Edit - Fair warning: came home from work and had too much time on my hands. Length got crazy. If you don't want to kill time but get the general idea, read points 2, 3 & 7 + 9-11 and you'll get the idea. If you are bored at work, feel free to peruse the rest of it.
For the superstitious among you, this one might be completely on me. I was listening to the game on the radio driving from Amarillo to Boise City, OK. We got there, turned on the TV, and I sat down to watch it right after we scored our last TD. So, going back to the thread last week about what we’d give for Tech to win the National Title…the football gods might require my eyes. Not sure if I’m able to go that far yet, but I’ll keep you guys in the loop.
Been a weird couple of weekends for my game watching habits. Last week I had my wife’s 10 year high school reunion, but was able to catch the game in BWW and a stream on my phone. This week had my grandma’s 90th birthday party in the middle of nowhere, OK, so heard more than I actually saw. Also took me out of my writing rhythm. And since I wasn’t actually able to watch a ton, I won’t offer much thought in the way of individual performances. But for whoever hasn’t burned their Tech shirts, I thought I’d offer some overall thoughts and (maybe) put out some optimism.
1.This is the first time I’ve been mad about a Tech game in a long time.
At this point of my life, I don’t get emotionally invested in wins and loses really. Excited when we win, disappointed when we don’t, but not emotionally up or down. Maybe I’ve got a healthy balance with other priorities. Or maybe I’m just too beaten down and have become numb. But that’s where I normally am. Also not saying its wrong to be more emotional (unless you personally attach 18-21 year olds playing a game…then you’ve lost sight of some stuff…), but just where I am.
I was frustrated for a few hours after this one. It took a few hours of being around family, none of which are Tech fans, hanging out with my grandma that survived a World War and a few other bumps along to road, and playing with our 6 month old foster son for a while before I came back to normal. I mean, that is an absolute gut wrenching way to lose a game. Tech fans are going to be pissed about it. For me, it was that I think this game was the key to a pretty special season (8/9 wins) and was there to be had. Without it, I think we go 7-5. Win against WVU on the road, and I think this team is absolutely legit. Fail to do it, especially when it was teed up for you, and I think we could have the potential to upset someone along the way, but are more likely to just chalk up wins against ISU, Baylor, and KSU and call it a year.
Anyway, enough with that, on to some other thoughts
The part where I try to talk you off the cliff
2) How you lose changes everything
Earlier this year, I watched UCLA take on Texas A&M with a house full of Aggies. I live in College Station, sometimes these things are unavoidable. Before you write me off, I did wear a blue and yellow shirt, a color combination I only have the 1 thing in, without thinking a thing about it. They gave me a lot of crap. Happy to report living here for 3 years has not affected my subconscious desire to root against A&M every week.
Anyway, the first half they were having a blast. The second half was…less fun for them. It was interesting to talk to Aggies that week, since they were all SO mad about the game. However, if you had asked them before kickoff if they would have taken a 1 point loss against the “it” QB of the year at his home field, most would have thought it a decent showing by their team. It wasn’t the loss, it was how they lost that had them up in arms.
Our game against WVU had a lot of similarities to that. Before the game, if Marty McFly had told you Tech would lose by 11, you probably wouldn’t have been that upset. Disappointed, sure, but going on the road trying to win for the 3rd time (which we haven’t done since 2008) against a solid WVU team…it wouldn’t be a bad showing. But the way it happened changed everything emotionally.
So, just to try to maybe take a bit of the sting off it…the loss isn’t a bad one. How it happened, sure, but we will get to that.
3) This looks like a pretty good WVU team
I haven’t read much post game stuff since I’ve been traveling. I read some of Dickens’ thoughts and the thread that followed, and a lot of people seem to think WVU isn’t very good. That’s absolutely false. They won 10 games last year.
But what about this year? They were only 3-2 coming into our game, that’s a pretty poor record.
Except its not. Their 3 wins were blowouts against bad teams, it doesn’t tell you anything. But those two loses? One was a neutral site, the other an away game. Both were 7 point loses. Those two teams are a combined 11-1, with the one loss being VT to Clemson. Yes, suddenly Clemson isn’t as shiny, but through the first half of the season they looked to be on an unavoidable collision course with Bama again. So this WVU has blown out teams worse than them and been tied in the 4th quarter with teams that seem very good. We went into their place and should have walked away with an easy win. Maybe its not time to burn the place down quite yet.
4) A crazy theory: I think momentum is overrated.
