Nebraska's least likely loss, amid a sea of unlikely losses, was a bit of a deep cut.
It wasn't their 30-22 loss to Illinois, which featured a trio of special teams miscues and a plus-51 yardage advantage for the Huskers. It wasn't their 32-29 loss to Michigan, in which they outgained the eventual Big Ten champs by 1.5 yards per play but lost a fumble with 1:45 to set up a game-winning chip-shot field goal.
It wasn't their 23-16 loss to Oklahoma, or their 30-23 loss to Minnesota, or their 35-28 loss to Wisconsin, all of which were beset by red zone failures (plus another smattering of special teams gaffes).
It wasn't their 23-20 loss to Michigan State, which turned on a late-game punt return and was iced by an overtime interception despite a plus-186 NU yardage advantage. It wasn't even their 28-21 loss to Iowa, in which they built a 21-6 lead and watched it waft away with a blocked punt touchdown, a safety and a game-clinching turnover at the Iowa 2.
It was actually the Purdue loss, the sixth of their nine single-digit losses in 2021 as the Huskers set about a quest to become the greatest 3-9 team of all time. In this one, they outgained the Boilermakers by 2.8 yards per play and mostly avoided red zone issues. Purdue even missed two field goals! But quarterback Adrian Martinez threw four interceptions; one was returned for a touchdown, and two preempted fourth-quarter comeback attempts. The Huskers fell 28-23 despite a postgame win expectancy of 94%.
What is postgame win expectancy? It is my look at the key, predictive stats produced by a given game -- a lot of which ends up in the machine that produces my SP+ rankings. In essence, it takes these key stats, tosses them into the air and declares, "With these stats, you could have expected to win this game X% of the time." For a team like Georgia, which romped through the regular season with ease, it produces a bunch of 100% efforts -- 11, in fact, for the Dawgs. For a team getting by on close wins, it can hint at doom to come. UTSA, for instance, began the season 11-0, but two of those wins featured postgame win expectancies of 10% or lower, and only three were 100 percenters. Regression to the mean smacked the Roadrunners around pretty well in a 45-23 loss at North Texas in late November.
For teams like Nebraska, meanwhile, postgame win expectancy can create both hope and overwhelming despair. All three of the Huskers' wins featured 100% postgame win expectancy, but they somehow lost the Purdue game and dropped four relative toss-ups that ended up with expectancy between 37% and 49%.
The volume of Nebraska's tight losses was frankly awe-inspiring, but the Huskers had plenty of partners in pain.
Lowest postgame win expectancy in a win in 2021
1. UC Davis 19, Tulsa 17 (Sept. 2): 0.4%
2. Baylor 27, Texas Tech 24 (Nov. 27): 1.8%
3. Utah State 26, Colorado State 24 (Oct. 22): 3.7%
4. Duquesne 28, Ohio 26 (Sept. 11): 3.8%
5. Memphis 31, Mississippi State 29 (Sept. 18): 4.6%
6. Rice 30, UAB 24 (Oct. 23): 5.3%
7. WMU 44, Pitt 41 (Sept. 18): 5.7%
8. Colorado 20, Washington 17 (Nov. 20): 5.9%
9. UTSA 34, UAB 31 (Nov. 20): 6.1%
10. Purdue 28, Nebraska 23 (Oct. 30): 6.2%
That Tulsa-UCD game was a work of art. Tulsa outgained the Aggies by 2.3 yards per play with a 52% success rate to UCD's 34%. The Golden Hurricane finished seven of their first eight drives in Aggies' territory. But UCD recovered all three of the game's fumbles and picked off two passes -- one ended a Tulsa scoring drive at the UCD 9 and the other was returned to the Tulsa 7 to set up what became the game-winning field goal. Tulsa committed 12 penalties to boot. There was one path to a UCD victory, and the game followed it to a T.
Wins vs. second-order wins
Over a particularly large period of time, we find that postgame win expectancy is slightly coach-driven. Coaches like Kansas State legend Bill Snyder, Northwestern's Pat Fitzgerald and Urban Meyer almost always produced a win total higher than what these stats would suggest possible. But it takes quite a sample size to separate signal from noise in this regard -- in the short-term, this figure does an excellent job of sussing out who was lucky or unlucky in a given season and, therefore, who might see their fortunes turn around in the near future.
If you add up a team's postgame win expectancy for each game -- so, a 60% postgame win expectancy goes in the books as 0.6 wins -- you get what I call a team's second-order win total. It tends to tell a pretty revealing story.
For instance, among the 10 teams that overachieved by at least 1.6 wins in 2020 (which is to say, the 10 teams with win totals at least 1.6 games higher than their corresponding second-order win totals) were some of 2021's bigger underachievers: Louisiana Tech, Ball State, LSU, Memphis, Stanford, Indiana and Miami.
Army, Louisiana and UTSA managed to pull off excellent seasons this fall -- in UTSA's case, the Roadrunners managed to overachieve by an even larger degree -- but they were the exception, not the rule.
Besides UTSA, who were the biggest overachievers of 2021?
Biggest positive difference between win total and second-order wins in 2021
1. UTSA (+3.3: 12-1 record, 8.7 second-order wins)
2. Utah State (+2.9: 10-3, 7.1)
3. Northern Illinois (+2.8: 9-4, 6.2)
4. Wake Forest (+2.7: 10-3, 7.3)
5. Iowa (+2.3: 10-3, 7.7)
6. San Diego State (+2.1: 11-2, 8.9)
7. Eastern Michigan (+2.1: 7-5, 4.9)
8. Michigan State (+2.0: 10-2, 8.0)
9. BYU (+1.9: 10-2, 8.1)
10. Ole Miss (+1.8: 10-2, 8.2)
Most of the teams on this list enjoyed dream seasons of sorts. Utah State and NIU won their respective conferences, Wake Forest, Iowa and San Diego State all won their respective divisions, Ole Miss reached a New Year's Six bowl, and BYU nearly did the same. But the gods of turnovers and funky bounces smiled on all of them to some degree.
