In the Scores/Standings thread, I made note of the struggles NU has had with Ohio St. Even with the struggles, the Huskers under Coach Cook still have a winning record overall against the Buckeyes (8-4). The same holds true with the other two programs listed with Ohio St. Cook is 17-12 against Texas and 10-5 against Penn St.
Fun Fact: John Cook does not have a losing (or even an equal) record against any conference foe during his 18 years as the Husker head coach. Even Russ Rose can't make that claim.
If you overlook the one-off losses to teams like Cal, Auburn or FSU where they've only played a single match, I believe that there is only one team nationally that the Huskers have played multiple times under Cook where the team has a losing record.
These are the primary foes, so who do you think?
UCLA
Florida
Stanford
USC
Washington
Oregon
A pretty incredible 18 years worth of results for Coach Cook. Meanwhile, it's been a futile result for the majority of Cooks coaching counterparts against the Huskers.
Speaking of futile results, Rutgers is the worst P5 program (by far) relative to RPI. The Scarlet Knights are currently ranked #229 and they have ZERO wins against P5 competition. In fact, they have zero wins against any team ranked in the RPI 150.
Which leads me to Indiana, whose only P5 win is against Rutgers (a 3 sets to 2 pillow fight). In fact, they've only taken a single set against a Big Ten team in the top half of the league. Which begs the question; is the highlight of the Hoosier season the win against Rutgers or would it be the set they won against Illinois back on October 2nd?
A couple of horrible programs in an otherwise stellar conference. The strongest league in the nation according to about any metric you care to study. If you compare the top 8 programs within each of the P5 conferences and their current RPI rankings, you'll find that the average ranking of those top 8 teams are:
Big Ten - 14.25
Pac-12 - 16.75
SEC - 33.38
ACC - 41.63
Big XII - 53.63
It kind of makes you wonder how Florida and Kentucky can maintain their lofty RPI rankings considering their respective schedules have been so weak since the conference slate began. It's especially noticeable of you remove the "cream" from these average rankings.
If you remove the top two RPI teams from each conferences average and just use the next six best teams, the conference average becomes:
Big Ten - 18.16 (+3.91)
Pac-12 - 19.83 (+3.08)
SEC - 43.66 (+10.28)
ACC - 47.00 (+5.37)
Big XII - 68.66 (+15.03)
I'd love to see programs like Florida (and Kentucky) from the SEC and Texas (and Kansas) from the Big XII actually have their RPI regress throughout the season once they get into their conference schedules. That they're allowed to maintain, while programs from the Big Ten or Pac-12 suffer while beating each other up completely invalidates the the whole purpose of the RPI rankings process.
It's been good to see that the NCAA selection committee seems willing to overlook the RPI in this regard and that they're willing to take teams, who may have an additional couple losses, and jump them over those top SEC/Big XII programs.
Finally, it'll be interesting to track what programs like Illinois and Wisconsin do next season. They're both currently tied for 6th place in the Big Ten standings but they return the bulk of their contributing roster next year.
I looked at the rosters of the top 7 teams in the current standing, those teams who are legit conference contenders each year, and rated the senior class attrition based on this simple points system:
0 pts - a senior who either didn't play or if they did it was insignificant contribution
1 pt - a senior who played but only spot/mop up duty and whose production is easily replaceable
2 pts - a senior starter who produces and won't be easy to replace
3 pts - a senior stud/captain who will be very difficult to replace
In doing this, there were the two programs (Illinois and Wisconsin) who will go into 2018 with a pretty intact roster. Three more teams (Minnesota, Nebraska and Purdue) who return key pieces but definitely have significant questions and holes to fill. Lastly, there are two programs (Penn St and Mich St) whose rosters will be decimated due to graduation and they'll be required to rebuild almost completely.
The results:
Illinois: 2 pts (Donnelly-2)
Wisc: 5 pts (Bates-3, Gillis 2)
Minn: 7 pts (Lohman-3, Rosado-3, Goehner-1, Beal-0)
Neb: 10 pts (Hunter-3, Albrecht-3, Holman-3, Townsend-1, Havers-0)
Pur: 10 pts (Cuttino-3, Stahl-3, Evans-3, Damler-1)
PSU: 15 pts (Lee-3, Detering-3, Franti-3, Washington-3, Thelen-2, Pierce-1, Halterman-0)
MSU: 17 pts (Bailey-3, Tolliver-3, Garvelink-3, Kranda-3, Tompkins-2, Minarick-2, Monson-1)
The Big Ten should turn into the Wild, Wild West next season. Gonna be fun to see how it shapes up.
Until then, we've got one heck of a season by the Huskers to finish up. Stay focused, take care of the task at hand and hope like hell the PSU weekend against Wisconsin and Minnesota is nothing but a nightmare for them.
GBR!
Fun Fact: John Cook does not have a losing (or even an equal) record against any conference foe during his 18 years as the Husker head coach. Even Russ Rose can't make that claim.
