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If we miss ACCCG + CFP, it will come back to one decision (SMU game)

1mg of Epi said:
We are 128th in seconds between plays. We had 8 drives vs VT. Scoring on 6 of them.

The average # of drives per game is 14.

How many points could’ve been scored with an additional 6 drives?
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This is going to blow a lot of minds around here, but the correlation between seconds per play and points per game is .097. To save everyone from having to ask ChatGPT what this means, it means that there is virtually no correlation between pace of play and scoring.

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OrangeBowlMagic said:
Happens all the time. Yall can have the second-guessing on that one.

If he didn't call timeout, and they converted, the entire board would be saying he's a dumb **** and what kind of coach doesn't call timeout to ensure you have your defense set??!?! Oh my god, our strength is our pass rush, you stupid **** coach, call timeout to give your kids a breather and have them fresh for one final play.

WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

It didn't work out. There's no right or wrong way to play that.
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It was 4th and a mile.....and he waited until the ****** ball was snapped. Why call a timeout so their offense can draw up a play???? Terrrrribblle move by mario
 
FrancisSawyer said:
The decision I find utterly baffling was the ridiculous timeout on defense when SMU had 4th and 9 and our defense was swarming on that series. SMU had no timeouts and were struggling. So Mario goes and calls timeout just before the snap simultaneously bailing out SMU by stopping the clock and creating massive confusion for Marquis Lightfoot who was racing towards Jennings. That right there was one of the best examples of coaching buffoonery I've ever seen. That literally cost us the game. Still the refs should have picked up the flag but why put your team in that position in the first place?
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Zero feel for the flow of a game. See it time and again.
 
1mg of Epi said:
When you play at a snails pace and purposefully limit your possessions, you amplify the impact of every mistake… and there will always be mistakes.

That’s not putting players in perfect t position to do anything.
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The opposite can also be said. What if we play faster and they just drop the ball more. Catch the ball. All this talk is moot if they just make the plays that are there.

I thought it was big time players make plays….make plays…sht make routine plays.

Lofton dropped a pass wide open with two blockers in front of him last game…people came on the thread talking about condensed formations😂. Catch the dam ball!
 
OrangeBowlMagic said:
Valid point but the reason we only had 8 drives is because we gave up a season-high in rushing yards. We’ve played at the same pace all year and never had 8 drives. The other football team has influence in how the game is played as well. If you let them run for 200 yards, you’re not gonna have the ball much.
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They’ve had below average # drives all season.
 
FrancisSawyer said:
The decision I find utterly baffling was the ridiculous timeout on defense when SMU had 4th and 9 and our defense was swarming on that series. SMU had no timeouts and were struggling. So Mario goes and calls timeout just before the snap simultaneously bailing out SMU by stopping the clock and creating massive confusion for Marquis Lightfoot who was racing towards Jennings. That right there was one of the best examples of coaching buffoonery I've ever seen. That literally cost us the game. Still the refs should have picked up the flag but why put your team in that position in the first place?
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There have literally been thousands of time outs called right before a snap. How many times have you seen that happen? To put that on "coaching buffonery" is just hating Mario to hate Mario.
 
HurricaneAce07 said:
Losing to Louisville was almost inevitable when you go down 14-0 in the first quarter and your QB throws four interceptions, including one on the final drive. I'm not going to waste energy there.

But I just can't get past Mario's decision to kneel the ball to force overtime against SMU in Dallas.

1st and 10, 0:25 seconds left, one timeout at your 25 yard line. Beck was playing well, you were moving the ball in the air, and we have a kicker that can hit from 50+ yards. It just baffles me to this day that he made the call to go to overtime instead of playing to win in regulation.

Two completions + a long kick and we're sitting at 10-1, ACCCG all but locked up and CFP playoff birth waiting for us.

That loss stings almost as bad as the Syracuse loss last year. This is a top-10 team, and we're likely going to be playing in the Pop-Tart bowl again this year...
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The decision to continuously run the ball up the middle vs actually noticing the success we had when we got to the edge...

Dawsons decision to get creative with the playbook...after we had already lost two very meaningful games...

Mario not lighting offensive players asses up after multiple stupid penalties....

This does not boil down to one single decision, trust me.
 
OrangeBowlMagic said:
Valid point but the reason we only had 8 drives is because we gave up a season-high in rushing yards. We’ve played at the same pace all year and never had 8 drives. The other football team has influence in how the game is played as well. If you let them run for 200 yards, you’re not gonna have the ball much.
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With all due respect, this is exactly the point, just as it was last year when we got drawn into GaTech's slow pace.

Our pace cuts the number of possessions, and when BOTH TEAMS do it, then it's twice as bad.

Again, the fewer drives, the fewer possessions, the more that a ****** team can hang with us, via luck, via turnovers, via mistakes, via bad ref calls.

More importantly, the impact of those fluky events is magnified when we allow ourselves to become entangled in a game that is too close for comfort.

