Brandon year end press conference

orangeandbrown · Post by **orangeandbrown** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 4:46 pm

This ought to start some debates.

http://bgsufalcons.collegesports.com/sp ... 05aad.html

Here's the best and more introspective part, I thought.

"You can get all caught up in it and say we were terrible in this phase or that phase but we were still playing in the end for a championship. We were in double overtime and if I went for two in the first overtime maybe we would have won that game and that is beating me up right now."

"Hindsight is 20/20. There were some guys in that situation that said lets go for two because our defense was tired, we hadn't stopped them in the second half, and we had momentum. Everybody felt that we had a play that would have worked. You can kick yourself until you can't kick yourself anymore on that. If we make it we win, great, everybody loves it, if we don't it will be, "Coach, why didn't you kick it and extend the game?" When you are in a close game and you lose, you evaluate every play. There are countless plays through that game that if we won, we wouldn't even care about."

1987alum · Post by **1987alum** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 4:51 pm

Sounds like he's being honest, to me. Optimistic, but honest.

Flipper · Post by **Flipper** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 5:02 pm

Yes...it will be interesting to see how the team (the coaches included) responds this spring.

I will say this, the Akron loss bothers me a whole lot more than the Toledo loss. I can see losing to Toledo, but we are waaay better than (cr)Akron even with AT at QB

Falconfreak90 · Post by **Falconfreak90** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 5:18 pm

Flipper wrote:Yes...it will be interesting to see how the team (the coaches included) responds this spring.

I will say this, the Akron loss bothers me a whole lot more than the Toledo loss. I can see losing to Toledo, but we are waaay better than (cr)Akron even with AT at QB

Agreed...there is NO way we should have lost to the Zips...no freakin way.

I wondered about going for 2 as well watching the replay the other night.

Falconfreak90 · Post by **Falconfreak90** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 5:25 pm

1987alum wrote:Sounds like he's being honest, to me. Optimistic, but honest.

I thought the whole series of answers were pretty honest. I still say the guy is committed to the program and will have us in the title hunt in 2006 and beyond.

transfer2BGSU · Post by **transfer2BGSU** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 6:03 pm

Gregg Brandon wrote:"...We were in double overtime and if I went for two in the first overtime maybe we would have won that game and that is beating me up right now."

"Hindsight is 20/20. There were some guys in that situation that said lets go for two because our defense was tired, we hadn't stopped them in the second half, and we had momentum. Everybody felt that we had a play that would have worked. You can kick yourself until you can't kick yourself anymore on that. If we make it we win, great, everybody loves it, if we don't it will be, "Coach, why didn't you kick it and extend the game?" When you are in a close game and you lose, you evaluate every play. There are countless plays through that game that if we won, we wouldn't even care about."

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

San Diego Falcon · Post by **San Diego Falcon** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 6:18 pm

1) First he says:

"We were in double overtime and if I went for two in the first overtime maybe we would have won that game and that is beating me up right now."

30 seconds later he says:

"I am not going to second guess myself."

Which is it, coach?

2) "We had Suisham so we didn't need to recruit anybody."

You wait until the kicker leaves before recruiting a replacement?

3) What's with all the memorized statistics for defense and special teams? I've never heard a coach so interested in stats. Sounds like insecurity to defend himself from criticism.

4) "This is just a temporary setback, just a blip on the radar. We didn't get some breaks, but we didn't make some breaks."

Tough talk. I like it. But please don't pull out statistics next year if you experience another blip.

CapitalFalcon · Post by **CapitalFalcon** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 6:19 pm

I totally agree he is being realistic. I'm glad we are talking about beefing up defense and special teams, but I have to admit...I'm not a big recruiting watcher...To those out there that are, are these areas getting better?

Two things I liked: "my program philosophy is to recruit character, and not characters." and "...we're 6-5, in the hunt at the end and everybody is upset. I guess that is a good thing." I think that is a GREAT thing! It shows we are way past being happy with a winning season.

1987alum · Post by **1987alum** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 6:57 pm

San Diego Falcon wrote:2) "We had Suisham so we didn't need to recruit anybody."

You wait until the kicker leaves before recruiting a replacement?

I don't have the exact quote, but he also says something along the line of having other people who didn't get the job done (supposedly Timchenko and, maybe, Fry).

As for the "not second-guessing myself" comment, I think that was more him trying to tell himself not to do that, because he obviously is.

BGSU33 · Post by **BGSU33** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 7:18 pm

Falconfreak90 wrote:
Flipper wrote:Yes...it will be interesting to see how the team (the coaches included) responds this spring.

I will say this, the Akron loss bothers me a whole lot more than the Toledo loss. I can see losing to Toledo, but we are waaay better than (cr)Akron even with AT at QB
Agreed...there is NO way we should have lost to the Zips...no freakin way.

I wondered about going for 2 as well watching the replay the other night.

