OAM, I say this nicely. This point is built on the idea that one doesn't look at literally the year prior. They were a top-30 quality team last year, and by some measures actually played a hair better the year prior. Granted, they did have some close game luck.
I think I'm caught up on the idea of "magical" because it doesn't totally mean anything. It kind of means, I heard about that and remember it. Like, 2020 was more magical than 2018 for NW. And 2018 came a year after a 2017 team that was frankly better by most metrics. Now, the 2018 team did pull up from just a horrendous start to earn the right to get slaughtered by OSU, but that kind of is the NW baseline. They swing all the hell over the place. In the past 10 seasons, 2018 was the fifth-best in winning percentage. They also missed four bowls, two close, two not, and threw in a 7-6.
(The idea it never seems to sustain just feels like CFB. Nothing sustains. That's part of the joy)
"Magical" is just another word for outlier.
There are 130 teams in college football. Each year, teams will overperform their talent level in the W-L metric. Each year, teams will underperform their talent level in the W-L metric. This happens mostly due to the randomness of life, and that with a large enough sample size (n=130), you can expect there are going to be a few teams that are extreme outliers.
But we're human. We like narratives and reasons. We hate that something that we saw was just randomness; we want to ascribe
meaning to it. In August, it's really difficult to identify which teams will be those outliers. But in August 2021, we look at the previous season and see those outliers (2020 IU) and assume the outlier nature of events signified some actual
meaning and then predict that IU will again be good.
Purdue "sucked" in 2020. Started 2-0 and then "collapsed" with 4 straight losses to finish 2-4.
Purdue was also 7th in conference in scoring offense in 2020. 8th in scoring defense. Out of 14 teams, that's "middle of the pack". Every one of Purdue's games was close--their first 5 games were all one-score games, and even the final game against Nebraska was only a 10 point loss. Their average margin was -2.67 points per game--less than a field goal.
Narrative-wise, Purdue "started hot" then "collapsed" and "sucked". But they were a mid-pack Big Ten team statistically and didn't blow out, or weren't blown out by, any team on their schedule. But by the narrative, Purdue now at 6-4 looks like some sort of amazing resurgence after a "terrible" 2020, despite the fact that when you look at all games against P5 competition (i.e. removing should-be-FCS UConn),
Purdue's average margin in games this year is -2.22 points.
Indiana's 2020 result was an outlier. That doesn't mean they're a terrible team, but they're not a team you would expect to go 6-1 against B1G competition, particularly in the B1G-E division. Predicting that the outlier status would continue into 2021
is a bad bet, even though it was well within the possible range of 2021 outcomes.