People make a big deal about momentum in sports. I’m not sure its really a thing. Let me take a page of the @W. McKay playbook and put out a little theory.
First, it is absolutely better to have a lead than be behind. That’s just math: if you have less time to score more point than the other team, you are in a worse spot. Clearly. But people act like momentum is this very powerful force to overcome, but what if its just statistics?
There have been several studies on “hot” shooters in basketball, and they’ve shown that getting hot is really just a statistical illusion. If you shoot 45% over 82 games, there will be stretches of games where you shoot way higher than that. It isn’t that you’re feeling it or seeing the hoop better, its just that with 100s of shots, at times a lot of them will go in close together. Basically a version of the gambler’s fallacy. My crazy theory: what if momentum is basically that?
Hear me out: let’s say 1,000 computer simulations of TTU vs WVU on October 14, 2017 had WVU scoring an average of 46 points on our defense. They have a great offense, we have an improved but not great defense, say the computers say 46 sounds about right. In some of those, WVU will score evenly over 4 quarters, In others they score early. And in a few most of their points come really late. We just happened to get that last terrible version in the real world
A few more words on this as relates to individual performers: if you are a WR that catches 70% of the balls thrown your way for your career, and you had 2 games where you caught 90%, then a third game where you caught 30%, fans would say you had a terrible game. But really you were just being your average self across 3 games. In the same way, WVU missed a lot of plays they normally make in the first half to allow us to jump on them and get a big lead. We also probably did better than expected, outside the kicking game. Second half, we miss those plays and WVU hits them. Its not that they suddenly completely got hot and we got cold (though I think adjustments did play a big role), but maybe a big part of it was them playing their average game over 4 quarters and us playing our average game over 4 quarters, it just looked really funny in getting there.
Anyway, I could be taking crazy pills on this one. But I do think there’s something here in sports. And so I, perhaps, naively, chose to look at this game as a game we could and should have won but didn’t, against a team that has designs on the Big 12 title game on the road. I’m not seeing it as the deathblow to our season or to Kingsbury’s career. I’ll let the season play out on that.
5) TCU SUCKS
Both of our loses come against teams that see themselves as Big 12 title contenders the week after TCU handed them a loss. That means instead of just another game, both of these games have become do or die for our opponent. If they lose, their season goal is out the window. So we got their best shot. In both cases it was enough. When do we get to catch someone sleeping?
6) If none of that is good enough, here’s some schadenfreude
Here’s a few of teams that had a more embarrassing loss than we did this week:
Clemson, Washington State, Washington (more on that in a bit)
The other stuff
7) A full team loss
Dickens said it well when he talked about it being vintage 2016. That’s exactly the flow of this game. The defense if keeping us in it, but there comes a point when the offense fails to execute, and someone on D presses to Hot Knife V Butter Protocol button, and then its off to the races for WVU. That moment in this one was 3 plays, 0 yards by the offense after an interception by the D. After that, the offense was inept and the D downy soft. They missed tackles and assignments that they had been making all year. Offense could have done a little more for us to win. Defense could have done a little more. Neither did. Neither bares all the blame, but both bare a share of it.
8) Kicking
If there was one area that shoulders more than the other, its the kicking game. We have been saying for weeks that kicking would cost us a game this year, and…well…That missed FG to end the first half was absolutely huge. Make two of the three and I think we win the game. But 3 great offensive possessions that end the same as a turnover? That’s hard to come back from against a good team.
Look. I would hazard a guess that nearly half of the teams in college football don’t feel great about their kickers. We are hardly the only ones. Washington, mentioned earlier, likely at least goes into OT if they had a kicker worth anything. Their performance was actually WORSE, seeing as he missed two 20-29 yard kicks. That’s hard to do. And Tech doesn’t even have their first string guy. How many teams would feel confident in their second string kicker? I’d guess only a handful.
But you absolutely need more than we are getting. You don’t have to be Adam Vinatieri at this level. I think this would work: under 30 yards: 90%+, 30-40: 75%, 40-50: ~50%, 50+: pretty uncommon to even try, but maybe 1 out of 3.
