdue) and only Minny is on the road.

 

[Chriselli]

It takes a really special type of person to turn a 41-0 conference win into a negative.

I don't know if you're referring to me or not. I waited through the rain and loved every second of it. I even moved over to the endzone and caught the last extra point LOL. I never dreamt IU would shutout two teams in one season.

As the players were walking off the field after singing IOI, I said, "it doesn't matter if you don't beat Purdue next week" in the same vain that the debacle at Maryland wouldn't matter either with a win.

Sadly, last year will be remembered for the Maryland and Purdue games...which stinks for Fant and Tegrey.

 

[Crimson Crush]

I don't know if you're referring to me or not. I waited through the rain and loved every second of it. I even moved over to the endzone and caught the last extra point LOL. I never dreamt IU would shutout two teams in one season.

As the players were walking off the field after singing IOI, I said, "it doesn't matter if you don't beat Purdue next week" in the same vain that the debacle at Maryland wouldn't matter either with a win.

Sadly, last year will be remembered for the Maryland and Purdue games...which stinks for Fant and Tegrey.

It does stink for those seniors and the IU defense picked those two games to have their worst efforts of the season. Tegray had a really bad Bucket game, for whatever reason. Gave up 42 points to Maryland as well. Senior-led defenses cannot do that if they really want to be special.

 

[turney333]

It does stink for those seniors and the IU defense picked those two games to have their worst efforts of the season. Tegray had a really bad Bucket game, for whatever reason. Gave up 42 points to Maryland as well. Senior-led defenses cannot do that if they really want to be special.

Maryland and Purdue, along with PSU and Illinois, were probably IU's worst performances of the year. (we stilled pulled out the W at Illinois as they were just awful). And its no surprise that all 4 games were on the road. MSU was the only conference road game where we didn't crap the bed (we had a chance we let slip away, but overall still a solid showing).

Not trying to make an excuse, just pointing out a very clear trend, that will need to be reversed. All teams are going to tend to play better at home than on the road, but for whatever reason, and especially last season, that gap in performance seems to much larger for IU than for typical teams

 

[RBB89]

I don't know if you're referring to me or not. I waited through the rain and loved every second of it. I even moved over to the endzone and caught the last extra point LOL. I never dreamt IU would shutout two teams in one season.

As the players were walking off the field after singing IOI, I said, "it doesn't matter if you don't beat Purdue next week" in the same vain that the debacle at Maryland wouldn't matter either with a win.

Sadly, last year will be remembered for the Maryland and Purdue games...which stinks for Fant and Tegrey.

Nope, not you.

 

[Crimson Crush]

Maryland and Purdue, along with PSU and Illinois, were probably IU's worst performances of the year. (we stilled pulled out the W at Illinois as they were just awful). And its no surprise that all 4 games were on the road. MSU was the only conference road game where we didn't crap the bed (we had a chance we let slip away, but overall still a solid showing).

Not trying to make an excuse, just pointing out a very clear trend, that will need to be reversed. All teams are going to tend to play better at home than on the road, but for whatever reason, and especially last season, that gap in performance seems to much larger for IU than for typical teams

I think consistency is what makes good to great defenses. I actually thought we were more consistent in 2016, although the stats may prove that I’m full of it. The 2017 year had some strong first halves and then wearing out in the 3rd and 4th quarters. I think Allen was spot on. Too many ebbs and flows. Great plays followed up by missed assignments.

The PSU game was a bit of a skew in that we got in a tremendous hole early. Just blindsided and then we settled in. Illinois wasn’t bad. We gave up 2 touchdowns and our offense kind of sputtered as usual.
Against the opponents with good defenses, we were no greater than 20-24 points scored by the offense in those games and that just won’t cut it.
You only generate those kind of points out there on offense, your defense better be like top 15 in the country to have a chance in the game. Scoring 17, 9 and 14 points against ranked teams won’t get it done.
Missing Marcelino Ball and Skyes hurt us a bunch as well as the OL play.

 

[hootiehoosier]

Tom Allen actually has more pressure than many realize because expectations simply were not met last year. 6-6 is the bare minimum for me...

Coach Allen is going to be at IU and you're going to be a proud Hoosier football fan for a very long time!

 

[mushroomgod_1]

Steve, I share the optimism that the IU defense will be better this year than last. Opponents that burned Indiana on the ground in 2017 did it by running outside. Michigan won the game in OT with a touchdown where the RB broke wide. Maryland ran to the outside all day against Indiana as did Purdue. In the Purdue game, their very average RB repeatedly ran 7+ yards to the outside before being touched. As good as Scales and Cov were, they were 4.7 -4.8 guys. Without Ball in the line up, Indiana did not have the speed to stop teams from running wide. Do you believe opponents will have the same success running out side with Roof, Ball and Fitzgerald on the defense? I sincerely doubt it. I believe the DL is as good as last year and the addition of Samuels makes up for the loss of Hoff. Sykes will bring a pass rush that was lacking in 2017. I think our DBs are faster and there is more depth. Caveat being can the guys stay healthy? Losing Ball, Sykes, Robinson for a portion of the season, as well as Riggins were a significant set back in 2017.

