I memory-holed a whole lot from the GC5 era, but it would be hard to believe that there was a decision-making disasterclass worse than what we just saw. You can say UofL is a top 20 team to try and justify it but we were handed a golden ticket to win this game. The no-contact safety, the uncalled DPI + dropped ball on 3rd and 22, and more calls against UofL than I think we’ve seen from all of our other opponents combined this season.
There were some big screw-ups by the players, but most of those happened on defense. Santucci catches a lot of criticism in the gameday threads (a lot of it deserved imo) but his defense only allowed 17 of the 31 points. This game was lost by Key and Faulkner. Both of our losses this season had nothing to do with being outmatched on the field and everything to do with our players drowning on gameday in a pool of the decision-making ineptitude by the staff. We thought the decision to decline the holding call at the end of the Syracuse game was bad but there a number of decisions that dwarf that this game.
We ran the ball 37 times for 98 yards…roughly half those came from 2 carries. Remove those 2 carries and we’re left with 35 carries for 55 yds (FSU says hello). We clowned the shit out of FSU for that rushing performance but as we saw, they couldnt pass either. You can try to argue that O-line deserves the blame but they didnt have a whole lot of problems in pass pro from what i saw, and thats what makes this 10x more frustrating. King was 21/32 for 312 yards averaging 9.8 yards per attempt. Its not like we couldnt rely on the passing game, we made the decision not to.
I made the comment earlier in the game thread that we were lucky to score before halftime. 1st and goal on the 3 yard line and we end up scoring on 4th down because Jamal Haynes made a great play. I cant remember which game(s) it was, but i remember that happened earlier this season as well where we had 1st and goal and got bailed out on 4th down after essentially wasting the first 3 downs with stupid playcalling. So far we havent had to suffer the full consequences in those situations but you would be naive to assume that regression to the mean isnt coming. We make important situations much harder than they need to be and we got to see a lot of that today.
I dont have a problem with going for it on 4th down in most situations when theres logic behind it. I have a problem with the way we go about it. We were 4/15 on 3rd down and have only had 1 game this season where we converted more than 50% of our 3rd downs (FSU, 5/9). We were 3/8 against VMI…So don’t try to tell me that these are flukes. Tell me why our gameplan on critical 4th downs was the exact same as it was on every 3rd and short. I dont have the exact stats of how long our average 3rd down distance was, but I know we had a lot within 5 yards. Over and over we watched Buster try to fit a square peg into a round hole, and run the exact same BS for 2 yards at best. In the 2 most critical moments of the game, we did the same thing with absolutely ZERO evidence to begin to justify it. I dont know why hes so committed to it, but something has to change and change now.
Now lets talk about Keys performance. He’s a new head coach so obviously theres going to he a learning curve on the game management front, but today was inexcusable. I agreed with going for it before halftime and thought it was an obvious decision, but couldve been executed better. I agreed with his attempt to kick the first fg, but we know we know about Birrs struggles from the right hash so I’m not sure why Buster didnt consider that in the playcall on 3rd down. What I don’t understand is Key refusing to challenge any of the bad spots we got on numerous 3rd downs. But where the wheels really started to fall off for him was his decision to take the delay of game of 4th and a half yd on the 5 yard line, after going for it earlier on the same drive around the 20. Those 2 decisions on the same drive are connected by no logical thought process. You dont preach all that shit about trusting your guys on the field, then tuck your tail in a no-brainer situation to go for it. Not to mention not calling a timeout to challenge the spot on that same play. Later we all get the pleasure of watching him waste a timeout on 4th and long in an obvious kicking situation. It shouldnt take more than 5 seconds to realize that kicking the fg is the right move there. Yea they blocked it but kicking the fg is the right move, and for some reason unbeknownst to me, required burning a timeout. And to save the best for last, we get to watch him slowly bleed away our last (albeit small) chance at winning by not using the last timeout before the 2 minute warning. Had Shelley not roughed the punter, we wouldve lost about 45 seconds of clock while also wasting the 2 minute warning. This ones a real mind boggler. The 2 minute warning would’ve occurred during the already dead clock after the punt.
Key’s atrocious game management and Busters critical down playcalling was the most coach-sabotaging-team rendition I have ever seen. We have 2 strong running QBs, yet refuse to even consider a QB sneak or even lining up under center. We have a ton of support staff, yet Key won’t delegate his game management deficiencies (atrocities) to someone else. And if he has delegated them, whoever was in charge of today needs to fired effective immediately. I couldnt put together a more illogical, self-sabotaging game management performance if I tried.
Its been over an hour since the game ended and the more I’ve thought about how we lost, I’ve only become more angry. Call it an overreaction if you want, but I’ve stayed out of every game thread this season for the most part until today. These issues are glaring and we deserve some real answers now. I can accept being beat by the other team, I cant accept being beat by our own coaches. My fear is that some of the players share a similar perception of what lost them the game today, and I dont see that playing out well unless we start to see improvements immediately. Rant over.
