The State Of Our Open Threads: After Indiana

Well, if you mix in the normal "WTF" game we play against Indiana lately, a little dirty play and a lot being on the line should we stumble after Maryland totally failed us earlier in the day, and you have yesterday's open thread. In a game that we won, and by the second half, one that we were more or less controlling, we still managed to get the season high thus far for fucks. We game 341 of them, which beats the 316 which we gave during the Michigan State game. Indeed, we've only topped 200 fucks four times this season, but we are 3-1 in those games. Even so, it is far less than last year's game against Indiana - 421 fucks in that one. For further comparison, we exceeded 200 fucks given 9 times last season, and we were 5-4 in those games. Now, it does need to be said that the context of "fuck" is dynamic in this game. We were down early and not playing quite as well as we thought we might, but there was also the matter of the dirty play of Indiana and the fact that we had possibly the single worst crew in the conference if not in Division I football. I think we were comfortable in the fact that we would prevail, but it was definitely not an exciting football game by season standards and the results of "fuck" bore that out. It's actually a similar story with shits given - we only gave 94 yesterday, which leaves us at four times this season where we've given more than 100 shits. We are 3-1 in those games as well, although they are actually a slightly different set of games. We exceeded 100 shits in eight games last season and were 4-4 in those games, so one of the things which will get added to "A Brief History Of Fuck" is a smaller essay called "Deficit Of Points, Excess Of Shit" because there are - after nearly 70 games of data - some interesting correlations. Much of the "shit" in this game was directed at the officiating and Indiana's less than ethical play as well, but there was also a fair amount directed at the coaching staff and the fact that this game had some painful moments on offense and defense. Compared to the previous game, we more than doubled the suck - we sucked only 12 times against Rutgers, but we sucked 26 times against Indiana. If you go back one more game, we only sucked 5 times against Penn State, so in the buildup to this now upcoming game against Ohio State, we've definitely ramped up the suck in the open thread. Funny thing is that, even when we win - and we may very well prevail in Columbus - we still suck quite a bit in this game, if the open thread is any indication. It feeds into a narrative that has quite a bit of statistical backing now, at least if you look at the numbers - we're never satisfied completely and will find things to complain about. "Defense" got 105 mentions - I am sure we don't need to discuss why, but let's face it, we should be more or less numb to this version of this particular game by now. For a reason no one completely understands, Indiana' nuts up against us and then feels at ease to suck the rest of the way. As long as we win, I suppose - we were never guaranteed a pretty one, and given that we all sat through Rodriguez and Hoke, we should be thankful anyway. Overall, there were 1,743 total posts, making this one of the larger threads we've had for a home game this year, and the largests in four weeks. Driven by fucks, there were 753 total tracked instances, which makes the overall efficiency of the thread a solid 2.31. That number puts the game in the "Stressful win / Close Loss" category, given historic data (yes, this is also predictable now) and it makes it - by the numbers - the most stress-inducing game yet this season with only one (THAT one, of course) remaining. Oh, I am not looking forward to the numbers in six days, but we'll do it because science.