Stover?

[Flipper]

No, I'm saying that the best chance for a victory against a team with more talent is to try to keep the game as close as possible and then hope for the best. You run a far greater risk of getting blown out against a team like OU by getting too aggressive than you do catching them on a downer and beating them. Then the game is over in the first quater instead of the 4th.

The OSU gamed turned on a dropped pass and a missed fumble call. Between the forced fumble that we didn't get and Patton's onside kick recovery, I think we were making the plays at the end of the game that we needed to make to win...it just didn't pan out.

The romantic notion of taking it to your opponent no matter who they are is wonderful for fans, but it isn't particulalry realistic

[BelieveNBG]

<<No, I'm saying that the best chance for a victory against a team with more talent is to try to keep the game as close as possible and then hope for the best. You run a far greater risk of getting blown out against a team like OU by getting too aggressive than you do catching them on a downer and beating them. Then the game is over in the first quater instead of the 4th. >>

Gone are the days when the big school with all the past history has a huge upper hand in talent vs. the smaller schools. The parity is really playing a factor with the limited scholarships. This is why the upsets are occurring. Based on this fact, gone are the days of "hoping" for the best out of the smaller schools. Fresno State isn't sitting back hoping for the best. Utah will not sit back and hope for the best. When we were playing Purdue in the first quarter of the game, hoping for the best, we were getting beat. When we decided to take control of our own destiny and play to win, we won. BG has alot of talent on the field and those weapons need to be used. When we aren't aggressive, they don't get to make the big plays that they are very capable of making (i.e. Chuck in the end zone or Cole at OSU performance). Playing a hope to win fashion is what keeps the top contenders at the top. Good teams like to have you beat before you even step on the field. Those points are worth more than the ones they have to earn once the clock starts. Aggressive play, but don't do stupid stuff, is the best way to neutralize those intimidation points. That's what KSU did. They weren't conservative, but from their past performance your logic would be that they should just keep it close.

[Schadenfreude]

It was clear we weren't trying to win at osu last year, we played BG football for abotu 2 possesions of that entire game....

I *so* don't agree with this.

They put Harris out on the end. They threw screens. They let Magner lob a deep pass.

The only thing they didn't do was run many designed Harris runs.

The reason was obvious: Harris isn't that fast. It wasn't going to work against their linebackers.

Brandon coached a good game. We were a fingertip catch away from overtime.

No complaints here.

[BelieveNBG]

didn't exactly have his best game in that contest. I think we tried at OSU because we had prior success at Purdue. We just didn't execute early in the game. The players looked star struck and this limited what we were able to do. I don't think this one was the coaches at all.

[Flipper]

Let me put this another way (btw, I LOVE conversations like this--it makes me think-that's a good thing no matter how much it makes my head hurt)

If you shorten the game (try to keep it close for as long as possible) you lessen the impact that greater talent has on the game because it will take FEWER plays to beat that talent.

The longer you play, the greater impact talent will ave because talent will make MORE plays. That's why you see fewer upsets in sports with longer playoff series.

There, it only took me three days to make a point

[BelieveNBG]

I think it's healthy conversation.

I just am not in agreement on the whole "greater talent" perspective. I believe the only reason why so many believe we could have won that game is due to the number of very talented players that we have. I believe we can make just as many Big plays as the next team.

[kdog27]

Let me put this another way (btw, I LOVE conversations like this--it makes me think-that's a good thing no matter how much it makes my head hurt)

If you shorten the game (try to keep it close for as long as possible) you lessen the impact that greater talent has on the game because it will take FEWER plays to beat that talent.

The longer you play, the greater impact talent will ave because talent will make MORE plays. That's why you see fewer upsets in sports with longer playoff series.

There, it only took me three days to make a point

Well playing to stay in the game and not letting your opponent run up the score had us down 37-10 (close to a blowout anyway) and down 24-7 against OSU (which is a blowout for OSU). It wasn't until we opened it up that these games before they became respectable/close. I have no idea why we played that way against OSU. They have about one blowout per season. Digging a 17 point hole wasn't doing ourselves any favors.
At OU we were down 37-10 and the light comes on, we better start scoring and make this game close. Why not try that the entire game? It is contradictive to me. Like I said before I would rather go three and out, than run that girly offense of completing three yard passes, wasting the entire gameclock, and punting after one first down anyway. That strategy did not work anyway. OU still had 37 points by mid third quarter. So playing our game increases the risk of being blownout? So what? I also think it increases our chances of winning. I could care less if Oklahoma beats us by 50 so long as we stared them down and didn't change a thing. Additionally many people saw this game as a blowout/Sooners roll anyway because the score was 37-10 at one time. Who's going remember that we were still in this game in third quarter? Us and maybe a few intellectual fans. Nobody saw that as a close game. And had we been beaten by 50+, oh well we can join the club.

[1987alum]

kdog:

Good point. There's sound logic behind trying to "shorten" the game. But once that strategy begins to fail, you need to be nimble enough to shift gears with your game plan. Sounds like that's what the Falcons could have done in Norman.

Not that you play with desperation, far from it. Beating good teams is often about making adjustments on the fly.

[kdog27]

d"$"?d1987alum"]kdog:


Not that you play with desperation, far from it. Beating good teams is often about making adjustments on the fly.[/quote]

and that is a difficult thing to do but I would rather see attempts at that, than see the mentality that we have to keep their offense off the field to give ourselves a chance. That only works if you give your offense the chance to have long drives. Oh well it's over now and hopefully the coaches have learned some things from those games.

