[QUOTE=maddawg;1302886][QUOTE=Bigdog13;1302885]Nope. I was wrong. I was thinking they scored a TD after that special teams gaffe. That's my bad. But I am still counting the OT. If the scoreboard counts it, so do I.Originally Posted by maddawg
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[QUOTE=maddawg;1302886][QUOTE=Bigdog13;1302885]Nope. I was wrong. I was thinking they scored a TD after that special teams gaffe. That's my bad. But I am still counting the OT. If the scoreboard counts it, so do I.
If I'd have told you before the game that our D would hold them to 41 you'd have felt good about our chances. Our D held them o 38.
The reason I want to keep the discusson to regulation is that I thougth we should have scored a TD on our last drive. Play calling and CC's slip down before he got out of bounds really hurt on that drive. We had plenty of time remaining up until that.
Our coaches, on offense and defense, seem to enter games with only a vague game plan, or consistently poor plans. This lack of plans, or poor plans, result in consistently slow starts which often create difficult deficits to overcome. Then during the game we seem to experiment with various possibilities until we hit on something that works. We then mount a furious comeback that either wins the game or falls just short.
These coaches appear almost hapless regarding game planning and are extremely slow at recognizing and adapting to game conditions. I believe that to be the core of the coaching problem.
But that's the problem with our board and maybe our fanbase. Our defense is SO bad and our offense is SO good that we LOWER our standards for what a defense should be and we RAISE our standards to what a good offense looks like. To ridiculous levels on both sides.
To your point: YES. If you would have told me before the game that we would hold them to the low 40's or high 30's I would have thought we would have won. But that is because we are conditioned to think high 30's/low 40's is good defense. It's not. Again an offense should not have to score 50 points to win a game every week. That's asking too much. It caught up with us tonight.
It shouldn't matter. BUT do any of you think that if we had our bye week that we would have won this game???
Besides the fact that the Aggies played like thugs and the refs didn't care, I think it's on both the O and D in different ways.
The O lost rhythm for most of the game. That was bad, and it cost us the game. However, we were in that bad spot to begin with because they scored almost every time they touched the ball. If the D does its job, the pressure's off the O.
All I'm asking folks to consider is what you've suggested. It was an equal opportunity loss. Certainly not on the defense alone tonight.
Also, the bye week might have helped, but tonight we were as healthy as we've been all year.
Agreed.
And I'm not saying the lack of a BYE week mattered. I'm wondering out loud if it would have mattered. I'm not seeing the same energy I saw earlier in the year. That's why I really felt like if we could squeak out these last couple of wins we would be ok going into the bowl.
But who knows. Last year this guy I follow on Twitter had a few games timed. He timed only the amount of time in a game that the players actually played. No huddles, no moving the sticks, no referee conversations and no timeouts, etc... Just the time between the whistles. The three games were between 14-16 minutes of actual playing time. Isn't that crazy??? Makes me wonder if the BYE week is more for mental fatigue and injuries than actual physical rest.
Let me get the negative stuff out of the way first, in no particular order...
1. The WAC Officials: I know our economy hasn't completely recovered yet, but I hope every WAC referee and official will never be employed in college football again. The Conference USA officials have to be more competent than the WAC officials we've seen the last few years...right?
2. The Defense (first 3 quarters): Our offense is the reason you can never, ever count this Louisiana Tech football team out of a ball game. Our defense is the reason why you may count Louisiana Tech out.
3. Cameron's 2 INTs: The law of averages finally caught up with Colby Cameron tonight. College quarterbacks who throw 440 straight passes are supposed to have a few INTs here and there. Colby's happened to occur at the worst possible time when our team was in or near the red zone twice.
4. The final play of the game: I've spent about 2-3 hours trying to process the last play of the game by Louisiana Tech. I still don't know what the heck the coaches were thinking. I realize others here will bring up other plays during the game there were as puzzling. My question is: why would a team run the ball up the middle against the #5 rushing offense in the country on 4th and 3 in overtime knowing you will lose the game if you don't convert? You don't do it.
Now for the positive stuff...
1. Matt Nelson: He was uber-clutch tonight. Whatever was wrong with him the past few weeks seems to be gone. He was money when it counted with 5 seconds to go in the game.
2. The crowd: 25,614 in attendance. The crowd was into the game, and they knew when to be loud and cheering with almost no prompting from the disembodied voice. Some fans left after Utah State's last TD in the 3rd and after Colby's 2nd INT late in the game, but many of the fans stayed until the very end. The excitement and fan experience is light years ahead of where it was in the dying days of the Bickenll Era.
3. Dixon and Patton: Patton went into beast mode in the second half. Dixon was really good as usual.
4. Defense (4th quarter): Did LA Tech and Utah State switch defensive coordinators after the 3rd quarter ended? I don't know what happened in the fourth quarter, but the defense shined in the fourth quarter. They seem to be like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, either really bad or really great with no in-between.
5. D.J. Banks: He fumbled a kickoff return earlier in the game, but he redeemed himself when he returned a 98-yard kickoff return for a touchdown late in the third quarter.
The reality is Louisiana Tech is a 9-2 team right now. Hopes of a second WAC Title are all but finished and the BCS Bowl hopes ended tonight. Tech can still have its first 10-win season in the program's span in the FBS ranks, and they can go to a better bowl than the Independence Bowl (no offense to those who like the I-Bowl).
i think we are over analyzing this. look at the box score, everything is perfectly even...except -3 in the turnovers. and especially the way we had turnovers, the kickoff fumble leads to three points for them and two are interceptions in the end zone when would have had short field goal attempts. you cannot beat a good team doing that and utah state is a very good team. end of story.
I wouldn't have. We knew going in that this would be pretty much the best D we've faced all season.
After reading this entire thread.....I have only one comment: This was absolutely the WORST officiated football game I have ever seen in my 64 year lifetime!!!!
8-10 secs for the ref that bobbled the football and then couldn't move his fat butt fast enough to get the ball set.
It was pretty bad, that no-call pass interference against Patton at the end of the first half was terrible.
It was indeed bad. The only game that might be worse was the game that literally took them 25 minutes to review a call.
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