I feel this staff needs to incorporate some of these skills. Some of their decisions seem off to me. ( not a mope thread just something that interests me) I mentioned some of this in another thread but wanted some discussion here.
First was the kickoff from the 50. Why kick the ball out of the endzone? The right call is either to pop up the kick and pin them really deep or go onside. This was beyond dumb. A team that starts at the 25 scores approx 25% of the time. 15% are Tds and 10% are fgs. If u go onside( since u must kick 10yds, let's assume they get it at the 40) scoring goes up to about 35%. 20% Tds and 15% fgs. When you factor in that surprise onside kicks are recovered approximately 50% of the time and to me this was the right call. But even if u don't like that approach trying to pin them inside the 20 would have been a lot better.
Second, going for 2 up 12. Now I would be ok with going for 2 more Ala Oregon but since that isn't our approach I didn't agree with this call. There is no point in trying to gain points in that situation while winning. You can't play assuming the other team is going to score 2 Tds. By failing u open up duke scoring 2 times and getting a 2 pt conversion and being up 3 meaning a fg only ties. There was too much time left in the game to me to make that call there this could be nitpicking.
Not using a timeout before the half with nearly 2 minutes to go. Coaching scared is weak. I understand that duke wasn't moving the ball, so no point in making a mistake but duke is thinking the same thing. They would have played soft coverage protecting the big play. How many teams give up easy fgs before the half in that situation. You think chip Kelly,spurrier etc let the clock run out. You have an opportunity to score you try especially when duke gets second half kickoff.
Running Gus at the end of the game. By running him into the line was basically conceding and going for the punt. With 1:40 to go and duke with 1 timeout, just take 3 knees and then punt. Duke would have approximately 45seconds needing to score 2 times.
Just little things I noticed that will comeback to beat us against better teams
First was the kickoff from the 50. Why kick the ball out of the endzone? The right call is either to pop up the kick and pin them really deep or go onside. This was beyond dumb. A team that starts at the 25 scores approx 25% of the time. 15% are Tds and 10% are fgs. If u go onside( since u must kick 10yds, let's assume they get it at the 40) scoring goes up to about 35%. 20% Tds and 15% fgs. When you factor in that surprise onside kicks are recovered approximately 50% of the time and to me this was the right call. But even if u don't like that approach trying to pin them inside the 20 would have been a lot better.
Second, going for 2 up 12. Now I would be ok with going for 2 more Ala Oregon but since that isn't our approach I didn't agree with this call. There is no point in trying to gain points in that situation while winning. You can't play assuming the other team is going to score 2 Tds. By failing u open up duke scoring 2 times and getting a 2 pt conversion and being up 3 meaning a fg only ties. There was too much time left in the game to me to make that call there this could be nitpicking.
Not using a timeout before the half with nearly 2 minutes to go. Coaching scared is weak. I understand that duke wasn't moving the ball, so no point in making a mistake but duke is thinking the same thing. They would have played soft coverage protecting the big play. How many teams give up easy fgs before the half in that situation. You think chip Kelly,spurrier etc let the clock run out. You have an opportunity to score you try especially when duke gets second half kickoff.
Running Gus at the end of the game. By running him into the line was basically conceding and going for the punt. With 1:40 to go and duke with 1 timeout, just take 3 knees and then punt. Duke would have approximately 45seconds needing to score 2 times.
Just little things I noticed that will comeback to beat us against better teams
