Why do we play worse late in the season?

I looked at our stats for the past ten seasons and found that when playing against BCS conference foes, our winning percentages are as follows:

Before October 15 = .441
After October 15 = .375

In my mind, there could be 4 reasons for this:
1) Poor conditioning of players - as the season wears on, our players strength/health declines;
2) Poor depth to the team - as players wear down throughout the season, their replacements are a big drop off;
3) Not prepared for cool/cold weather when on the road. This doesn't seem to be the case as our winning percentage as the visiting team is .368 before 10/15 and .348 after - not a big difference in my mind.
4) Other teams figure out our schemes and the coaches do not adequetely change/improve game-planning throught the season.

My opinion is that the primary causes are #2 and #4 above. Both Mitch Browning and Mike Dunbar got pretty predictable with their play-calling.

Hopefully, with Brewster's added emphasis on conditioning and his apparent concern over the 5-game skid late last fall, he is focused on fixing this problem.

Depth is a huge factor. When your recruiting class is ranked in the 40's through 60's as they were for past decade, you will definitely find some diamonds but you will find a lot of scrubs too.

Hopefully this year we will really start to see the depth of the team improve so that the 2nd team can be a factor as well.

Another thing that is partially related to depth is age. We've been playing quite a few freshmen/sophmores who are 18-20. I think it's safe to say that a 21-23 year old that's been in a program for 3-5 years is probably also physically more mature.

I blame those stuggles on the recession

Not all BCS teams are equal either. Showing the record of our opponents vs BCS teams from prior to Oct. 15 & after would be helpful. Our record against Iowa & Wisconsin in the last ten years has been horrible. With the way the Big Ten schedules rivalries we have generally played these two teams for the last two weeks of the season--Iowa as the last game every season. Those two teams have consistenly been top 5 teams in the conference. We have generally played Indiana, Northwestern, Penn State (we actually hold a pretty good record against PSU) earlier in the season. A part of this has definitely had a lot to do with when we play people.

Look at our schedule this year. BCS opponents before Oct. 15: Cal (tough opponent but rare to play a BCS opponent in the OOC), Northwestern (generally picked to finish 7th-9th), Wisconsin (generally picked to finish 6th-8th), Purdue (pretty much picked to finish 10th).

BCS opponents after Oct. 15:
Penn State (consensus top 2), Ohio State (consensus top 2), MSU (generally picked 3rd-4th), Illinois (wildcard but generally picked 3rd-6th), Iowa (generally picked 3rd-5th).

I don't want to get in to a predict the season exercise but I personally think there is a reasonable chance we start 5-1 (win @Syr, AFA, @NU, Wis, Pur; lose to Cal) this year before a really tough 4 game slate of @ PSU, @ OSU, MSU, Ill a breather against SDSU and then @ Iowa. Most prognosticators have the top 5 teams in the Big Ten as our last 5 Big Ten opponents. Just looking at the schedule we probably should win more games prior to Oct. 15 than we win after it.

In general over the last ten years we have definitely lacked depth compared to the elite teams in the Big Ten. Without getting in to a Brewster vs. Mason recruiting argument most reasonable people understand that empirical evidence shows that the hit rate on 3-star or 4-star recruits working out is much better than 2-star recruits. Mason's recruiting had a lot of 2-stars (some of which worked out excellently like Barber, Eslinger, Decker) but most of which didn't work out and didn't provide adequate depth. As the season wears on and injuries occur that creates problems. Hopefully with Brewster's recruiting this won't be as much of a problem in the future but only time will tell.

I think strength/conditioning was an issue last year as the season wore on but as Gophben said, that had more to do with being a very young team (we started 3 freshman OL vs. Iowa & Wisc) and not having enough time in the program than it was a deficiency with our S&C program. This relates back to the problem with depth (the fact that we had to play 3 freshman).