If this was Cam Ward analyzing everything down to the last detail, and then throwing a long pass or running for an explosive play, there would be an offset between the pausing at the line and the rapid movement of the ball. But I do not see any of these genius last moment adjustments. We often move the running back from one side to the other, and then we STILL run the same base play.

We pause...we wait...and then we run for 4 yards.

Ponderous...
 
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Elmer Leghorn said:
It was 4th and a mile.....and he waited until the ****** ball was snapped. Why call a timeout so their offense can draw up a play???? Terrrrribblle move by mario
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You’re playing the result not the process. 4th and 9 isn’t 4th and a mile. And what play did they draw up? They didn’t even have to run a play.

I’ll tell you this, if Lightfoot doesn’t run into Jennings, we actually get into the timeout, and when they snap it, they have absolutely nowhere to go with the ball and we stop the play and win, not a single person on this board would be saying “we won but wow what a dumbass move to call timeout and set your defense and give them a rest”. Not one singular person.

This is the definition of playing the result. I’m sure we could all find multiple examples of good coaches playing it like Mario did, and vice versa. There’s no “right” way to do this.
 
TaylorWalls said:
Feel free to point out where I am wrong.
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We have a top 10 defense. It was 4th and 9. Why would mario call a TO to give them time to draw up a play????? At the moment the ball was snapped at that. Imo, that cost us the game. We hold there and the game is over.
 
It was Crisis' Magnum Opus. We'll have 1-2 of these a year so long we employ the domesticated primate.
 
AtrainCane said:
Lofton dropping a touchdown and jojo turning a long completion into an interception.

But for some strange reason this board no matter what happens blames Mario. Even when the players are put in perfect positions to make plays. Catch the dam ball. No coaching staff in America, ours included is coaching kids that have been playing since they could walk to drop the ball.
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That Lofton hit still upsets me. Not only did the linebacker* stand over Lofton afterwards, thats ticky tacky, but why not review for a lunge and helmet lowered prior to the hit? Saw the exact same play in another game and they reviewed immediately.

Why are we reliving this awful game again?
 
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Elmer Leghorn said:
We have a top 10 defense. It was 4th and 9. Why would mario call a TO to give them time to draw up a play????? At the moment the ball was snapped at that. Imo, that cost us the game. We hold there and the game is over.
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It only cost the game because of a freak occurrence that hasn't happened in anyone else's entire football memory.
 
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TaylorWalls said:
This is going to blow a lot of minds around here, but the correlation between seconds per play and points per game is .097. To save everyone from having to ask ChatGPT what this means, it means that there is virtually no correlation between pace of play and scoring.

View attachment 343894
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Thanks I was curious about this but was too lazy to check. It didn't look like a murder's row of offenses at the top of seconds b/w play rankings over the years. I would be curious to learn whether there might be a scoring benefit from increasing our pace this year from glacial to average/below-average.
 
OrangeBowlMagic said:
You’re playing the result not the process. 4th and 9 isn’t 4th and a mile. And what play did they draw up? They didn’t even have to run a play.

I’ll tell you this, if Lightfoot doesn’t run into Jennings, we actually get into the timeout, and when they snap it, they have absolutely nowhere to go with the ball and we stop the play and win, not a single person on this board would be saying “we won but wow what a dumbass move to call timeout and set your defense and give them a rest”. Not one singular person.

This is the definition of playing the result. I’m sure we could all find multiple examples of good coaches playing it like Mario did, and vice versa. There’s no “right” way to do this.
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It. Was. A. Bad. Decision. By. Our. Coach. I can't be convinced otherwise. Also, he called it so late because he didn't know what to do and panicked
 
1mg of Epi said:
They’ve had below average # drives all season.
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OK but it hasn't been 8. I do wish we'd play a little faster but I don't think the reason we lost games is because we don't. As others have pointed out, and I do literally every week in my stats thread, Ohio State is literally dead last in pace. 136 out of 136. Don't they have an athletic advantage over everyone they play? Of course. But they're just fine playing the way they play.

And this isn't a coordinator thing, it's Ryan Day. When they had Chip Kelly last year, they were 119th in pace.

Again, pace does not equal success. Pace does not mean you lower your margin for error. Efficiency equals success. Points equal success.

FAU is #1 in the country in pace. They're 42nd in scoring. They're 4-7.

I would be fine with going faster, and having done it all year, we only have 1 game left we're not changing things now, if only because the offense was struggling in mid-season. Try something different, I'm good with that. But we were averaging about 5.5 yards per play for over a month. Running more plays at 5.5 per play doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be any more successful on offense. The real argument would've been last year. We averaged 7 yards every time we snapped it. We should've been dying to run as many plays as possible. When you're average, what does more mediocrity bring you?
 
Official stats seconds between plays run

97. Oregon
105. Georgia
106. Alabama
108. Texas a$m
111. Notre Dame
118. Byu
125. Indiana
126. Vanderbilt
128. Miami
And dead last is……..
136. Ohio State

How in the **** does running a lot of plays translate to winning. Look at this sht!
 
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