The Akron loss also bothered me the most this year, like one post said, even more than Toledo. I think if we scored a TD and didn't fumble on the goalline, we win that game. No way should we have lost that game, with or without Omar. Even late in the first half, instead of going for it on 4th down in somewhat deep Akron territory, we punted and seemed content to settle for a 7-3 halftime lead when I thought we could have tried to score before the half. I thought we were way too conservative against Akron and I think it cost us the game.

As for the Toledo game, the one play, or penaltly I should say, that I keep thinking about over and over is the false start on 4th-&-1 late in the game when we were driving. All we needed is a few inches and we get a fresh set of down with timeouts and we get the false start and the decide to punt. Call me crazy, but I really felt we were going to get a few more yards and that Timchenko was going to kick a game-winning field goal and basicallly wash away an entire season of complaints from us about our kicking game. I really wish we would have gone for it. Our season is on the line and we need six yard, I'll take it with our offense. We were at home, on senior night, with the MACC and bowl hopes on the line, I wanted us to pull the damn trigger. Because I just knew when we went into overtime, Toledo was going to get us. Again, it just seemed we were playing it conservative, playing not to lose and Toledo played to win. If we would have gone for it and got stopped and Toledo mounted a drive with the 30 seconds left and won the game, so be it. I would rather have seen us lose putting it on the line and trying than seeing us hold on. That's one reason I believe Toledo is as good as they are, they have 100 percent confidence in going for it over and over, they play to win and don't worry about holding on. Just my two cents.

San Diego Falcon · Post by **San Diego Falcon** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 7:23 pm

I really wish we would have gone for it. Our season is on the line and we need six yard, I'll take it with our offense. We were at home, on senior night, with the MACC and bowl hopes on the line, I wanted us to pull the damn trigger. Because I just knew when we went into overtime, Toledo was going to get us. Again, it just seemed we were playing it conservative, playing not to lose and Toledo played to win. If we would have gone for it and got stopped and Toledo mounted a drive with the 30 seconds left and won the game, so be it. I would rather have seen us lose putting it on the line and trying than seeing us hold on. That's one reason I believe Toledo is as good as they are, they have 100 percent confidence in going for it over and over, they play to win and don't worry about holding on. Just my two cents.

I couldn't agree more - well said.

orangeandbrown · Post by **orangeandbrown** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 9:14 pm

I guess I looked at it a little differently. I thought all the rationalizing about how we were in the hunt, so that made everything OK wasn't very realistic. I thought this quote was a little sarcastic.

"Really, I think, we're 6-5, in the hunt at the end and everybody is upset. I guess that is a good thing."

Point is, if you were 7-4, the hunt would have been over.

He also tried to imply this year's defense was better than last year's defense.

Finally, I hope he's not over-hyping the red-shirt recruits, because he's laying a lot on them.

1987alum · Post by **1987alum** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 9:25 pm

orangeandbrown wrote:He also tried to imply this year's defense was better than last year's defense.

Finally, I hope he's not over-hyping the red-shirt recruits, because he's laying a lot on them.

Interesting, I read it that the statistics didn't mean all that much. Reading between the lines, it's easy to see that our PS2-like offense in 2004 made our defense look a lot better than it was, causing teams to have to throw a lot because we'd get up by a lot real quick.

He was also very blunt about our lack of defensive depth. I do agree that he's laying a lot on the redshirts. I hope they are up to it.

MACMAN · Post by **MACMAN** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 9:44 pm

Frankly the akron loss is due entirely to the MAC and the retarded rule that penalizes the team that goes for a td inside the 10 on the 4 down, and gives the other team the ball on the 20.
Should that game have been played like D1 football, with out the candy ass rule we may have stuffed them with the D excicted about the chance of a safety. But instead they head out not to 1st and 10 from the 1 but 1st and 10 from the 20.
hell in that case we should have punted, twice.

orangeandbrown · Post by **orangeandbrown** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 9:55 pm

MACMAN wrote:Frankly the akron loss is due entirely to the MAC and the retarded rule that penalizes the team that goes for a td inside the 10 on the 4 down, and gives the other team the ball on the 20.
Should that game have been played like D1 football, with out the candy ass rule we may have stuffed them with the D excicted about the chance of a safety. But instead they head out not to 1st and 10 from the 1 but 1st and 10 from the 20.
hell in that case we should have punted, twice.

Are you referring to the play where we went for it on fourth down, Pope ran into the middle, there was a replay review, and Akron got it on the 20? Its not a rule. IT WAS A FUMBLE.

Here's the line from the play by play in the official BG stats.

B 4-G A01 Pope, P.J. rush to the AKRON1, fumble forced by McNEAL, Parris, fumble by Pope, P.J. recovered by AKRON GRANT, Kevin at AKRON0, touchback.

If you are recalling another play, then I apologize. But there is no rule that I am aware of where the ball goes to the 20 on a 4th down inside the 10.

Brandon year end press conference

Brandon year end press conference

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