[CTcard]

As Matt nicely points out on TOS, what matters is who you have, not who you don't.

This is actually a theme Matt and I developed years ago over on the Bootleg.

It's certainly true in assessing individual teams, but it's not very practical for incorporating into statistical models. Some of those models try to use recruiting rankings as a way to account for this effect, but I don't believe that either the service evaluations themselves, or the method of ranking, is sophisticated enough to cover the "who you have" question.

This is why even a good statistical model might be pretty good overall, but not have that much relevance for any one particular team.

Stanford lost 97% of its passing yards.  Well, Oregon lost Marcus Mariota and, if Vernon Adams hadn't gotten hurt, the W-L impact would not have exceeded two games. 

Well, presumably this is one of the reasons that returning QB is not as high on the correlation chart as one would think. However, in general, not having a good QB is obviously a brobdingnagian hit to any team. Last year Oregon lucked into a very good QB (at least when healthy). You saw how bad Oregon was when they didn't have a very good QB, i.e. when Adams was out. Thus the danger.

We are replacing a first team All Con TE with one who will be, very soon, even better.

What we are really doing is replacing the TE duo of 1.Hooper, 2.Schultz with the duo of 1.Schultz, 2.Taboada. That seems just fine to me, but we don't actually know how they will do yet.

We are replacing a very productive QB with a QB who, for the first time in five years, gives us a short, intermediate, and wide passing game, and a brilliant short, intermediate, and wide route runner (Trent Irwin) with near-perfect hands and a 6'7" catch radius.

We're replacing Hogan with Irwin? [wink]

Obviously our QB will be different this year. Quite likely stronger at some aspects. BUT, it's a pretty tall order to assume QB overall will be an upgrade this year.

We are backing up the    Trophy runner up running back with a guy who compiled nearly identical numbers in his first year, and who may be the second best running back in the conference--and yes, that includes Royce Freeman.  Love is much more dangerous--and big plays really really matter.

Love is a drastically different kind of player than Freeman. Calling him better is certainly assuming a lot. Among other things, in comparison, Love has hardly played.

Love is much quicker, and probably more likely to take it to the house on any given play.

But, Love also goes down fairly easily when he doesn't have space - see the number of zero to negative plays in the spring game. This is where he is well behind McCaffrey, and Freeman for that matter.

If the OL--watch out.

Yeah, every year we can go down our roster during the spring and muse about how wonderful it is. The most important thing is "If the OL", though I would combine that with "If the QB".

The two most important position groups on offense are the QB and the OL. We have turnover at both. We have reason to be optimistic for both, but nothing is for sure until it happens.

-------
By the way, the other team Connelly warns about is Ohio State, which returns substantially less production than we do. I don't know anything specific about Ohio State's roster, but I am sure it is full of inherently talented athletes. Will be interesting to see how they turn out this year.

[CTcard]

As Matt nicely points out on TOS, what matters is who you have, not who you don't.

This is actually a theme Matt and I developed years ago over on the Bootleg.

It's certainly true in assessing individual teams, but it's not very practical for incorporating into statistical models. Some of those models try to use recruiting rankings as a way to account for this effect, but I don't believe that either the service evaluations themselves, or the method of ranking, is sophisticated enough to cover the "who you have" question.

This is why even a good statistical model might be pretty good overall, but not have that much relevance for any one particular team.

Stanford lost 97% of its passing yards.  Well, Oregon lost Marcus Mariota and, if Vernon Adams hadn't gotten hurt, the W-L impact would not have exceeded two games. 

Well, presumably this is one of the reasons that returning QB is not as high on the correlation chart as one would think. However, in general, not having a good QB is obviously a brobdingnagian hit to any team. Last year Oregon lucked into a very good QB (at least when healthy). You saw how bad Oregon was when they didn't have a very good QB, i.e. when Adams was out. Thus the danger.

We are replacing a first team All Con TE with one who will be, very soon, even better.

What we are really doing is replacing the TE duo of 1.Hooper, 2.Schultz with the duo of 1.Schultz, 2.Taboada. That seems just fine to me, but we don't actually know how they will do yet.

We are replacing a very productive QB with a QB who, for the first time in five years, gives us a short, intermediate, and wide passing game, and a brilliant short, intermediate, and wide route runner (Trent Irwin) with near-perfect hands and a 6'7" catch radius.

We're replacing Hogan with Irwin? [wink]

Obviously our QB will be different this year. Quite likely stronger at some aspects. BUT, it's a pretty tall order to assume QB overall will be an upgrade this year.

We are backing up the    Trophy runner up running back with a guy who compiled nearly identical numbers in his first year, and who may be the second best running back in the conference--and yes, that includes Royce Freeman.  Love is much more dangerous--and big plays really really matter.

Love is a drastically different kind of player than Freeman. Calling him better is certainly assuming a lot. Among other things, in comparison, Love has hardly played.

Love is much quicker, and probably more likely to take it to the house on any given play.

But, Love also goes down fairly easily when he doesn't have space - see the number of zero to negative plays in the spring game. This is where he is well behind McCaffrey, and Freeman for that matter.

If the OL--watch out.

Yeah, every year we can go down our roster during the spring and muse about how wonderful it is. The most important thing is "If the OL", though I would combine that with "If the QB".

The two most important position groups on offense are the QB and the OL. We have turnover at both. We have reason to be optimistic for both, but nothing is for sure until it happens.

-------
By the way, the other team Connelly warns about is Ohio State, which returns substantially less production than we do. I don't know anything specific about Ohio State's roster, but I am sure it is full of inherently talented athletes. Will be interesting to see how they turn out this year.