If you overlook the one-off losses to teams like Cal, Auburn or FSU where they've only played a single match, I believe that there is only one team nationally that the Huskers have played multiple times under Cook where the team has a losing record.
These are the primary foes, so who do you think?
UCLA
Florida
Stanford
USC
Washington
Oregon
USC
The Huskers are 1-2 against USC under Cook. The only other non-winning rsult is a 2-2 overall record against Oregon.
The remainder? The Huskers are:
3-2 against Florida
3-2 against Stanford
5-2 against Washington
8-2 against UCLA
The Huskers are 1-2 against USC under Cook. The only other non-winning rsult is a 2-2 overall record against Oregon.
The remainder? The Huskers are:
3-2 against Florida
3-2 against Stanford
5-2 against Washington
8-2 against UCLA
A pretty incredible 18 years worth of results for Coach Cook. Meanwhile, it's been a futile result for the majority of Cooks coaching counterparts against the Huskers.
Speaking of futile results, Rutgers is the worst P5 program (by far) relative to RPI. The Scarlet Knights are currently ranked #229 and they have ZERO wins against P5 competition. In fact, they have zero wins against any team ranked in the RPI 150.
Which leads me to Indiana, whose only P5 win is against Rutgers (a 3 sets to 2 pillow fight). In fact, they've only taken a single set against a Big Ten team in the top half of the league. Which begs the question; is the highlight of the Hoosier season the win against Rutgers or would it be the set they won against Illinois back on October 2nd?
A couple of horrible programs in an otherwise stellar conference. The strongest league in the nation according to about any metric you care to study. If you compare the top 8 programs within each of the P5 conferences and their current RPI rankings, you'll find that the average ranking of those top 8 teams are:
Big Ten - 14.25
Pac-12 - 16.75
SEC - 33.38
ACC - 41.63
Big XII - 53.63
It kind of makes you wonder how Florida and Kentucky can maintain their lofty RPI rankings considering their respective schedules have been so weak since the conference slate began. It's especially noticeable of you remove the "cream" from these average rankings.
If you remove the top two RPI teams from each conferences average and just use the next six best teams, the conference average becomes:
Big Ten - 18.16 (+3.91)
Pac-12 - 19.83 (+3.08)
SEC - 43.66 (+10.28)
ACC - 47.00 (+5.37)
Big XII - 68.66 (+15.03)
I'd love to see programs like Florida (and Kentucky) from the SEC and Texas (and Kansas) from the Big XII actually have their RPI regress throughout the season once they get into their conference schedules. That they're allowed to maintain, while programs from the Big Ten or Pac-12 suffer while beating each other up completely invalidates the the whole purpose of the RPI rankings process.
It's been good to see that the NCAA selection committee seems willing to overlook the RPI in this regard and that they're willing to take teams, who may have an additional couple losses, and jump them over those top SEC/Big XII programs.
Finally, it'll be interesting to track what programs like Illinois and Wisconsin do next season. They're both currently tied for 6th place in the Big Ten standings but they return the bulk of their contributing roster next year.
I looked at the rosters of the top 7 teams in the current standing, those teams who are legit conference contenders each year, and rated the senior class attrition based on this simple points system:
0 pts - a senior who either didn't play or if they did it was insignificant contribution
1 pt - a senior who played but only spot/mop up duty and whose production is easily replaceable
2 pts - a senior starter who produces and won't be easy to replace
3 pts - a senior stud/captain who will be very difficult to replace
In doing this, there were the two programs (Illinois and Wisconsin) who will go into 2018 with a pretty intact roster. Three more teams (Minnesota, Nebraska and Purdue) who return key pieces but definitely have significant questions and holes to fill. Lastly, there are two programs (Penn St and Mich St) whose rosters will be decimated due to graduation and they'll be required to rebuild almost completely.
The results:
Illinois: 2 pts (Donnelly-2)
Wisc: 5 pts (Bates-3, Gillis 2)
Minn: 7 pts (Lohman-3, Rosado-3, Goehner-1, Beal-0)
Neb: 10 pts (Hunter-3, Albrecht-3, Holman-3, Townsend-1, Havers-0)
Pur: 10 pts (Cuttino-3, Stahl-3, Evans-3, Damler-1)
PSU: 15 pts (Lee-3, Detering-3, Franti-3, Washington-3, Thelen-2, Pierce-1, Halterman-0)
MSU: 17 pts (Bailey-3, Tolliver-3, Garvelink-3, Kranda-3, Tompkins-2, Minarick-2, Monson-1)
The Big Ten should turn into the Wild, Wild West next season. Gonna be fun to see how it shapes up.
Until then, we've got one heck of a season by the Huskers to finish up. Stay focused, take care of the task at hand and hope like hell the PSU weekend against Wisconsin and Minnesota is nothing but a nightmare for them.
GBR!
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