In my opinion those blow leads usually start with a big or a couple of preventable mistakes. Then the tide turns and its hard to reverse it.
1. '89 Ohio STate game: We are way ahead and force them to punt right before halftime. Ooops we have too many players on the field, OSU keeps the ball and scores a TD and 2 point conversion. Completely avoidable. The rest is history. Gutey had the same problem a couple of years earlier at the Metrodome when Iowa was given 2 opportunities to kick a winning field goal because we had too many guys on the field...
2. Illinois loss: We have made a great comeback and have the ball in poor field position. Darkins makes a great run and we are across midfield, the game should be won. He wisely dives to stay in bounds at the end of the run to keep the clock running, but is injured. The clock is stopped but will resume when the referee winds it. The Gophers break the huddle too soon Tim Schade takes the team to the line and they run the play when they should have stayed at the ball & let 25 more seconds run off the clock. He may have also audibled to pass from a run (on another play I think), threw an incomplete pass and stopped the clock that way too. We could have pretty much run out the clock my running the ball and staying in bounds, no matter what nefarious things the time keeper did. I wanted to fire Bob Debesse at that moment, but I had wanted to fire him before that too.
3. the Friday night Michigan game: The Gophers need to run time off the clock so the brilliantly run a bootleg pass on 1st own and its a pick 6. I am screaming at the top of my lungs, "Are we trying to lose this game!!!"
4. The bowl game to Texas Tech: Things are looking good with our 2nd drive of the 2nd half. WE run for a first down. So with a new set of downs and a huge lead we throw that stupid fade pass on first down. Our receiver is hand fighting with the db, incomplete. We pass again on second down and nearly take a huge loss. On 3rd we pass again, a young Eric Decker catches it going 100mph our of bounds, short of a first down. We give TTU 3 free TO's and have to punt. WE all know what happened next...
5. I an glad that I was not able to see the end of the Michigan game this year. From what I understand we all know that the receiver was tackled in bounds, so the clock would start when the referee wound it. But we decided to run all kinds of shifts, etc while the clock was running and ended up only having time to run two plays - freaking brilliant.
Man, have I tortured myself by being a Gopher fan. I know that I'm not alone on this board.