[hammb]

d"$"?d1987alum"]kdog:


Not that you play with desperation, far from it. Beating good teams is often about making adjustments on the fly.

and that is a difficult thing to do but I would rather see attempts at that, than see the mentality that we have to keep their offense off the field to give ourselves a chance. That only works if you give your offense the chance to have long drives. Oh well it's over now and hopefully the coaches have learned some things from those games.[/quote]

Our offense is not built to eat up the clock and also be effective. Its not our style. Our style is 3:00 TD drives. Again, this is not my preferred offensive philosophy, but it is how we've built the program that we currently have. Then we try to turn our spread offense into ball control when we go against the best competition? Doesn't this seem a little contradictive to anyone?

If you want to control the clock and do it effectively you do it by being able to grind out 4-5 yards per carry and control the clock that way. That's not our style. completing 4-5 yard passes will only work so long, before everyone is crowding the middle and there are no passing lanes. On top of that you miss on one of those completions you just went 3 & out. If we want to control the clock, fine. Go recruit some big, mauling OL guys, and run the ball 50 times a game. If that's our philosophy fine, I can handle that. But it is apparent that our philosophy for the past few years has been to throw the ball. I don't see the logic in admitting that OU & OSU are so much better than us that we must play their game and not our own.

[Flipper]

The biggest factor in our getting back into both games was the defense. Against OSU we tightened it up against the run, against OU Keon made a big play. We didn't suddenly become mad bombers to force OU or OSU back on their heels. We stopped them and started executing better. THAT's how we go back in the OSU game.

There's nothing wrong with throwing "little girly" passes. We beat Northwestern and UT precisely because we were able to execute the short to intermediate passing attack. That gave us some chances to work downfield but the bulk of what we did was within 10-15 yards of the line of scrimmage.

In the MCB, we forced it downfield more in the first half and it netted us two INT's. When we went back to playing within the offense, we ground it out on them and we won the football game.

[BelieveNBG]

If you don't throw down field against a good defense, the short stuff will never open up. The OU game was bottled up around all the short stuff and this is why we had little success. Once we openend it up, the short game started working also. It shouldn't take 3 quarters to figure out that opening it up is a must. We knew by halftime that the offense was being stalled, but our strategy didn't change until end of 3rd/beginning of 4th quarter.

As for Northwestern, poor throws caused those interceptions. Also, we now have a different quarterback and the plays should lean towards his ability. If he is accurate, we need to open it up to aid in the short and running game. If his accuracy is at question, then we should continue with the caustious short game strategy until Omar evolves. The key is to not be one dimensional. At OU, we were one dimensional and that was easy to defense.

[Flipper]

I think the biggest deviation from our "Usual" offense against OU was our use of the play clock. We ran it down to the last few seconds the entire game. That strategery had as much of an impact on shortening the game as anything else.

Bad throws or not, we had a lot more success against Northwestern and Toledo when we played the shorter stuff and hit the longer passes when the defenses pulled up. I'm not unsympathetic to the view that we could have looked downfield more often against OU than we did, but I won't second guess anyone taking that approach with a first time starter at QB.

I guess for me the bottom line is that we did have a strategy in place to win against OSU and OU. Some folks may not agree with it and that's fine, that's what boards like this are for, but we did have a notion of how we would win the football games in question.

I am somehat mystified by what the perception of what "our game" is. Our game is built around short to intermdiate passes with an occasional look downfield. We aren't built around stretching the defense vertically nearly as much as we are horizontally. I don't think you'll see us come out and look for the deep ball without working the short routes first very often. Although it sure as hell took NIU by suprise when we hit them with that approach last year...

One thing about Omar's motion that concerns me relative to the deep passing attack is that his 3/4's delivery seems to make it a bit difficult to get sufficient air under the ball. The INT against SEMO was underthrown, he threw an INT in sthe spring game that was similarly underthrown. It almost looks like th eball is takinga little dip at the end. It's almost like he's throwing a sinker.

[hammb]

I am somehat mystified by what the perception of what "our game" is. Our game is built around short to intermdiate passes with an occasional look downfield. We aren't built around stretching the defense vertically nearly as much as we are horizontally. I don't think you'll see us come out and look for the deep ball without working the short routes first very often.

Agreed, 100%

However, we didn't go to those long throws against OSU or OU. That is the point. You MUST mix them. Short throws to get the safeties creeping in, then go over the top. If they're backed off hit the underneath stuff. Against both of those great defenses we didn't try to go over the top nearly enough to keep the safeties honest. This, IMO, was a big mistake by allowing the secondary to know that we weren't willing to throw the post or go route. You don't even really have to complete it, you just have to show it. The ball that Sharon dropped down the sideline and the first completion to Magner are the only passes in the first half that I really remember BG attempting anything I'd call "deep".

[kdog27]

I think we all bring up good points here and who knows what the best thing to do was. I just can't agree that we were really ever in the game with Okla. in the second half. Playing like we did had us down 37-10. Than we finally try to stop running the entire playclock and get a good td drive to make it a 20 point game. And of course it was 13 points just like that. But were we really threatning to win this game? If we would have stopped Okla three and out after Keon's TD I would say we could have really made things interesting. But getting the ball back down 16...The odds of pulling that in 5 minutes (?) is quite slim. My point is that playing the style that we did played us right out of the game. Finding yourself down 27 in the 3rd quarter leads to a win about 1/100 times. If you want to consume some gameclock that is fine, but like hammb said, that has to be your style to do that. You are right we always run short passes, but I had never seen so few moderately long passes before. On the whole I think we did a good job of completing those passes, but it did not keep us in the game.