Road games, losing streaks, and payback

Road games, losing streaks, and payback - Printable Version

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Road games, losing streaks, and payback - terry - 08-30-2010

There\'s something odd about Stanford\'s road schedule this year -- Stanford has long road losing streaks against all but one of this year\'s road opponents. The details:

Notre Dame
Stanford\'s last win at ND: 1992
Stanford\'s losing streak at ND: 7 games

UCLA
Stanford\'s last win at UCLA: 1996
Stanford\'s losing streak at UCLA: 6 games

Arizona State
Stanford\'s last win at ASU: 1999
Stanford\'s losing streak at ASU: 4 games

UCBerkeley
Stanford\'s last win at UCBerkeley: 2000
Stanford\'s losing streak at UCBerkeley: 4 games

Oregon
Stanford\'s last win at Oregon: 2001
Stanford\'s losing streak at Oregon: 4 games

Against these five opponents combined, Stanford\'s road record since 2001 is 0-20.

And most of those 20 road losses were not close. In 13 of those 20 losses, Stanford lost by 21 points or more. Stanford lost by fewer than 7 points in only 2 of those 20 games.

The only one of this year\'s road opponents against which Stanford does not have a long road losing streak is, oddly enough, Washington. Stanford has won its last two games at UW. Still, it\'s hard to think of Washington as a team against which we\'ve had much road success -- between 1975 and 2006, Stanford went 31 years without a road win at Washington, losing 12 straight games at UW during that time.

Stanford does not have long road losing streaks against any of the other teams we play regularly. Stanford has a two-game road winning streak at USC, a one-game road winning streak at WSU, a one-game road losing streak at Arizona, and a two-game road losing streak at OSU. Stanford\'s combined road record against those four teams since 2001 is 8-7.

So, this year\'s road schedule includes all of the opponents that have been toughest for Stanford to beat on the road. Or to put it another way, Stanford has a great opportunity this year to reverse a lot of bad karma on the road. Stanford has struggled on the road against this group of opponents, but now it\'s time for some payback.

Re: Road games, losing streaks, and payback - Farm93 - 08-30-2010

The UCLA streak could\'ve, should\'ve, would\'ve ended in 2008 if a number of things that normally happen at the end of games happened that day. Â With that background that UCLA game is almost a must win, in order to reach those 1st to 4th type finishes.

ASU is late enough in the year that by then things should be pretty clear. Â If ASU is looking like the 9th best Pac-10 team, then I will not be too worried. Â And that Nov. 13th date should mean it will not be too hot.

The other three games appear more challenging on paper.

If Stanford goes 3-2 in the 5 then it will be a good year. Â 4-1 or 5-0 will make it a great year. Â Given the expectations for UCLA and ASU, anything less than 2-3 will be a big disappointment.

In all five match-ups JH is only 0-1, the other losses since 2001 were all with coaches that are not associated with the program now. Â Most of the starters have film showing them beating these teams, so I suspect that is more relevant.

Re: Road games, losing streaks, and payback - terry - 08-30-2010

On a more positive note, Harbaugh already has ended some unfortunate Stanford streaks in the last three seasons:

2007:
- Ended 5-game losing streak to USC
- Ended 5-game losing streak to UCBerkeley
- Ended streak of 11 years without a shutout, 33 years without a shutout in the regular season, and 35 years without a shutout at home

2008:
- Ended 4-game home losing streak to Washington State (first home win over WSU since 1999)
- Ended 3-game home losing streak to Oregon State (first home win over OSU since 1999)
- Ended streak of 34 years without a shutout of a conference opponent

2009:
- Ended 7-game losing streak to Notre Dame
- Ended 7-game losing streak to Oregon, and ended 3-game home losing streak to Oregon (first home win over Oregon since 1997)
- Ended 5-game losing streak to UCLA
- Ended streak of 7 straight losing seasons

So Harbaugh already has made lots of progress.

The other streak I\'d like to see end this year is the streak of 4 straight home losses to USC (our last home win over USC was in 2000).