So how’s our guy? 66% under 30 yards, 50% 30-40, and 33% in 40-50. That needs improvement. And after 0-fer in a game like that, he’s absolutely in his head. Our kicking game needs to be on ice for a few weeks. Listen, I don’t think Barden is done for the year. College guys miss kicks from those distances throughout a season. Missing them all in one game could just be one bad game in a decent year (if he goes on a hot streak). Or it could be the story of the year. give him a few weeks to straighten it out. Let’s only kick FGs in a few circumstances: Under 30 yards, straight on. Call this the “Extended Extra Point” option. Barden is 19/19 on XPs. Or on 4th and 15+. Call this the “We probably won’t make it anyway” play. Chance at 4th and 15 is next to 0, Barden is at least hitting 50%, so why not? Finally, the time’s running out down by 2 scenario. Call it the “Hail Mary Kick.” Hail Mary’s almost never work, so go for the boot. But outside of the EXP, WPWMIA, and HMK, let’s take a week or two off.
9) Shimonek & the offense
I think I know what Sinomenk is. He isn’t the guy who will put the team on his shoulders and will a win. Mahomes could be that guy. Pissed off Graham Harrell could. I don’t think Nic is. But he is the guy who will give you a chance to win. He doesn’t make mistakes and he finds open guys well enough that we have been in two games against very good opponents. I’m OK with that, but we have to get more help from elsewhere. And in this one we didn't do that. Your best WR drops a TD, leads to a missed FG.
That said, he has a really bad habit of leaving the pocket and rolling out. Problem with that is two-fold. First, you eliminate 50% of the field to throw to. Second, if the DE or DT hasn’t been run past the QB (which, when he is doing it, they often haven’t), they can just disengage the OL and chase after you. So instead of trusting your pocket, you create a foot race between yourself and the DL. When your opponent has dropped 8 in coverage, this is a losing proposition.
Listen, last I saw WVU’s DC is the highest paid DC in the Big 12 (one excluded on basis of nepotism) for a reason. He is good at what he does. I think he figured out Nic’s tick, and he took advantage of it all second half. Question will be if Nic & Kliff can address it. I’m hopeful.
Elsewhere on the offense, I wish we ran it more in this one. WVU had surrendered nearly 400 yards to KANSAS. The drive we scored in the second? 4 runs, 1 pass. The missed FG? 4 runs, 3 passes (1 completion). The other drives? 14 passes, 5 runs. And 1 of those runs was on a give up play (3rd & 21), another on a passing down (3rd & 8, actually worked great), and 2 on the last drive of the game. WVU is bad against the run, we had been having success. They were trying to take away the pass. Don’t overthink it, just pound the 3 man front. They’d stop it some, but we’d try once and then pass-pass-punt. In that second half we should have done everything but triple optioned it once WVU decided to rush 3 and drop 8 on a regular basis.
All that said, hats off. WVU’s DC has Kliff’s number. They did a great job in the 3rd & 4th quarters.
10)Pass defense
I think the luster has worn off our shiny new toys in the secondary. We have a long way to go back there. They are in position to make a play much more than in previous years. But at some point, you have to make the play. Doug Coleman being out hurt. Willie Sykes went out at one point, not sure if he made it back in. But Jaylon Lane had a rough day and Morgan gave up his share. Both our safeties made tackles to prevent huge plays, but 20 or 30 yard chunks hurt. Against OU and Baylor, this could be an issue.
11) Did a big lead hurt us?
Here’s my second crazy theory of the day. Going up 18 hurt our defense in a way. Why?
Our rush defense played great. Big 12’s leading rusher looked boring. 14 carries, 47 yards. But almost half of that was on 1 run (19 yards). Take out the sacks and they had a decent rushing day, but we held them in check. A rush for WVU was not a play that hurt us. But they were picking apart our pass defense.
From the time we went up 18 until they took the lead? 20 pass plays against 7 runs. They went all pass, with just enough running to keep us honest (my tally includes QB runs as called passes, as well as interference calls). Had the game been close, would they have attempted more runs and maybe our defense would have gotten a last stop or two to change the outcome/
12) Is that a timeout in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?
The game was basically over on WVU’s final possession. Still, it was really weird to see us not at least try to have a chance. Use our TOs, and they punt with something like 50 seconds left. Maybe they get a punt blocked? Maybe Batson returns one? I know it was a next to 0 chance, but why don’t you at least see what happens? WVU’s comeback was not that much more likely.
13) Biggest game of the year on deck
We absolutely must win next week, or else things really might head south in a hurry. Be 5-2 heading into OU, and for me all is forgiven. Yes, I’m easier to please than most on this board, but that’s what I would have hoped for preseason and its still well within reach. Even with our epic collapse, this team is better than I expected it to be. But ISU is better as well. We need to win at home. Do that, and I think you’re almost certain of at least going 2-3 over the final 5 weeks. Who knows, maybe we knock off a UT or TCU along the way. But you’ve gotta beat the Cyclones, especially after last year. I think they pull it off.
