Thru 4 Games

'06 Football General43

We are not finished talking about the BC game yet. We’ve got a variety of additional comments that I hope to post today.

Until then, our fellow Wolfpack bretheren on the internet have added some related things to what we are going to say.

RAWFS tackles a couple of game & coaching related items that didn’t get past us, either. (Link) To be honest, with the clock and game management “strategy” that our staff employed on Saturday night I am shocked that we were still in a position to win at the end.

Section Six talks about the statistics of the Wolfpack’s football season that continue to tell a pretty ugly story. (Link)

'06 Football General

43 Responses to Thru 4 Games

  1. BoKnowsNCS71 09/27/2006 at 8:13 AM #

    Second guessing is a great MM QB game — one can always say it would of — could have — been better. Which I think is penny ante on RAWFS.

    Why the review? — I suspect whichever asst. coach was up in the stands watching the play thought the guy was out of bounds and we should get the ball on the 20 versus the one. He radios Chuck and says “we need to appeal that play.” Chuck complies. Is this Chuck’s error for trusting his eye in the sky? From Chuck’s position on the field he has to rely on others.

    Another scenario — maybe Chuck decided that he could get just as much of a time out (or more) to talk to his players (which he was doing throughout the re-review). If he had won the review challenge he would have had a free timeout. If he lost, he still needed to take the TO to regoup the offense.

    It bothers me that — rather than enjoy the win — others wnat to conastantly nitpick the game. As if Weiss, Bowden(s), Paterno didn’t (or don’t) make any mistakes in their games. But if Chuck does – it’s a freakin’ cardinal sin.

    Sorry for the rant but there’s a lot more than what we just see that goes on. For me — it’s a W and we’re on our way to another W at FSU (ugly or perfect).

  2. Mr O 09/27/2006 at 8:33 AM #

    The criticism over not using timeouts before half-time is ridiculous. BC was punting from their own 39 yard line. There punter had already blasted a 56 yarder, plus we were getting the ball to start the 2nd half. We weren’t going to start the drive with good field position and I seriously doubt the 3rd down play ended with over a minute left on the clock anyways. The ball was downed on our 1 yard line with four seconds left. Let’s say the play took 10 seconds then add the 25 second clock, that would put the game clock at about 45 seconds when 3rd down ended.

    B 1-10 B23 BOSTON COLLEGE drive start at 03:16 (2nd).
    B 1-10 B23 Whitworth, L rush for 7 yards to the BC30 (Heath, G.).
    B 2-3 B30 Ryan, M pass complete to Robinson, B for 10 yards to the BC40, 1ST DOWN
    BC (Jones, E.).
    B 1-10 B40 PENALTY BC false start (Marten, J) 5 yards to the BC35.
    B 1-15 B35 Ryan, M pass complete to Koziol, T for 11 yards to the BC46.
    B 2-4 B46 Ryan, M sacked for loss of 6 yards to the BC40 (Brown, M.), PENALTY BC
    intentional grounding (Ryan, M) 5 yards to the BC35.
    B 3-15 B35 3rd and 15.
    B 3-15 B35 Whitworth, L rush for 9 yards to the BC44 (Sutton, J.;Pressley, D.).
    B 4-6 B44 PENALTY BC illegal formation 5 yards to the BC39.
    B 4-11 B39 Ayers, J punt 60 yards to the NCS1, downed.

  3. Wolfpack4ever 09/27/2006 at 8:51 AM #

    BoKnowsNCS71, You piss me off. I was all set to rant about the nose, uh sorry nit-pickin’ second-guessers you so adequately fileted, when I open this to comment and find you beat me to it.

    But that’s not going to stop me from getting in my 2 cents worth. That the ball was “not even close” is total BS. What re-runs were they watching? Probably going by where the Ref spotted the ball — which is another illustration of gross football ignorance. The ball is always spotted the furtherest up field where either it is touched or lands — with the exception of incidents where the ball crosses the goal line adn then it is a TB.

    This is not an argument against the possibility of an intentional attempt to gain more time in the timeout by using the review.

    For days on end RAWFS, this blog and who knows who else has bemoaned the fact that that the Wolfpack is or has been woeful on offense, yet suddenly the arm-chair QBs want Chuck to risk going into the locker room with a bigger deficeit and a shift in momentum. Has the LUNATIC FRINGE forgotten the Akron game and just how quickly a shit-bird team (or so I have read) like Akron can score? If Akron can do it, surely the number one offensive team in the ACC might have a chance.

    The notion that the players might see reckless risk management as somehow being a vote of non-confidence is only the kind of thinking the LUNATIC FRINGE would engage in. Some of those players have been playing football since they were 6 or 7 years old and know the game almost as well as the LUNATIC FRINGE out in blog-land knows it. I expect that a severe loss of confidence in the coaching staff’s ability to think straight would occur long before self-indulging pity at perceived lack of confidence happens.

