About the football...
Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 10:17 am
I know that the post game comments are what's going to draw the most ire from yesterday, and justifiably so. Still, I want to take a look at the football, cliff's notes follow if you don't want to read my long winded crap...
Second to those comments obviously one will want to focus on the horrendous use of the prevent defense throughout the 4th quarter. This is understandable as well. We had the game wrapped up and our defense completely fell apart. We backed off in coverage. We stopped bringing any pressure whatsoever, and we let Drew Willy torch us. He was just throwing to guys who were wide freaking open the entire 4th quarter. I'd have to look at the logs, but I believe we allowed them to have 4 possessions in the final 11:00 of the game, and they scored TDs on 3 of them. I don't think any of those scoring drives took even 3:00 to accomplish. I'm sorry, but this was Romeo Crennel type stuff here, inexcusable to put your defense in a shell like that, after the way they had played for the first 45 minutes.
Okay, so we let them tie the game and we get the ball back with :34 and the ball on about the 30-35 yard line. We have no Timeouts (because we stupidly wasted every last one of them...quality coaching there, 2 were gone in the 3rd quarter for god's sake). Anyhoo, :34 is still a lot of time in college ball every first down stops the clock long enough for you to get a spike in. Sure it's asking a lot, but you could drive the 40 yards needed for a viable FG attempt. So out trots Sheehan to run the ultra-hurry up offense, right? WRONG Nope we're so confident we'll win it in OT that we take a freaking knee? Wow, talk about needing to grow a pair.
So, now that we've got ourself into overtime we go on defense first and quickly allow a TD pass. Apparently we decide to still play our version of the "prevent" even in OT...interesting strategy. No worries, we score a TD on our possession without too much worry either. So now, do you go for 2 and win, or kick the FG. Either is a justifiable decision. I mean, normally I'd say on your home field with a team you had dominated for most of the game, I'd say take the tie and continue the game. However, the way we had fallen apart I'd say you could make a case for letting the game come down to one play and going for the 2 pt conversion. Well Gregg kicked the XP, and that's just fine by me. So on we go to the second overtime we get stuffed on the 1 yard line a couple times so it's 4th down. We can just kick the FG and then play some defense.
So now we go for the TD on 4th DOWN!? WHAT THE HELL!? In what world does this line of decisions make sense? Okay, now like 5 minutes earlier we had the chance to turn the game into a one play affair ti win/lose based on our ability to move 2 yards. We take the conservative way out (which is acceptable in it's own right), but then just a few minutes later we gamble to turn the game on one play, where we can only LOSE it on that one play. We were not in a position where we succeed and we actually win the game, no we just make them get a TD. This makes no sense, it's all risk and very little reward. No matter how much I think about it I absolutely cannot wrap my head around what could possibly make a competent person make this decision. It's baffling. It's almost like he re-thought it and said, dammit we should have went for 2. Can anyone come up with anything even close to a reasonable explanation for this, because I'm baffled.
Oh, and if you want to discuss the play that we ran on that 4th down, I can do so. We lined up in a formation that I noted as rather interesting back in the first half. We ran that formation about 3-4 times in the game. It involves Sheehan by himself in the backfield, with the 5 man OL blocking. We've got one WR by himself wide on the short side of the field and 4 guys wide on the far side. One man is on the line of scrimmage to cover the tackle. Then about 1-2 yards behind him are 2 guys that are 5 yards to his right and left, then about 1-2 yards behind them is the 4th guy, directly behind the guy that is on the LOS. It creates a sort of diamond over there. Anyhow we ran this formation 3-4 times. One time we ran a QB keeper to the short side of the field. Every other time we passed to the guy in the back of the diamond WR formation and the 3 guys in front of him blocked. On that 4th down the Bulls obviously recognized it as well (not that difficult to do), and they just rushed through the front WRs and got into the body of the back WR...Sheehan just threw the ball into what was essentially already a pileup out there.
Cliff's Notes:
1. Super soft prevent blows 20 point lead
2. Pansy out and kneel on last possession
3. Take conservative way out to extend game in 1st OT.
4. Suddenly get overly aggressive and go for it on 4th with very little to gain.
5. Playcall after aggressive defense was super predictable and easily stopped.
This might have seriously been the worst stretch of coaching decisions I've ever seen by Gregg Brandon in his tenure at BG. And seriously, that is saying something.