For the superstitious among you, this one might be completely on me. I was listening to the game on the radio driving from Amarillo to Boise City, OK. We got there, turned on the TV, and I sat down to watch it right after we scored our last TD. So, going back to the thread last week about what we’d give for Tech to win the National Title…the football gods might require my eyes. Not sure if I’m able to go that far yet, but I’ll keep you guys in the loop.
Been a weird couple of weekends for my game watching habits. Last week I had my wife’s 10 year high school reunion, but was able to catch the game in BWW and a stream on my phone. This week had my grandma’s 90th birthday party in the middle of nowhere, OK, so heard more than I actually saw. Also took me out of my writing rhythm. And since I wasn’t actually able to watch a ton, I won’t offer much thought in the way of individual performances. But for whoever hasn’t burned their Tech shirts, I thought I’d offer some overall thoughts and (maybe) put out some optimism.
1.This is the first time I’ve been mad about a Tech game in a long time.
At this point of my life, I don’t get emotionally invested in wins and loses really. Excited when we win, disappointed when we don’t, but not emotionally up or down. Maybe I’ve got a healthy balance with other priorities. Or maybe I’m just too beaten down and have become numb. But that’s where I normally am. Also not saying its wrong to be more emotional (unless you personally attach 18-21 year olds playing a game…then you’ve lost sight of some stuff…), but just where I am.
I was frustrated for a few hours after this one. It took a few hours of being around family, none of which are Tech fans, hanging out with my grandma that survived a World War and a few other bumps along to road, and playing with our 6 month old foster son for a while before I came back to normal. I mean, that is an absolute gut wrenching way to lose a game. Tech fans are going to be pissed about it. For me, it was that I think this game was the key to a pretty special season (8/9 wins) and was there to be had. Without it, I think we go 7-5. Win against WVU on the road, and I think this team is absolutely legit. Fail to do it, especially when it was teed up for you, and I think we could have the potential to upset someone along the way, but are more likely to just chalk up wins against ISU, Baylor, and KSU and call it a year.
Anyway, enough with that, on to some other thoughts
The part where I try to talk you off the cliff
2) How you lose changes everything
Earlier this year, I watched UCLA take on Texas A&M with a house full of Aggies. I live in College Station, sometimes these things are unavoidable. Before you write me off, I did wear a blue and yellow shirt, a color combination I only have the 1 thing in, without thinking a thing about it. They gave me a lot of crap. Happy to report living here for 3 years has not affected my subconscious desire to root against A&M every week.
Anyway, the first half they were having a blast. The second half was…less fun for them. It was interesting to talk to Aggies that week, since they were all SO mad about the game. However, if you had asked them before kickoff if they would have taken a 1 point loss against the “it” QB of the year at his home field, most would have thought it a decent showing by their team. It wasn’t the loss, it was how they lost that had them up in arms.
Our game against WVU had a lot of similarities to that. Before the game, if Marty McFly had told you Tech would lose by 11, you probably wouldn’t have been that upset. Disappointed, sure, but going on the road trying to win for the 3rd time (which we haven’t done since 2008) against a solid WVU team…it wouldn’t be a bad showing. But the way it happened changed everything emotionally.
So, just to try to maybe take a bit of the sting off it…the loss isn’t a bad one. How it happened, sure, but we will get to that.
3) This looks like a pretty good WVU team
I haven’t read much post game stuff since I’ve been traveling. I read some of Dickens’ thoughts and the thread that followed, and a lot of people seem to think WVU isn’t very good. That’s absolutely false. They won 10 games last year.
But what about this year? They were only 3-2 coming into our game, that’s a pretty poor record.
Except its not. Their 3 wins were blowouts against bad teams, it doesn’t tell you anything. But those two loses? One was a neutral site, the other an away game. Both were 7 point loses. Those two teams are a combined 11-1, with the one loss being VT to Clemson. Yes, suddenly Clemson isn’t as shiny, but through the first half of the season they looked to be on an unavoidable collision course with Bama again. So this WVU has blown out teams worse than them and been tied in the 4th quarter with teams that seem very good. We went into their place and should have walked away with an easy win. Maybe its not time to burn the place down quite yet.
4) A crazy theory: I think momentum is overrated.
People make a big deal about momentum in sports. I’m not sure its really a thing. Let me take a page of the @W. McKay playbook and put out a little theory.
