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USA Today Sports Media Group
USA Today Sports Media Group
Sport
Kevin Hickey

Frank Reich on difficulty of sweeping a team in the same season

The Indianapolis Colts (9-4) will be looking to go for the clean sweep when the Houston Texans (4-9) visit Lucas Oil Stadium on Sunday for a Week 15 matchup.

As Indy came out of the Week 13 game with a 26-20 win, the Colts have a chance to sweep their division foes. They were unable to do so against the Titans and can only even the series against the Jaguars in Week 17.

Even though they are favored by over a touchdown, head coach Frank Reich knows all too well how difficult it is to pull off the clean sweep.

“Players are tough minded. The players in this league – and it’s on both sides. You get beat and that doesn’t taste good or feel good so guys typically bow up and want to respond,” Reich said Wednesday. “But for us as a team, we have to learn how to be able to beat a team twice because that is equally as tough. That is also a mental toughness thing – not just when you get beat when you have to bow up but you have to have the mental toughness to be able to come in to a second meeting with the same tenacity.”

The Colts and Texans got into a tight battle in Week 13. The Colts came out on top thanks to a fumble recovery in the red zone and keeping the Texans from scoring a single point in the second half of the game.

Simply the nature of the two teams keeps this from being an easy projection in terms of outcome.

“Obviously in this game it should be easy because we have a lot of respect for the Texans number one and number two, the game that we just played was obviously a very tight game,” Reich said.

The Colts will need to win this game to keep pace in the AFC playoff picture and while they should be expected to win, sweeping the season series is a daunting task for any team.

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