History suggests we'll be talking about a majority of these teams as 2022 underachievers a year from now. Of the 17 teams that overachieved their second-order win totals by at least 3.0 wins from 2005 to 2020, as UTSA did this fall, 13 saw their win percentage drop the next year, 11 by at least 15 percentage points. And those who overachieved by at least 2.0 wins saw their win percentage drop by an average of 12.3 percentage points, or about 1.5 wins in a 12-game schedule.
Some of the following teams will head into 2022 as potential bounce-back candidates.
Biggest negative difference between win total and second-order wins in 2021
1. Nebraska (-3.8: 3-9 record, 6.8 second-order wins)
2. Western Kentucky (-2.7: 8-5, 10.7)
3. Colorado State (-2.6: 3-9, 5.6)
4. Miami (Ohio) (-2.4: 6-6, 8.4)
5. Toledo (-2.4: 7-5, 9.4)
6. Marshall (-2.1: 7-5, 9.1)
7. Mississippi State (-1.8: 7-5, 8.8)
8. Cal (-1.8: 5-7, 6.8)
9. UAB (-1.7: 8-4, 9.7)
10. Arizona (-1.6: 1-11, 2.6)
Nebraska achieved rarefied air in 2021, and not the good kind. My second-order win totals expand back to 2005, and in that period only one team has underachieved by more than 3.8 wins.
Biggest negative difference between win total and second-order wins from 2005 to 2021
1. 2009 North Texas (-4.3: 2-10 record, 6.3 second-order wins)
2. 2021 Nebraska
3. 2009 Arizona State (-3.5: 4-8, 7.5)
4. 2007 SMU (-3.5: 1-11, 4.5)
5. 2010 San Jose State (-3.4: 1-12, 4.4)
6. 2014 Pitt (-3.3: 6-7, 9.3)
7. 2016 Notre Dame (-3.3: 4-8, 7.3)
8. 2005 UAB (-3.2: 5-6, 8.2)
9. 2018 Texas State (-3.1: 3-9, 6.1)
10. 2013 Temple (-3.0: 2-10, 5.0)
Among these nine non-Nebraska teams are three that improved by at least four wins the next year (2011 SJSU, 2017 Notre Dame and 2014 Temple). On average, teams that underachieve their second-order win total by at least 2.0 games one year see their win percentage improve by an average of 13.1 percentage points (about 1.6 wins in a 12-game season) the next.
(Note: All win expectancies for the 2021 seasons are housed here.)
Which active coaches consistently defy the numbers? In last year's piece on second-order wins, I made mention of the coaches with the biggest record of over- or underachievement through the years. But what about active coaches?
Looking at the seasons of 2005 through 2020, 10 coaches (a) were head coaches for at least four seasons in that span, (b) overachieved by at least 0.7 wins per year and (c) served as a college head coach in 2021.
1. Ken Niumatalolo, Navy (13 seasons, +1.1 wins per year)
2. Karl Dorrell, Colorado (four seasons, +1.0)
3. Jay Norvell, Nevada (four seasons, +0.9)
4. David Shaw, Stanford (10 seasons, +0.9)
5. Pat Fitzgerald, Northwestern (15 seasons, +0.8)
6. Justin Wilcox, Cal (four seasons, +0.7)
7. Todd Graham, Hawaii (13 seasons, +0.7)
8. Dino Babers, Syracuse (seven seasons, +0.7)
9. Kyle Whittingham, Utah (16 seasons, +0.7)
10. Jeff Monken, Army (seven seasons, +0.7)
While five of these coaches again overachieved their second-order win totals in 2021, three by solid amounts -- Dorrell, Norvell and Monken exceeded their second-order wins by a combined 3.3 games despite Dorrell's Buffaloes playing poorly overall -- four others underachieved. (Graham's Hawaii perfectly paired its 6.0 second-order wins with a 6-6 record.) Wilcox's Cal Bears had a second-order win total of 6.8 but stayed home during bowl season because of an uncharacteristic 0-5 record in one-score games. Regression to the mean even comes for the coaches who seem to have their acts together.
What about the chronic underachievers? Six active-in-2021 coaches entered the season having averaged underachievement of at least 0.5 wins per season (min. four seasons).
1. Kalani Sitake, BYU (five seasons, -0.8 wins per year)
2. Mike Locksley, Maryland (five seasons, -0.7)
3. Geoff Collins, Georgia Tech (four seasons, -0.7)
4. Doug Martin, NMSU (13 seasons, -0.7)
5. Scott Frost, Nebraska (five seasons, -0.7)
6. Paul Chryst, Wisconsin (nine seasons, -0.5)
Of these, two matched wins and second-order wins perfectly (Martin and Locksley). Chryst underachieved slightly (8-4 record, 8.1 second-order wins), and Sitake actually overachieved significantly; BYU's 8.1 second-order wins turned into a 10-2 campaign.
Collins, however, once again underachieved by about one win (3.8 second-order wins, 3-9 record), and Frost, well, see the entire intro of the piece. Frost's presence on the chronic underachievers list does not fill one with hope that a massive Nebraska turnaround is coming, but after nearly setting a record for close-game failure, you figure fortune will turn around at least a little bit in 2022.
Right?