Come From Behind Wins

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RememberMurray said:
I agree.

In order to discuss, it is good to have context.

Today's topic: It appears that the Gophers lag behind their peers in the area of coming back from a double-digit deficit.

This raises several questions:
Just how far behind are the Gophers in this area, and how important in the overall scheme of building a program is it to be able to come back from a 10+ point deficit?
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To be exact, my analysis is that the Gophers under PJ have never won a game in which, at any time during the game, they have fallen more than 7 points behind.
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
I agree that focusing on the number of times we are down 10 is a weird metric, because winning a game without ever falling behind is at least as good as a come from behind win. That said, I'd be curious to know if we have ever lost one we led by 10. If we are built to play from in front, hopefully we make coming from 10+ down as hard on other teams as it is for us.

Also, at some point if you are ever going to compete at the highest level, you need to be able to win some games against really good teams, and there is a good chance at least one of them will come out strong and get an early lead. It's not a good spot to be in if after falling behind early, you find yourself shrugging your shoulders because we're built to play from in front.
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The actual metric is that if we go down by more than 7 points at anytime in the game we lose. 10 sounds better, and it represents the lowest typical “two score” deficit. But the metric I used is “more than 7 point deficit” at anytime in the game = ultimate loss. I just find this a curiosity; not trying to extrapolate to anything other than a very generalized statement. This stat could be a true nothing burger.
 

Excellent stats here. It’s obviously an issue comparing them to other west teams.
 

This comment could be its own thread, but I hope the Gophs get more creative on offense and consider more of an "attacking" mode on occasion, instead of the predictable "wait and see how the D is lined up" mode that they use exclusively now. I feel that the passing game (the real issue at hand now) could benefit from more unpredictability such as going up tempo, using more motion, going under center with different sets, etc. With a more creative and unpredictable offense, the whole 10-point comeback issue might be improved.
 

RememberMurray said:
Because there is no chance that the stat can change?

Let's try this: let's keep track of how many times the Gophers are actually behind by 10+ points going forward.

This will be really interesting.
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By my count, we have been down by 10 or more in at least 19 games since 2017

Edit: That's 19 games out of 70, or 27.1% for you math wizards out there.
 
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Some guy said:
This is true, but even so, if we had just 1-2 more we would be at or above the college football comeback rate

In pro football only 22% of teams losing at halftime win. In college it’s likely even less.

We aren’t that different than every other college team. In 5.5 seasons we have like 1-3 fewer comebacks than expected.
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We have none. That's ok, I guess, if you are not expecting any.
 


bleedsmaroonandgold said:
I agree that focusing on the number of times we are down 10 is a weird metric, because winning a game without ever falling behind is at least as good as a come from behind win. That said, I'd be curious to know if we have ever lost one we led by 10. If we are built to play from in front, hopefully we make coming from 10+ down as hard on other teams as it is for us.

Also, at some point if you are ever going to compete at the highest level, you need to be able to win some games against really good teams, and there is a good chance at least one of them will come out strong and get an early lead. It's not a good spot to be in if after falling behind early, you find yourself shrugging your shoulders because we're built to play from in front.
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Well, that's exactly it. You can't depend upon taking a lead and holding it the rest of the way throughout an entire season. In fact, we haven't managed to do that in 3 out of our 7 games so far. The bottom line from that result is that we'll need at least nine games this season to reach the minimum total for bowl eligibility. Few would have thought that after our first four games.

Last night, the Phillies, the last National League team to qualify for the playoffs, fell behind 0-5 against a Houston, a team that had swept their previous playoff opponents, and was starting a pitcher who will likely be in the Hall of Fame. The Phils tied it two innings later, shut out the Astros the rest of the game, and won it with a solo homer in the 10th inning. If you want to exceed expectations, you have to be able to do something like that every once in awhile.
 

To come back we have to have a competent passing game as time becomes the enemy. Gophers are great with leads, not so much with deficits. I personally would like to see a bit more balance in the passing game but then we get back to the whole we need better receivers argument.
 
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Opportunity knocking?
 

Gophergrandpa said:
I’ve heard that, during PJ’s tenure, the Gophers have never gone down by 10 points in a game and come back to win. Decided to check. I want to preface this piece by saying that I am a huge PJ fan. But … if I got my research right, no PJ Gopher team has ever gone down by more than 7 poibts in a game and come back to win.

The Gophers have come back to win from 7 point deficits several times. In 2019, we were down 7 to Fresno State, Georgia Southern, Illinois and Auburn and won all. In 2021, the Gophers came back to win after being down 7 to Indiana and to Wisconsin. The Gophers came back from a 4 point deficits against New Mexico state in 2018 and against Nebraska in 2020. We’ve overcome 3 point deficits twice—Purdue and Maryland in 2021. Came back from being 2 down against Indiana in 2018 and 1 down against SDSU in 2019.That’s it.

I was surprised by the fact that we led wire to wire in so many of our wins, even several close games I remember as nail biters. Only meaningful “come from behind” wins in the second half of the games were from a 7 point deficit to Fresno State and 6 point deficit against Georgia Southern, both in 2019.

So, in the 5-1/2 years PJ has coached the Gophers, we have never come back to win after falling behind by more than 7 points at any time in any game. Fall behind by more than 7 and it is a loss (if my quick research of game summaries is accurate).

Maybe this is normal, but I think it is statistically odd. I have seen so many big comeback victories, from huge deficits, in college football (including some huge comeback defeats suffered by the Gophers), that I don’t know what to make of this. Perhaps it’s a consequence of PJ’s conservative, strangle-the-clock offensive style. Perhaps it is related to the fact that our defense, though quite good, seems not geared to score points. It’s usually all on the offense.

It will be interesting to see how the Penn State game turns out if we fall behind by more than 7 at any point in the game. If we do, I’d like to see PJ’s team record its first comeback win from such a deficit. A deficit I once thought of as trivial and surmountable. Now I’m not so sure.

Go Gophers!
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they are 2-21 i believe when trailing at the half under Fleck
 




SkiUMah'ed said:
they are 2-21 i believe when trailing at the half under Fleck
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Yes, but in those two comeback wins from a halftime deficit, we never were down by 10 points at any time in the game. PJ, while the Gopher coach, has never won a game in which the Gophers were down by 10 points at any time in the game. Never. Love to see both these abysmal stats get blasted today.
 




That bad streak ended today!
 


The overall streak for the Gophers not overcoming a 10 pt lead was 32, and went back to 2014.

It is now bookended by victories over Nebraska in Lincoln.
 

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