There were some big screw-ups by the players, but most of those happened on defense. Santucci catches a lot of criticism in the gameday threads (a lot of it deserved imo) but his defense only allowed 17 of the 31 points. This game was lost by Key and Faulkner. Both of our losses this season had nothing to do with being outmatched on the field and everything to do with our players drowning on gameday in a pool of the decision-making ineptitude by the staff. We thought the decision to decline the holding call at the end of the Syracuse game was bad but there a number of decisions that dwarf that this game.
We ran the ball 37 times for 98 yards…roughly half those came from 2 carries. Remove those 2 carries and we’re left with 35 carries for 55 yds (FSU says hello). We clowned the shit out of FSU for that rushing performance but as we saw, they couldnt pass either. You can try to argue that O-line deserves the blame but they didnt have a whole lot of problems in pass pro from what i saw, and thats what makes this 10x more frustrating. King was 21/32 for 312 yards averaging 9.8 yards per attempt. Its not like we couldnt rely on the passing game, we made the decision not to.
I made the comment earlier in the game thread that we were lucky to score before halftime. 1st and goal on the 3 yard line and we end up scoring on 4th down because Jamal Haynes made a great play. I cant remember which game(s) it was, but i remember that happened earlier this season as well where we had 1st and goal and got bailed out on 4th down after essentially wasting the first 3 downs with stupid playcalling. So far we havent had to suffer the full consequences in those situations but you would be naive to assume that regression to the mean isnt coming. We make important situations much harder than they need to be and we got to see a lot of that today.
I dont have a problem with going for it on 4th down in most situations when theres logic behind it. I have a problem with the way we go about it. We were 4/15 on 3rd down and have only had 1 game this season where we converted more than 50% of our 3rd downs (FSU, 5/9). We were 3/8 against VMI…So don’t try to tell me that these are flukes. Tell me why our gameplan on critical 4th downs was the exact same as it was on every 3rd and short. I dont have the exact stats of how long our average 3rd down distance was, but I know we had a lot within 5 yards. Over and over we watched Buster try to fit a square peg into a round hole, and run the exact same BS for 2 yards at best. In the 2 most critical moments of the game, we did the same thing with absolutely ZERO evidence to begin to justify it. I dont know why hes so committed to it, but something has to change and change now.
Now lets talk about Keys performance. He’s a new head coach so obviously theres going to he a learning curve on the game management front, but today was inexcusable. I agreed with going for it before halftime and thought it was an obvious decision, but couldve been executed better. I agreed with his attempt to kick the first fg, but we know we know about Birrs struggles from the right hash so I’m not sure why Buster didnt consider that in the playcall on 3rd down. What I don’t understand is Key refusing to challenge any of the bad spots we got on numerous 3rd downs. But where the wheels really started to fall off for him was his decision to take the delay of game of 4th and a half yd on the 5 yard line, after going for it earlier on the same drive around the 20. Those 2 decisions on the same drive are connected by no logical thought process. You dont preach all that shit about trusting your guys on the field, then tuck your tail in a no-brainer situation to go for it. Not to mention not calling a timeout to challenge the spot on that same play. Later we all get the pleasure of watching him waste a timeout on 4th and long in an obvious kicking situation. It shouldnt take more than 5 seconds to realize that kicking the fg is the right move there. Yea they blocked it but kicking the fg is the right move, and for some reason unbeknownst to me, required burning a timeout. And to save the best for last, we get to watch him slowly bleed away our last (albeit small) chance at winning by not using the last timeout before the 2 minute warning. Had Shelley not roughed the punter, we wouldve lost about 45 seconds of clock while also wasting the 2 minute warning. This ones a real mind boggler. The 2 minute warning would’ve occurred during the already dead clock after the punt.
Key’s atrocious game management and Busters critical down playcalling was the most coach-sabotaging-team rendition I have ever seen. We have 2 strong running QBs, yet refuse to even consider a QB sneak or even lining up under center. We have a ton of support staff, yet Key won’t delegate his game management deficiencies (atrocities) to someone else. And if he has delegated them, whoever was in charge of today needs to fired effective immediately. I couldnt put together a more illogical, self-sabotaging game management performance if I tried.
Its been over an hour since the game ended and the more I’ve thought about how we lost, I’ve only become more angry. Call it an overreaction if you want, but I’ve stayed out of every game thread this season for the most part until today. These issues are glaring and we deserve some real answers now. I can accept being beat by the other team, I cant accept being beat by our own coaches. My fear is that some of the players share a similar perception of what lost them the game today, and I dont see that playing out well unless we start to see improvements immediately. Rant over.