    How do some of us like being insulted and called names here? I expect Chuck and his staff are pissed off about it too. Like the nurse said to me when I complained about her sticking the endoscope up my ass to check for pollups, “You guys can dish it but you you can’t tale it.”

  4. brentwood 09/27/2006 at 9:49 AM #

    The only clock management that bothered me was the end of the first half. We were about to get the ball back with decent field position with about 1:04 on the game clock for the half. We had two timeouts left. We should have called one and tried to do something!!

  5. Cardiff Giant 09/27/2006 at 10:03 AM #

    “How do some of us like being insulted and called names here?”

    I think it makes you look like an asshole, actually. Since you ask.

  6. Trout 09/27/2006 at 10:05 AM #

    The biggest coaching decision I questioned was kicking the extra point after the game winning TD. After the TD, to put us up by 1, the ONLY way BC was going to win that game was to:

    1)Block the PAT and return it for 2 points
    2)Run back the kickoff for a TD

    We let scenario #1 actually have a chance to occur because we kicked a PAT that did NOTHING to help us.

    Can you imagine this blog had the PAT been blocked and BCD taken it to the house for 2 points and the win?

  7. Wolf-n-Atl 09/27/2006 at 10:22 AM #

    My biggest issue with Amato was on BC’s first drive. We have them 4th and 3 and attempt a block. Although we may have been close to blocking this punt it is too risky as evident by the penalty. We had stopped BC on their opening drive and had an opportunity for a decent return. Why risk losing our momentum?

    I would have understood the call if we had them pinned in their territory, but not at that position in the field.

  8. noah 09/27/2006 at 10:23 AM #

    In the 12 years that the rule about XPs being returnable has been in place, I’ve seen it happen a grand total of one time against us (1994 against UVa on a two-point conversion).

    I can only remember one blocked XP even getting a good return (dough justice and his 11 minute effort just to get to midfield in 2003).

    It doesn’t seem to really be as big of a deal as people are making it out to be. I’m sure that in the final seconds of a game like that, there’s so much stuff going on that it’s easy to overlook something.

    I have also heard people complaining that we kicked the kickoff in bounds. I’ve seen waaay more last second hail-marys (even from 65 yards away) than I have blocked XPs being run back for touchdowns.

  9. Wolf-n-Atl 09/27/2006 at 10:23 AM #

    One other thing, within 5 yards of the 1st down – even a running into the kicker would have continued their drive.

  10. jncope 09/27/2006 at 10:27 AM #

    Anyone with eyes can see that our coaching staff is incompetent with the possible exception of recruiting. I am excited about the win against BC. It showed a lot of heart on the part of our team and it was impressive. However, one win against a top 25 team does not mean that our coaching staff has all the sudden turned the corner. Also, I don’t think it is useful to question a fans loyalty just because they want what they think is best for the team and the university (e.g. a coaching change).

  11. partialqualifier 09/27/2006 at 10:35 AM #

    I will officially lose my StateFansNation posting virginity to respond. I was livid at the dumb-ass ESPN commentators before the half who were apparently appalled that Chuck didn’t call a timeout. Now it appears that some of my wolfpack brothers agreed with them. There was no way that the awful offense of the first half was going to come close to mounting a scoring drive. Now….most concede this point but follow it up with a bunch of “what ifs”…like “maybe we coulda blocked a punt….or run the punt back…or a bad snap…etc.” Did those people not see what happened on the first drive of the game? Did we not pick up a 15 yarder for roughing the punter? My how the wolves would have howled if Chuck had used a TO, and then we all watched as the punter was roughed & Matt Ryan drove the Eagles down for a TD that would have done us in! These same critics would be ripping Chuck “another one” for calling a TO!!

    Now, I dont mind fair criticism of coaches….Lord knows I take my fair shots. But we have to get out of the habit of criticizing every little move the coach makes. After watching the first 29 minutes of the first half, I was ecstatic that as poorly as we played we were only one Andre Brown big play away from pulling off the upset. If Phillp Rivers had been at QB….or Manny, Mario, etc had been on defense….I guarantee Chuck would have used a TO. But that is simply not the case. We have a shaky “D”…a practically unrecruited QB making his first ever start….and a special teams with a propensity for roughing kickers. Under those circumstances I think Chuck did exactly the right thing. Oh…yea…and by the way…I almost forgot after reading the RAWFS…we won the game!

  12. Trout 09/27/2006 at 10:39 AM #

    noah: but why even give them the chance? What did that extra one point give us? Was that 1 point worth the risk? I mean, just last week, FSU took an XP to the house for 2 points against Clemson.