Second to those comments obviously one will want to focus on the horrendous use of the prevent defense throughout the 4th quarter. This is understandable as well. We had the game wrapped up and our defense completely fell apart. We backed off in coverage. We stopped bringing any pressure whatsoever, and we let Drew Willy torch us. He was just throwing to guys who were wide freaking open the entire 4th quarter. I'd have to look at the logs, but I believe we allowed them to have 4 possessions in the final 11:00 of the game, and they scored TDs on 3 of them. I don't think any of those scoring drives took even 3:00 to accomplish. I'm sorry, but this was Romeo Crennel type stuff here, inexcusable to put your defense in a shell like that, after the way they had played for the first 45 minutes.
Okay, so we let them tie the game and we get the ball back with :34 and the ball on about the 30-35 yard line. We have no Timeouts (because we stupidly wasted every last one of them...quality coaching there, 2 were gone in the 3rd quarter for god's sake). Anyhoo, :34 is still a lot of time in college ball every first down stops the clock long enough for you to get a spike in. Sure it's asking a lot, but you could drive the 40 yards needed for a viable FG attempt. So out trots Sheehan to run the ultra-hurry up offense, right? WRONG Nope we're so confident we'll win it in OT that we take a freaking knee? Wow, talk about needing to grow a pair.
So, now that we've got ourself into overtime we go on defense first and quickly allow a TD pass. Apparently we decide to still play our version of the "prevent" even in OT...interesting strategy. No worries, we score a TD on our possession without too much worry either. So now, do you go for 2 and win, or kick the FG. Either is a justifiable decision. I mean, normally I'd say on your home field with a team you had dominated for most of the game, I'd say take the tie and continue the game. However, the way we had fallen apart I'd say you could make a case for letting the game come down to one play and going for the 2 pt conversion. Well Gregg kicked the XP, and that's just fine by me. So on we go to the second overtime we get stuffed on the 1 yard line a couple times so it's 4th down. We can just kick the FG and then play some defense.
So now we go for the TD on 4th DOWN!? WHAT THE HELL!? In what world does this line of decisions make sense? Okay, now like 5 minutes earlier we had the chance to turn the game into a one play affair ti win/lose based on our ability to move 2 yards. We take the conservative way out (which is acceptable in it's own right), but then just a few minutes later we gamble to turn the game on one play, where we can only LOSE it on that one play. We were not in a position where we succeed and we actually win the game, no we just make them get a TD. This makes no sense, it's all risk and very little reward. No matter how much I think about it I absolutely cannot wrap my head around what could possibly make a competent person make this decision. It's baffling. It's almost like he re-thought it and said, dammit we should have went for 2. Can anyone come up with anything even close to a reasonable explanation for this, because I'm baffled.
Oh, and if you want to discuss the play that we ran on that 4th down, I can do so. We lined up in a formation that I noted as rather interesting back in the first half. We ran that formation about 3-4 times in the game. It involves Sheehan by himself in the backfield, with the 5 man OL blocking. We've got one WR by himself wide on the short side of the field and 4 guys wide on the far side. One man is on the line of scrimmage to cover the tackle. Then about 1-2 yards behind him are 2 guys that are 5 yards to his right and left, then about 1-2 yards behind them is the 4th guy, directly behind the guy that is on the LOS. It creates a sort of diamond over there. Anyhow we ran this formation 3-4 times. One time we ran a QB keeper to the short side of the field. Every other time we passed to the guy in the back of the diamond WR formation and the 3 guys in front of him blocked. On that 4th down the Bulls obviously recognized it as well (not that difficult to do), and they just rushed through the front WRs and got into the body of the back WR...Sheehan just threw the ball into what was essentially already a pileup out there.
Cliff's Notes:
1. Super soft prevent blows 20 point lead
2. Pansy out and kneel on last possession
3. Take conservative way out to extend game in 1st OT.
4. Suddenly get overly aggressive and go for it on 4th with very little to gain.
5. Playcall after aggressive defense was super predictable and easily stopped.
This might have seriously been the worst stretch of coaching decisions I've ever seen by Gregg Brandon in his tenure at BG. And seriously, that is saying something.