Can a team really give another team "their best shot" while giving other opponents less than that?
I just watched an OSU make mistake after mistake, penalties, alignment issues, not being able to run the ball, giving up on trying to run the ball ... a Perfect Storm.
We see this happen every year to top teams, which is why going 13-0 is so rare. Somehow, a team can "have a bad game" and get upset once a year, even a much better more talented team.
I view it more as a statistical event than something relating to motivation. You don't quite make that first down, you have a crucial penalty, some WR drops a ball, then the team starts pressing, which is mental, and things spiral out of control.
And Purdue has a pretty good well coached team. I hope they can keep their coach. They were a team I "had my eye on" this year. As noted, they lost 3 games that could have been wins.
The answer to your question is HELL YES. Having played this game and coached it, nothing is more certain than the “ emotional” part of it. Denying this would seem like teams could just play on paper.
How many times do we see it? Was Auburn really better than Bama last year? Was Iowa really 55-24 better than OSU last year. It’s why the transitive property doesn’t work at all.
It has nothing to do with how “ good a team is”. It is about what they are capable of, both good performance and bad.
That’s why night time road games heavily favor the home team.
Most teams are capapble of Super crisp performances. It usually comes from the gut....a game you have circled on your calendar, where you actually respect that the opponent is really good but you are so focused and intense, it carries you to another level.
It’s like Patterson of TCU said after losing to OSU- something to the effect that this was the game they prepared for all summer and fall, and playing well and losing will be hard to come back from. I think PSU ha that night game white out circled as well, because of how they lost to OSU last year.
Purdue looked amazing last night, and it wasn’t a fluke, great coaching and highly motivated team and atmosphere. But that will likely be the best game they play all year.
Why do you think teams that meet twice often have different outcomes.
Make no mistake...in college football the variance between a team’s best and worst is quite wide, and mostly impacted by emotional factors and atmosphere.