We win that game. We win that game and everything else is mostly overlooked, everyone is happy, we're confident about the rest of the season, etc.
The long Version:
Every college football game has at least a handfull of plays that the coaches, players, referees, etc all wish they could take back. Sometimes even more. If you go back and watch every single game (sans Kansas) you can point to 5-ish plays that would have blown things wide open in our favor had they gone our way. You can also typically come up with 5-ish plays that could have made games closer or lost the game for us had they not gone in our favor. You think WVU wouldn't want to snuff out that fake punt? Take back some of their early PF calls that helped get them in that big hole? Etc.
Obviously 'ifs' don't count, but I think we can mostly agree that if we made those 3 field goals there's a 99% chance we win that game. How is everyone looking at Kliff's ability to close out a game, manage the clock, make the right call, etc if we beat WVU? People are always going to bitch. If you win 100-0 people are bitching about running up the score, if you win a close game people bitch because of this call or that play or whatever that should have put the game away sooner... but regardless of that, all of these folks who only show up on Saturday and Sunday after a loss wouldn't be here. All of the regulars would feel a lot better about how things went. We'd still have a significant amount of threads about penalties, discipline, DB's sucking, etc... but we'd feel good about the direction of the program.
I'm not calling for the celebration of a moral victory here. I'm pissed that we lost. I think the refs called a horrible game on both sides. I think Shim played terribly in the 4th quarter. I'm concerned that we seemed to give up at the very end and I'm especially concerned that we did not call timeouts. However, just for some perspective, consider that if our backup kicker made those 3 FG's we likely win that game and everything else is acceptable. Things aren't as awesome as they could be, but we've been saying that the kicking game would cost us a game or 2 in Big 12 play all season. We're still on pace for a bowl game and possibly 7-8 wins if we don't have a collapse after that game. People are saying we won't win more than 1 more game because we lost by 11 on the road to a team that was favored to win. If the sky actually falls then fine, throw a fit, but for now can we not just let it be 1 game?
We have an improved but still very beatable ISU at home for homecoming next week. A team we got pounded by last year and will be highly motivated for. I think we win it by a decent margin and get back on track. Kliff is angry, I'd imagine this team is angry, and if they play like they did against KU we're in good shape.
The long Version:
Every college football game has at least a handfull of plays that the coaches, players, referees, etc all wish they could take back. Sometimes even more. If you go back and watch every single game (sans Kansas) you can point to 5-ish plays that would have blown things wide open in our favor had they gone our way. You can also typically come up with 5-ish plays that could have made games closer or lost the game for us had they not gone in our favor. You think WVU wouldn't want to snuff out that fake punt? Take back some of their early PF calls that helped get them in that big hole? Etc.
Obviously 'ifs' don't count, but I think we can mostly agree that if we made those 3 field goals there's a 99% chance we win that game. How is everyone looking at Kliff's ability to close out a game, manage the clock, make the right call, etc if we beat WVU? People are always going to bitch. If you win 100-0 people are bitching about running up the score, if you win a close game people bitch because of this call or that play or whatever that should have put the game away sooner... but regardless of that, all of these folks who only show up on Saturday and Sunday after a loss wouldn't be here. All of the regulars would feel a lot better about how things went. We'd still have a significant amount of threads about penalties, discipline, DB's sucking, etc... but we'd feel good about the direction of the program.
I'm not calling for the celebration of a moral victory here. I'm pissed that we lost. I think the refs called a horrible game on both sides. I think Shim played terribly in the 4th quarter. I'm concerned that we seemed to give up at the very end and I'm especially concerned that we did not call timeouts. However, just for some perspective, consider that if our backup kicker made those 3 FG's we likely win that game and everything else is acceptable. Things aren't as awesome as they could be, but we've been saying that the kicking game would cost us a game or 2 in Big 12 play all season. We're still on pace for a bowl game and possibly 7-8 wins if we don't have a collapse after that game. People are saying we won't win more than 1 more game because we lost by 11 on the road to a team that was favored to win. If the sky actually falls then fine, throw a fit, but for now can we not just let it be 1 game?
We have an improved but still very beatable ISU at home for homecoming next week. A team we got pounded by last year and will be highly motivated for. I think we win it by a decent margin and get back on track. Kliff is angry, I'd imagine this team is angry, and if they play like they did against KU we're in good shape.
