I have a few thoughts after letting the initial disappointment wear off and re-watching a few things. First off, I'm not trying to be that guy making any excuses or blaming this or that because what I saw out there Saturday was not good football for the home team and there is PLENTY that needs fixing. With that said, there were a handful of key moments that really had an effect on the outcome of the game, and a lot (again) had to do with officiating.
The first was on VT's 2nd TD drive where Walton was called for a facemask/illegal hands to the face and the 15 yarder was tacked on to the completion. I looked at every replay I could find and I don't see anything. The ONLY thing I could see called there would be OPI because the receiver sort of stiff arm/shoved Walton when he was cutting back outside and made him fall. They were driving and that happened on a completion for a first down, so it may not have mattered much but it did get them to the 13 instead of the 28 where we may could've held them to a FG attempt.
The McGowan OPI that I understand, it's a legit call and he shouldn't have gotten his hands up but it just sucks to see everybody else do the same crap week in and week out and never gets called for it yet we do. That erased a huge gain to inside the 10 and had to punt on that drive.
On the first drive of the 3rd qtr, the absolute worst IMO, was the holding call on McGowan when Gibbs scored. Him and the corner are handfighting the whole way down the sideline. McGowan doesn't get outside the chest area and doesn't pull/turn the defender at all. The defender even had a hold of McGowan's facemask but that wasn't called. I don't know how a ref was looking at them and was able to discern that there was a hold but didn't see the defender with a hold of McGowan's facemask. Two plays later we get the ball down to the 15 on a pass complete to Coco, and Johnson is called for a hold. Really bad call IMO, he took the DE that tried to cut inside and just used his leverage to keep forcing him inside while Jeff was rolling out. Great block to me but the Umpire threw the flag from way back behind the LBs.
The last really bad call was when VT had it 3rd and 16 late in the 3rd and we got pressure on the QB, made him scamper for a few yards but had the 3rd down stop and a facemask was called on Kennard. The record says it was called on Domineck but watching the replay it was called on #31. Again I don't see either of those guys anywhere near a facemask.
Like I said I'm not blaming the loss on these calls but they were all huge. We've got to get better and not allow these things to affect the game. Bad calls are going to happen, and it's one thing when you play well and they cost you, there's not much you can do about it. When you play terrible and they effect the game, it really sucks because all we had to do was have a pulse on defense to overcome them. Whether folks see it or not we did improve in the 2nd half. We only allowed 2 FG's after halftime and one of those was after we fumbled on our own 5 yard line. But we've got to be able to put a stop together when we need it. We finally get a TD and some momentum then let VT drag out a 7 minute drive to add the last FG. I also still can't understand how we're turning guys loose wide open. Sure we gave up a big number of offensive yards to VT but 130 of those yards were busted coverage guys running wide open.
The first was on VT's 2nd TD drive where Walton was called for a facemask/illegal hands to the face and the 15 yarder was tacked on to the completion. I looked at every replay I could find and I don't see anything. The ONLY thing I could see called there would be OPI because the receiver sort of stiff arm/shoved Walton when he was cutting back outside and made him fall. They were driving and that happened on a completion for a first down, so it may not have mattered much but it did get them to the 13 instead of the 28 where we may could've held them to a FG attempt.
The McGowan OPI that I understand, it's a legit call and he shouldn't have gotten his hands up but it just sucks to see everybody else do the same crap week in and week out and never gets called for it yet we do. That erased a huge gain to inside the 10 and had to punt on that drive.
On the first drive of the 3rd qtr, the absolute worst IMO, was the holding call on McGowan when Gibbs scored. Him and the corner are handfighting the whole way down the sideline. McGowan doesn't get outside the chest area and doesn't pull/turn the defender at all. The defender even had a hold of McGowan's facemask but that wasn't called. I don't know how a ref was looking at them and was able to discern that there was a hold but didn't see the defender with a hold of McGowan's facemask. Two plays later we get the ball down to the 15 on a pass complete to Coco, and Johnson is called for a hold. Really bad call IMO, he took the DE that tried to cut inside and just used his leverage to keep forcing him inside while Jeff was rolling out. Great block to me but the Umpire threw the flag from way back behind the LBs.
The last really bad call was when VT had it 3rd and 16 late in the 3rd and we got pressure on the QB, made him scamper for a few yards but had the 3rd down stop and a facemask was called on Kennard. The record says it was called on Domineck but watching the replay it was called on #31. Again I don't see either of those guys anywhere near a facemask.
Like I said I'm not blaming the loss on these calls but they were all huge. We've got to get better and not allow these things to affect the game. Bad calls are going to happen, and it's one thing when you play well and they cost you, there's not much you can do about it. When you play terrible and they effect the game, it really sucks because all we had to do was have a pulse on defense to overcome them. Whether folks see it or not we did improve in the 2nd half. We only allowed 2 FG's after halftime and one of those was after we fumbled on our own 5 yard line. But we've got to be able to put a stop together when we need it. We finally get a TD and some momentum then let VT drag out a 7 minute drive to add the last FG. I also still can't understand how we're turning guys loose wide open. Sure we gave up a big number of offensive yards to VT but 130 of those yards were busted coverage guys running wide open.