IMO, it's the depth, especially on D and in the trenches. Think back to even the best teams from the last ten years or so, depth was an issue. There is a reason we don't have a strong Senior/Junior team now (-transfers and Jucos)As the grind of the season wears on injuries, both serious and nagging take their toll, with key positions we've had to rely on some very good starters, without much subbing in and out, situational guys. Recruiting will help this, but I can imagine this being an issue basically until next year, when Brew's first two classes are veteran Big Ten players.

Depth is a huge factor. Now that we play outdoors again, the weather might become our ally again. I can't wait for November.

Depth, schmepth. The reason is simple, and grunkiejr has already stated it. We play most or all of our more difficult opponents in the last few games every year. It's really not that tough to figure out.

dpodoll68 said:

Depth, schmepth. The reason is simple... we play most or all of our more difficult opponents in the last few games every year. It's really not that tough to figure out.

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I don't know if it is that simple.

Excluding bowl games, here are the number of RANKED teams we've played (and our success against them) during the past ten seasons:

Prior to 10/15: 15 games with a .267 winning percentage (4-11)
On or after 10/15: 17 games with a .059 winning percentage (1-16)

So, if by difficult, you mean versus quality opponents (and how would you determine this better than whether they are ranked?) - then I think you are factually incorrect.

On the other hand, if by difficult, you mean its when we play our 2 most hated rivals, then there might be some correlation to this, as we are a combined 5-15 against them (.250) during this period.

I still think depth is the major factor at work in our late season slides.

Go Gophers Rah said:

I don't know if it is that simple.

Excluding bowl games, here are the number of RANKED teams we've played (and our success against them) during the past ten seasons:

Prior to 10/15: 15 games with a .267 winning percentage (4-11)
On or after 10/15: 17 games with a .059 winning percentage (1-16)

So, if by difficult, you mean versus quality opponents (and how would you determine this better than whether they are ranked?) - then I think you are factually incorrect.

Click to expand...

There are two flaws inherent to your argument:

1) You are equating, for example, a Sept/Oct game against #22 Illinois/Purdue/Toledo with, for example, a late Oct/early Nov game against a top-10 OSU/Mich/Iowa. They are obviously very different, and should not be considered the same.
2) Presumably, your "games against ranked teams" consisted of games that were against opponents who were ranked when we played them. As we all know, rankings from preseason into Sept and early Oct are largely a popularity contest and a function of being historically strong programs. (For examples, see 2003 Notre Dame: preseason #19, finished 5-7; 2001 Notre Dame: preseason #18, finished 5-6; 1999 Notre Dame: preseason #18, finished 5-7; 2008 Michigan: preseason #24, finished 3-9; numerous other examples can be cited)

I would rather go by games against teams who finished the season ranked (i.e., earned their ranking on the field). It paints a depressing picture either way, but reveals some trends:

Last 10 seasons:

Pre-Oct 15: 0-13 (.000)
Post-Oct 15: 2-17 (.105)

That's correct; we have won exactly 2 games against teams who finished the season ranked in the last decade. Interestingly, both were in '99: against #24/25 Illinois and against #11 Penn St. This, of course, means that we have won zero such games in the nine years since, for a record of 0-27.

But if one looks at the sample sizes, you will see that we have played 65 games prior to Oct. 15, and 59 games post-Oct. 15 in the last 10 years.

13/65 = 20.0%
19/59 = 32.2%

This supports my point that our schedules are backloaded, and we played the majority of our opponents who finished the season ranked in late October and November. This is why our record is so much worse during this time period.

I think it has a lot to do with the teams we played before October 15th and those that we played after the 15th. Mason didn't schedule any toughies, so our schedule always made our team look better than it was (in my opinion). Except for 2003 though, thought that team was pretty dang good! Another thing that didn't help was that our recruiting was pretty bad for the most part. Last year I think it had to do with lack of depth and experience, especially on the offensive line.

I think it is because the teams we have been fielding are sub par in comparison with the rest of the Big Ten.