The Dude

The tougher to beat a team the 2nd time thing is probably harder to debunk with Nebraska fans because we have shown a propensity of playing much worse in second game same season matchups. OU 78?, Washington Holiday bowl and Wiscy CCG games all immediately come to mind. I can’t think of any that have gone our way.

Its also been my experience with youth hockey games. I can’t count the times a team would beat another in the seeding rounds only to lose to the same team in bracket play. It’s all anecdotal but.....

Just a thought...

Even if the winner of the first game is 23-14 (62%) it can still be true that it's tougher to beat a team in the 2nd game. If it wasn't the record in the 2nd game should be more lopsided. They've already beaten that team once and they only beat them twice 62% of the time.

So, 1st game losing teams improve from 0-37 to 14-23 in ccg rematches and from 0-22 to 15-7 in bowl game rematches. Pretty definitive that it is much tougher to beat a team the 2nd time.