First, it is absolutely better to have a lead than be behind. That’s just math: if you have less time to score more point than the other team, you are in a worse spot. Clearly. But people act like momentum is this very powerful force to overcome, but what if its just statistics?
There have been several studies on “hot” shooters in basketball, and they’ve shown that getting hot is really just a statistical illusion. If you shoot 45% over 82 games, there will be stretches of games where you shoot way higher than that. It isn’t that you’re feeling it or seeing the hoop better, its just that with 100s of shots, at times a lot of them will go in close together. Basically a version of the gambler’s fallacy. My crazy theory: what if momentum is basically that?
Hear me out: let’s say 1,000 computer simulations of TTU vs WVU on October 14, 2017 had WVU scoring an average of 46 points on our defense. They have a great offense, we have an improved but not great defense, say the computers say 46 sounds about right. In some of those, WVU will score evenly over 4 quarters, In others they score early. And in a few most of their points come really late. We just happened to get that last terrible version in the real world
A few more words on this as relates to individual performers: if you are a WR that catches 70% of the balls thrown your way for your career, and you had 2 games where you caught 90%, then a third game where you caught 30%, fans would say you had a terrible game. But really you were just being your average self across 3 games. In the same way, WVU missed a lot of plays they normally make in the first half to allow us to jump on them and get a big lead. We also probably did better than expected, outside the kicking game. Second half, we miss those plays and WVU hits them. Its not that they suddenly completely got hot and we got cold (though I think adjustments did play a big role), but maybe a big part of it was them playing their average game over 4 quarters and us playing our average game over 4 quarters, it just looked really funny in getting there.
Anyway, I could be taking crazy pills on this one. But I do think there’s something here in sports. And so I, perhaps, naively, chose to look at this game as a game we could and should have won but didn’t, against a team that has designs on the Big 12 title game on the road. I’m not seeing it as the deathblow to our season or to Kingsbury’s career. I’ll let the season play out on that.
5) TCU SUCKS
Both of our loses come against teams that see themselves as Big 12 title contenders the week after TCU handed them a loss. That means instead of just another game, both of these games have become do or die for our opponent. If they lose, their season goal is out the window. So we got their best shot. In both cases it was enough. When do we get to catch someone sleeping?
6) If none of that is good enough, here’s some schadenfreude
Here’s a few of teams that had a more embarrassing loss than we did this week:
Clemson, Washington State, Washington (more on that in a bit)
The other stuff
7) A full team loss
Dickens said it well when he talked about it being vintage 2016. That’s exactly the flow of this game. The defense if keeping us in it, but there comes a point when the offense fails to execute, and someone on D presses to Hot Knife V Butter Protocol button, and then its off to the races for WVU. That moment in this one was 3 plays, 0 yards by the offense after an interception by the D. After that, the offense was inept and the D downy soft. They missed tackles and assignments that they had been making all year. Offense could have done a little more for us to win. Defense could have done a little more. Neither did. Neither bares all the blame, but both bare a share of it.
8) Kicking
If there was one area that shoulders more than the other, its the kicking game. We have been saying for weeks that kicking would cost us a game this year, and…well…That missed FG to end the first half was absolutely huge. Make two of the three and I think we win the game. But 3 great offensive possessions that end the same as a turnover? That’s hard to come back from against a good team.
Look. I would hazard a guess that nearly half of the teams in college football don’t feel great about their kickers. We are hardly the only ones. Washington, mentioned earlier, likely at least goes into OT if they had a kicker worth anything. Their performance was actually WORSE, seeing as he missed two 20-29 yard kicks. That’s hard to do. And Tech doesn’t even have their first string guy. How many teams would feel confident in their second string kicker? I’d guess only a handful.
But you absolutely need more than we are getting. You don’t have to be Adam Vinatieri at this level. I think this would work: under 30 yards: 90%+, 30-40: 75%, 40-50: ~50%, 50+: pretty uncommon to even try, but maybe 1 out of 3.
So how’s our guy? 66% under 30 yards, 50% 30-40, and 33% in 40-50. That needs improvement. And after 0-fer in a game like that, he’s absolutely in his head. Our kicking game needs to be on ice for a few weeks. Listen, I don’t think Barden is done for the year. College guys miss kicks from those distances throughout a season. Missing them all in one game could just be one bad game in a decent year (if he goes on a hot streak). Or it could be the story of the year. give him a few weeks to straighten it out. Let’s only kick FGs in a few circumstances: Under 30 yards, straight on. Call this the “Extended Extra Point” option. Barden is 19/19 on XPs. Or on 4th and 15+. Call this the “We probably won’t make it anyway” play. Chance at 4th and 15 is next to 0, Barden is at least hitting 50%, so why not? Finally, the time’s running out down by 2 scenario. Call it the “Hail Mary Kick.” Hail Mary’s almost never work, so go for the boot. But outside of the EXP, WPWMIA, and HMK, let’s take a week or two off.
