hammb wrote:I just know that if I were the coach I would probably teach my kids to think about taking a knee in that situation.
This, and the coaching staff has to make players aware of the situation and what they want them to do. Now here, we were still at mid-field so I am not blaming the coaching staff for not thinking of this. It's more of a situation that comes up as you get closer to the goal line.
And I agree that this particular situation it would have been hard for Barnes to do. Gotta catch the ball first. And once he does that it was like two strides and into the end zone. In the Jones-Drew play (and Harrison vs the Chiefs), it was a running play and a RB is much more aware of where they are on the field.
"An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools."
- Ernest Hemingway
Flipper wrote:Getting cute like that with 30 secoinds to go is simply asking fate to bite you in the ass. 99.41% of the time your defense will do the job and make the stop...that's the % you play.
But if you do take a knee, there is a 100% chance you don't lose (at least in regulation).
Flipper wrote:Besides..taking a knee in that situation is tantamount to giving your defense a great big middle finger...you're essentially telling them "I don't trust you to do your job".
Hmm, and they did exactly what was feared and shouldn't have been trusted. Maybe they need to be given the big middle finger from the coach until they prove differently.
Conversely, you would also be telling your kicker you have 100% confidence in him that he could make the kick. Isn't there something to be said for that?
"An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools."
- Ernest Hemingway
Granted...the defense let you down this tiime, hence the term 99.41%. But you have to figure they won't...there's no way they should. Now...the "smart" thing to do with the DB's is to commit PI if you're beat. I have no problems with that. But I think you're dicking around and trying to be "playstation cute" if you don't take the points when you have them.
Play to win...why in the hell would you be giving up a sure lead to take a chance on getting the lead in 25 or so seconds? Because you guarentee a tie? Nope...coach to win, play to win.
It's not the fall that hurts...it's when you hit the ground.
I think the "being at midfield" comment is pretty key. We were looking to pick up a first down and continue the drive, until the CB played a little "Ole! defense" on Freddie and the safety decided to take a play off. Watching Sheehan on the play is kind of funny. You can almost pin point the "Holy crap! How is he that wide open?" moment in the pocket.
"I don't believe I can name a coach, anywhere, anytime, anyhow, who did it better than Doyt Perry."
-1955 BG Assistant Bo Schembechler
That would be expecting alot of Freddie to have that "clarity of thought" in that situation. It's counter-intuitive to everything those kids work for, whether counseled by the coaches or not.
As previosuly posted, Pocket Hercules did the same with positive results. However, he is a professional and spends much more than "20 hours a week" honing his craft.
As TG1996 stated, being at mid-field is why it never entered anyone's concious thoughts
I never meant to suggest that Barnes 'ought' to have thought of this during the play, or that the coaches 'ought' to have been prepared this possibility beforehand.
Obviously, if this play had begun with us in the LEAD, or if were already inside field goal range, the play calling would have been different.
I just remember thinking (as soon as the pass was thrown) "oh crap, we left too much time on the clock."
The question I posed DID make for an interesting thread...that's all I intended.
Freddie wrote:...instead of scoring that TD with 34 seconds left.
Say he trots to the 1 yard line and takes a knee. We go into the 'victory' formation, take two snaps while Idaho burns their remaining timeouts. We let the clock run down to 1 sec, call a timeout then kick a FG as time expires.
Final score; BG 38, Idaho 35.
No way....Freddie did the right thing, period. There's no excuse for losing that game the way we did. Besides, our FG kicking is far from reliable. Remember, we had a very makeable attempt blocked earlier that "would have" made the difference in the game. We clearly lost a game we should have won in the final seconds. Freddie needed to score that TD and we needed to cover on the kickoff and not allow a TD return or a long return. We did. We just failed to allowa video-game like drive at the end. You put us in the situation 50 times, and I like our chances. But it's water under the bridge now...