  13. class of 74 09/27/2006 at 10:43 AM #

    Chuck had several gaffs but what’s new. The end result he won and should receive credit for doing so. The biggest gaff to me was kicking the extra point at the end of the game. I would have taken a knee to prevent the once in a lifetime possibility of a blocked kick return but again all’s well that ends well.

  14. drhammondo 09/27/2006 at 10:44 AM #

    Noah: The week before the BC game, an extra point was blocked in the Clemson-FSU game and returned for a safety. And BC had already proven that they can block kicks this season in the 2nd overtime of the Clemson game (an extra point, no less)–now I know that CTC and his staff had to see that they were capable, because coaches WATCH FILM!

    The point of the argument is that we had NOTHING to gain by kicking the extra point, and we had the game to lose, if something had gone wrong!

  15. drhammondo 09/27/2006 at 10:47 AM #

    Good point, Trout. Sorry for the repeat (I was reading and typing while you were)!

  16. Wolf-n-Atl 09/27/2006 at 10:49 AM #

    So, what’s the option? Go for 2 and have that intercepted/fumbled and returned for 2pts?

    Maybe Chuck told Deraney – I don’t care if you miss, just get the ball up quickly.

  17. Mr O 09/27/2006 at 10:52 AM #

    My guess is that having the XP blocked was totally overlooked. Definitely a mistake from the staff and it wouldn’t surprise me if Amato would admit it. He was probably caught up in the excitement just like the rest of us.

  18. Trout 09/27/2006 at 10:55 AM #

    The option is to take a knee. (Otherwise known as the Victory Formation)

  19. Wolf-n-Atl 09/27/2006 at 11:00 AM #

    “The option is to take a knee. (Otherwise known as the Victory Formation)”

    Unless you pull a Razorback (UT championship year).

    http://www.pub.umich.edu/daily/1998/dec/12-04-98/sports/sports4.html
    “Tennessee appeared beaten by Arkansas before an inexplicable fumble handed the Vols a 28-24 victory.”

  20. Trout 09/27/2006 at 11:06 AM #

    Arkansas wasnt in the Victory Formation when that happened. They werent “taking a knee.”

    I’ll let Amato slide with the “caught up in the excitement” arguement, but IMO, that is very poor game management on his part. Part of his job is to manage risk, and kicking the XP increased the risk dramatically over taking the knee in terms of preserving the win.

  21. BoKnowsNCS71 09/27/2006 at 11:15 AM #

    What if… what if…… Take that farther since everyone is “what iffin” What if the Akron TD was called right and not scored? What if Toney Baker had socred a TD on his run after Andre in the BC game or if Andre ahd made a TD on that long run? We can what if all day.

    Come on guys. The game was what it was — a WIN.

  22. BoKnowsNCS71 09/27/2006 at 11:19 AM #

    And as an afterthought. It was an emotional game. “what if” taking the knee put an inkling of doubt or lost confidence (versus folowing routine) into the players and they let BC score with 8.5 seconds to go?

    Even if the prudent thing to do was not done — it did not matter. And for that matter — so does much of this criticism.

  23. CaptainCraptacular 09/27/2006 at 11:34 AM #

    The discussion on Chuck’s game management skills (or lack thereof) got me wanting to categorize.

    Amato’s strengths from my point of view:
    -Recruiting (except for OL)
    -General defensive player development
    -Fund raising
    -Linebackers/Defensive Line coaching
    -Don’t quit attitude his teams inherit
    -off-field discipline
    -assistant recruiting
    -game preperation/motivation for BIG opponents

    Weaknesses (which perhaps are fatal flaws):
    -game management
    -on-field discipline
    -assistant retention
    -game preparation/motivation for weaker opponents
    -media relations

    I’d be perfectly happy with this list in a coaching hire if it was known beforehand, if only the weaknesses were a slight irritant on progress. In Chucks case though, they are a massive boat anchor stuck in the deep water mud.

  24. Mr O 09/27/2006 at 11:40 AM #

    We should have taken a knee. No doubt about it.

    The other stuff is arguable. Overall, Amato coaches a relatively conservative brand of football. Always has…even when Philip Rivers was here. The only time he strayed away from it was the first six games of last year. But I would still argue that was Amato staying out of the offense and giving his brand new OC from the NFL to run the offense as he saw fit. Trestman blew the first six games and IMO it was more than likely Amato who stepped in assist Trestman in making the changes that turned the season around. Never got any insider to confirm that, but that is how I felt that last year’s changes came about.

  25. Mr O 09/27/2006 at 11:43 AM #

    Craptacular: I would disagree with the game management being categorized as a weakness. Which circumstances would you point to that show this is a weakness for Amato?

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