I am going to be frightfully honest with everyone here, and then you may judge me - I fully expected this particular entry into "The State Of Our Open Threads" to be an autopsy of sorts yesterday morning, or at best, a dissection of a hairy, narrow win. I did not see 42-27 coming. I did not see the physical and psychological domination of OSU on the field coming. I was pleasantly surprised and roundly impressed. 

All the same, there are a few things to talk about this morning, so we will do that anyway. It is as important to see what these numbers look like after rather momentous wins as it is in not quite so glorious moments, so if you are the sort that wonders if perhaps a diary like this would dampen the mood, in the nine years I have been doing this, I don't believe that it ever has. 

As usual, we shall start with fucks given - there were 303 of these, which is actually quite low for an OSU game in the data I have, but then, this is the first OSU win that I have data for. The record for an OSU game in the Harbaugh era is actually 751, which was the 2016 game, and about 20% of those fucks came around a moment best not discussed right this second. Of course, this was a substantial increase from the mere 78 we gave during the Maryland game, but far short of the 476 we gave during the MSU game. 303 is, however, the second most fucks we gave this season, with Nebraska being a close third at 299, followed fairly closely by Penn State at 285. 

"Shits" were a slightly different tale - we only gave 67 of these yesterday in the thread, which places OSU in this study sixth in shits given for the season both in the conference schedule as well as overall in 2021. This was aided substantially perhaps by the fact that we won, but two of the top three this season in terms of shits given - Nebraska and Penn State - were wins as well. There is a relationship between scoring margin and usage that we will examine in a diary in December actually. 

Here's the graphic version of all that:

I am sure you would have guessed this, but there was relatively little action on the "fire" and "suck" fronts. In fact, the mere 24 instances of "fire", most which were directed at Fox Sports and the officials, counts for the lowest in the conference schedule and the second lowest total this season. The 18 mentions of "suck", which were also directed at the same individuals as "fire" mostly, is the third lowest total this season. Like several words in the study, they saw quite a bit of use during three games this season - Nebraska, MSU and Penn State. These games were clearly, and unsurprisingly, the first tier for stress this season. 

Talk about "defense" and "offense" was relatively flat as well, but I think many of us, especially later in the game, were caught up in the moment, beginning slowly to think that this may in fact happen. IN both cases, OSU has the fourth-highest total of mentions in the conference schedule - 111 for "defense" and 101 for "offense". Actually, the overall season graph for this one is very interesting because the peaks of concern are utterly predictable based on anecdotal behavior from just people I know, which isn't scientific, but it aligns nearly perfectly with the threads - people were about to have a fit over offense during and immediately after the Washington game, and the Nebraska game made us wonder greatly about our defense. The Penn State game was just a slow grind that we somehow won, if the numbers are any indication:

As for mentions of "Harbaugh" and "Cade", there wasn't much of this either, at least not in comparison to previous games:

The 81 mentions of "Cade" doesn't even top the number for Maryland, and 101 mentions of Harbaugh is fourth-highest in the conference schedule, under the three games that tend to stick out, which I've mentioned previously. You can see on the graph, of course, where most of the Harbaugh chatter happened, and again, you likely already assumed this but the numbers bear it out. All in all, I think a lot of us just watched - from the stands, from the family room, from somewhere - and details beyond the score began to seem....unimportant, at least for a time. 

Overall efficiency was 2.54, which is low for an OSU game but reasonably consistent with how I think we've seen this season, or rather, how we have experienced this season. That is to say, we've been a bit on edge, and I think yesterday was a massive release of sorts. The season graph stands thus:

There were 878 instances of tracked words across 2,233 posts (small thread for an OSU game too, but it was here and we won, so there were probably close to 1,000 posts that did not happen as a result). That's where 2.54 comes from, in case you were interested. 

There will a couple followup diaries next month:

- 2021 Fucking Season In Review

- The History Of Fuck In The Harbaugh Era

I have most of the data work done. I simply need to find the inclination to write some more. I get that I am not the best writer here, but I do try to make it interesting all the same. 

In any case, it has been fun to do this little feature for yet another season. Hopefully, you have enjoyed it.