Breaking the November/December late game curse

[DJ Spanky]

I've been thinking about that since yesterday's game (MSU). We had a rash of injuries to a few key areas which hurt, which played a hand in our 4 game losing streak midseason. And I feel coaching was a factor in that losing streak, particularly the Nebraska and UCLA games. However, even with the mounting list of injuries, we walked out of that losing streak with a victory against a good team, Minnesota, and ended the season going 3-1 in our last 4 games.

That last fact is huge, as we have had a middling to putrid record in November and December games. I put together our history in the Big 10 for this period, plus the preceding 5 years, to really put this in perspective:

2009 - 2-2
2010 - 0-4
2011 - 3-1
2012 - 2-2
2013 - 2-3

Big 10
2014 - 2-2 (2-2 B10)
2015 - 1-3 (0-3 B10)
2016 - 0-4 (0-4 B10)
2017 - 1-3 (1-3 B10)
2018 - 0-4 (0-4 B10)
2019 - 0-4 (0-4 B10)
2020 - 2-5 (2-5 B10) * Covid Year
2021 - 1-3 (1-3 B10)
2022 - 0-4 (0-4 B10)
2023 - 0-4 (0-4 B10)
2024 - 3-1 (3-1 B10)

So in that time period, after October 31st we have never won more than 2 games to end a season. We have always seemed to stagger to the end of the season just looking for it to end. To paraphrase: "The on-field beatings will continue until the season is over." This year was different. We chopped up to the last game and turned in our first winning regular season record since 2014.

 

[ghostrider7508]

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[DJ Spanky]

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