That's 3 posters thinking the D might be better than last year. You're being extremely optimistic.

For one thing, you're assuming no major injuries. Most teams lose a couple of starters on each unit before the end of the year.

To me, the DL looks competent, but very thin. Right now, I 'trust' Robinson, Stallings, Sykes, Johnson, Everett and Barwick there. And possibly Samuels. With regard to Samuels, I sure don't seem him "making up' for the loss of Hoff. Samuel was a part-time starter for a bad Syracuse team. Hoff was pretty darn good, imo. Wilson, Bowan, Ziemba will play. Head, King, and Bryant might. Looking at that unit as a whole, again...competent but thin. Off-hand, nobody looks like a 2nd team ABT or better. At best, this looks like an average BT DL.

At LB, you grossly devalue Scales & Covington....those 2 guys are probably the best LB duo we've had in 20 years. Willis & R. Jones have experience, but have always been reserves. Roof is quick and aggressive, but also small & inexperienced. C.Jones, T. Allen, Burnam, Miller are very inexperienced. McGinnis isn't starter worthy. I don't see anyone here that will likely be 3rd team ABT or above. On the face of it, this looks like a below-average BT LBing corps.

The defensive backfield (including Ball here) looks to be the best unit. Ball's a guy who I could see being 2nd team ABT with a big year. Crawford might be 3rd team ABT with a nice year. However, the other 3 guys will all be new starters. I would consider Riggins, Bryant & Brown to be very average. Again, the reserves are very talented but smallish and inexperienced (except for Fitzgerald & Matthews)---Burgess, Layne, Taylor, Williams, Johnson. Remember how Fant, (talented and smallish) did his first year playing? Not so great.Maybe these guys will be better right off the bat, but I wouldn't count on it. Taylor, for example, never even played CB at the HS level. I think you're expecting these guys to be ball hawks right off the bat, and it probably won't happen. To me, this unit has the potential to be an above-average BT unit, but only if a few of the young guys are really ready to play significant roles fairly early on.

All-in-all, it seems to me that many of our most experienced defensive players are pretty average or below in talent, while many of our talented players are very inexperienced. Ball is the one guy I see as a possible 1st team ABT type at this point, and he'd really have to step up the productivity to get there.

Now......lets say you take a couple of starters away from these units:

Robinson & Willis or
Crawford & Sykes or
Roof & Barwick....

how we lookin'?

So.....I hope you're right, but I think you're wrong. I'm really hoping our O will step up significantly and offset what is likely to be not better than a top 50ish D overall.

 

[mushroomgod_1]

A number of years back I realized my July and August enthusiasm was (usually) at odds with reality, as viewed from early December.

I was always guilty of assuming (hoping) we'd win all the games we were supposed to, and most of the games we thought were winnable, and some the games we thought might be within the realm of possibility, and thus concluded we could win 7, 8, hell, even 9 games.

So one year, I decided to try a different approach. I threw together an Excel spreadsheet where I put down my expectations for each game in terms of a percentage chance of winning.

For example, I'd guess IU has about an 85% chance of beating FIU. We *should* win, but if we played that game 10 times, most of us probably wouldn't be too surprised if blew it once or twice.

The spreadsheet is basically a monte carlo simulation, and it spits out a graph of the likelihood of winning 4, 5, 6, 7 games, etc.

I have IU at about a 55% chance of getting to 6 wins, and a 30% chance of getting to 7 wins (and even a 3% chance of getting to 9 wins!). On the other hand, there's about a 45% chance of only getting 5 wins.

The good news is that of the games I think are in the toss up range (40% to 60% chance of winning), 4 of those 5 are at home (Virginia, Iowa, Maryland, Purdue) and only Minny is on the road.

I'm really with you here......I think as fans we always assume that things are going to break our way, even though it really hasn't happened like that in a big way since 1987.

Knowing that, I was still getting pumped up until the BTN guys went to Bloomington, and gave us a reality check. We can talk about GD and Howard being this & that, but the reality is they didn't see anyone that passed the 'eye test' for being really scary good.....they specifically mentioned Cobbs from last year and that resonated with me because I remember seeing Cobbs at the spring game and thinking that he really stood out as a stud prospect. In my eyes, he was never 'as good as advertised', but he no doubt looked the part. And obviously we knew about Scales & Fant coming into last season.

I'm not saying we don't have some really nice players, and a good # of them. We look like the kind of team that will play a lot of close games.