9) Shimonek & the offense
I think I know what Sinomenk is. He isn’t the guy who will put the team on his shoulders and will a win. Mahomes could be that guy. Pissed off Graham Harrell could. I don’t think Nic is. But he is the guy who will give you a chance to win. He doesn’t make mistakes and he finds open guys well enough that we have been in two games against very good opponents. I’m OK with that, but we have to get more help from elsewhere. And in this one we didn't do that. Your best WR drops a TD, leads to a missed FG.
That said, he has a really bad habit of leaving the pocket and rolling out. Problem with that is two-fold. First, you eliminate 50% of the field to throw to. Second, if the DE or DT hasn’t been run past the QB (which, when he is doing it, they often haven’t), they can just disengage the OL and chase after you. So instead of trusting your pocket, you create a foot race between yourself and the DL. When your opponent has dropped 8 in coverage, this is a losing proposition.
Listen, last I saw WVU’s DC is the highest paid DC in the Big 12 (one excluded on basis of nepotism) for a reason. He is good at what he does. I think he figured out Nic’s tick, and he took advantage of it all second half. Question will be if Nic & Kliff can address it. I’m hopeful.
Elsewhere on the offense, I wish we ran it more in this one. WVU had surrendered nearly 400 yards to KANSAS. The drive we scored in the second? 4 runs, 1 pass. The missed FG? 4 runs, 3 passes (1 completion). The other drives? 14 passes, 5 runs. And 1 of those runs was on a give up play (3rd & 21), another on a passing down (3rd & 8, actually worked great), and 2 on the last drive of the game. WVU is bad against the run, we had been having success. They were trying to take away the pass. Don’t overthink it, just pound the 3 man front. They’d stop it some, but we’d try once and then pass-pass-punt. In that second half we should have done everything but triple optioned it once WVU decided to rush 3 and drop 8 on a regular basis.
All that said, hats off. WVU’s DC has Kliff’s number. They did a great job in the 3rd & 4th quarters.
10)Pass defense
I think the luster has worn off our shiny new toys in the secondary. We have a long way to go back there. They are in position to make a play much more than in previous years. But at some point, you have to make the play. Doug Coleman being out hurt. Willie Sykes went out at one point, not sure if he made it back in. But Jaylon Lane had a rough day and Morgan gave up his share. Both our safeties made tackles to prevent huge plays, but 20 or 30 yard chunks hurt. Against OU and Baylor, this could be an issue.
11) Did a big lead hurt us?
Here’s my second crazy theory of the day. Going up 18 hurt our defense in a way. Why?
Our rush defense played great. Big 12’s leading rusher looked boring. 14 carries, 47 yards. But almost half of that was on 1 run (19 yards). Take out the sacks and they had a decent rushing day, but we held them in check. A rush for WVU was not a play that hurt us. But they were picking apart our pass defense.
From the time we went up 18 until they took the lead? 20 pass plays against 7 runs. They went all pass, with just enough running to keep us honest (my tally includes QB runs as called passes, as well as interference calls). Had the game been close, would they have attempted more runs and maybe our defense would have gotten a last stop or two to change the outcome/
12) Is that a timeout in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?
The game was basically over on WVU’s final possession. Still, it was really weird to see us not at least try to have a chance. Use our TOs, and they punt with something like 50 seconds left. Maybe they get a punt blocked? Maybe Batson returns one? I know it was a next to 0 chance, but why don’t you at least see what happens? WVU’s comeback was not that much more likely.
13) Biggest game of the year on deck
We absolutely must win next week, or else things really might head south in a hurry. Be 5-2 heading into OU, and for me all is forgiven. Yes, I’m easier to please than most on this board, but that’s what I would have hoped for preseason and its still well within reach. Even with our epic collapse, this team is better than I expected it to be. But ISU is better as well. We need to win at home. Do that, and I think you’re almost certain of at least going 2-3 over the final 5 weeks. Who knows, maybe we knock off a UT or TCU along the way. But you’ve gotta beat the Cyclones, especially after last year. I think they pull it off.
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