Custom UIScrollView class not initializing IBOutlets - ios

Question

I've recently dived into the world of Swift 3 and Xcode 8 and have been working on a simple game to learn as much as possible but I have run into an issue where my custom class is crashing when I segue into it because the IBOutlets which I dragged into it are nil.
I am using StoryBoard and AutoLayout and have dragged several fields into my class statistics:UIScrollView from the storyboard.
class StatisticsView: UIScrollView, sendLabelDelegate {
#IBOutlet weak var GamesWonNum: UILabel!
required init?(coder aDecoder: NSCoder) {
super.init(coder: aDecoder)
self.GamesWonNum = aDecoder.decodeObject(forKey: "GamesWonNum") as! UILabel!
}
override func encode(with aCoder: NSCoder) {
aCoder.encode(self.GamesWonNum, forKey: "GamesWonNum")
}
func setLabel(data: String) {
let temp = Int(data)
setNumber(num: temp!)
}
override func awakeFromNib() { }
override init(frame: CGRect) {
super.init(frame: frame)
}
func setNumber(num: Int){
GamesWonNum.text = String(num)
}
}
I have made sure that the statistics class is set as the identifier for the storyboard scrollview. I've done a lot of research into the topic, and I couldn't find a concrete answer on exactly how this works. I found in another post that calling the function awakefromNib() will fix the issue and it has, but I want to understand what awakefromNib() does and why I cannot simply init() the view.
My view Controller hierarchy is as follows:
MainMenuVC | --Segue--> SettingsVC
MainMenyVC | --Segue--> StatisticsVC
class StatisticsVC: UIViewController, sendLabelDelegate{
#IBOutlet weak var StatsScrollView: UIScrollView!
var settingsLabel:String = ""
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
if UIScreen.main.bounds.height < 600 {
StatsScrollView.contentSize.height = 700
print("screensizeif: \(UIScreen.main.bounds.height), \(StatsScrollView.contentSize.height)")
}else{
StatsScrollView.contentSize.height = UIScreen.main.bounds.height
print("screensizeelse: \(UIScreen.main.bounds.height), \(StatsScrollView.contentSize.height)")
}
StatsScrollView.contentSize.width = UIScreen.main.bounds.width
StatsScrollView.isUserInteractionEnabled = true
}
func setLabel(data: String) {
settingsLabel = data
}
override var shouldAutorotate: Bool {
return true
}
override var supportedInterfaceOrientations: UIInterfaceOrientationMask {
if UIDevice.current.userInterfaceIdiom == .phone {
return .allButUpsideDown
} else {
return .all
}
}
}
My understanding is that the viewController will init all of its views before going into the viewdidLoad() function, so why is awakefromNib() necessary and what exactly should I define inside of it. Further, why can't I initialize the class inside init()? If I try to set the GamesWon Outlet inside init(), the outlet is nil.
Its a bit difficult for me to wrap my head around the relationship that exists here between a view controller, the custom scrollview I have, and the outlets being nil. If anyone could clarify I would very much appreciate it.
Thank you!