Anyway, using your techniques, I come out with us having 5.8 expected wins----.65 v. FIU, .65 v. Virginia, .90 v. BSU, .30 v. MSU, .60 v. Rutgers, .10 v. OSU, .50 v. Iowa, .20 v. PSU, .50 v. Minn., .75 v. MD, .15 v. Michigan & .50 v. Purdue. If somehow we could win all 3 toss-up games, which never happens to us, it would be 7.3.

 

[turney333]

I'm really with you here......I think as fans we always assume that things are going to break our way, even though it really hasn't happened like that in a big way since 1987.

Knowing that, I was still getting pumped up until the BTN guys went to Bloomington, and gave us a reality check. We can talk about GD and Howard being this & that, but the reality is they didn't see anyone that passed the 'eye test' for being really scary good.....they specifically mentioned Cobbs from last year and that resonated with me because I remember seeing Cobbs at the spring game and thinking that he really stood out as a stud prospect. In my eyes, he was never 'as good as advertised', but he no doubt looked the part. And obviously we knew about Scales & Fant coming into last season.

I'm not saying we don't have some really nice players, and a good # of them. We look like the kind of team that will play a lot of close games.

Anyway, using your techniques, I come out with us having 5.8 expected wins----.65 v. FIU, .65 v. Virginia, .90 v. BSU, .30 v. MSU, .60 v. Rutgers, .10 v. OSU, .50 v. Iowa, .20 v. PSU, .50 v. Minn., .75 v. MD, .15 v. Michigan & .50 v. Purdue. If somehow we could win all 3 toss-up games, which never happens to us, it would be 7.3.

Cobbs had already proven himself on the field, so they didn’t have to go too far out on a limb to bring him up last year.

Ultimately, as with Cobbs, the BTN guys predominantly base their comments on returning production, and the previous years team performance - good teams from the previous year will remain good, and bad teams from the previous are always diplomatically said to be a few years off from a drastic improvement.

I recently rewatched the 2016 recap of the East division bus tour, and boy did they ever miss that year (because their formula of good will stay good, bad will stay bad didn’t really work)

Basically said that OSU, MSU, and Mich were all on equal footing to win the conference, gave a little lip service to PSU no longer being a disaster, and said Rutgers was going to be significantly improve, IU and Maryland were not really mentioned.

Well, PSU won the conference title, MSU was quite bad, especially at QB, which the BTN guys said was going to be a strength for them, and Rutgers took a sizable step back.

 

[MJE]

Anyway, using your techniques, I come out with us having 5.8 expected wins----.65 v. FIU, .65 v. Virginia, .90 v. BSU, .30 v. MSU, .60 v. Rutgers, .10 v. OSU, .50 v. Iowa, .20 v. PSU, .50 v. Minn., .75 v. MD, .15 v. Michigan & .50 v. Purdue. If somehow we could win all 3 toss-up games, which never happens to us, it would be 7.3.

I popped your numbers into the spreadsheet and got the following:
Win at least 3 games: 99%
4+ 94%
5+ 80%
6+ 58%
7+ 32%
8+ 13%
9+ 3.4%
Undefeated: 0.001%

My estimates were: FIU 85%, UVa 60%, BSU 80%, MSU 35%, RU 70%, OSU 5%, Iowa 40%, PSU 20%, Minn 45%, UMD 60%, UMich 15%, PU 50%

Bottom line, barring a minor surprise I think we’ll be favored in 4 of the first 5 games, plus Maryland. If we win all five of those, then we need to get one from either Iowa at home, or at Minn, or else bowl eligibility may again come down to the Purdue game.

 

[mushroomgod_1]

I popped your numbers into the spreadsheet and got the following:
Win at least 3 games: 99%
4+ 94%
5+ 80%
6+ 58%
7+ 32%
8+ 13%
9+ 3.4%
Undefeated: 0.001%

My estimates were: FIU 85%, UVa 60%, BSU 80%, MSU 35%, RU 70%, OSU 5%, Iowa 40%, PSU 20%, Minn 45%, UMD 60%, UMich 15%, PU 50%

Bottom line, barring a minor surprise I think we’ll be favored in 4 of the first 5 games, plus Maryland. If we win all five of those, then we need to get one from either Iowa at home, or at Minn, or else bowl eligibility may again come down to the Purdue game.

Before MD's recent troubles, I probably would have said 55% for that game..........I just think there's going to be such turmoil in that program that they're going to go down the crapper this year........

58% chance of winning 6, 32% chance of winning 7 sounds about right.

 

[Upset Alert]

Unless you are up 25 points midway through the 3rd quarter and you call the dumbest offensive game ever in the 2nd half, right? Seen that dog and pony show before. Since when does any IU fan in his right mind use the phrase “never in doubt?”

Have you been drinking?

Did you not take into account of a different head coach and a much better defense? Or, how feeble Rutgers was on offense? Spin it how you want, it's what most of you do.