Just pointing out a little hypocrisy (this comment does not necessarily portray my opinion):
Everyone jumps on AG for getting conservative with leads. Everyone hammered him after FSU. Against Nebraska we picked up a big early lead and decided to keep our foot on the pedal. Our offense looked the same, even deep into the 3rd/early 4th. If we convert one of those five redzone trips into a TD, Kaaya doesn't throw an INT in the endzone, or we don't get a long TD play called back, then the game would have ended way before those late game shenanigans.
On the other hand, if we dial back the tempo and get our running game moving at some point in the 4th, then those late game shenanigans wouldn't have have happened. Rumph has a point in the sense that AG can do nothing right at this point. Can you blame us, though? I can appreciate the decision to stay aggressive, but at a certain point we needed to dial things back a little bit and trust our run game. One or two first downs on the ground would have sealed that game.
...on to the next one.
I think the most appropriate complaint is that Al Golden has not shown the ability to change gears effectively. He doesn't seem to know how to keep his foot on the gas or when to wind the clock. For instance, in the Nebraska game, lots of people have mentioned how we still kept throwing the ball, etc. Many have pointed to that as the evidence for how he remained "aggressive."
Hardly anyone has talked about how he was still allowing his offense to snap the ball with 15-20 seconds on the clock. You can keep your play calling aggressive and wind the clock the down at the exact same time. NFL teams do it all the time. Up tempo teams like Green Bay and New England blend various speeds as needed based on scenario(s).
Exactly!
I think you're spot on with that analysis. Its almost like removing variables in a science project.
Oversimplified: If an uptempo passing attack is what got us that lead, then why not keep doing it? Very early in the game we were faced with a new issue, a new goal--burning the clock and sealing a victory. Yes, points win games, but we know that a lot more goes into sealing a victory. Since we were faced with this new dilemma--whether we keep doing what what got us the lead versus trying to seal the victory--why not remove one variable at a time?
Like you said, we could have remained aggressive but while using a slower tempo. Changing tempo is only one variable to a team's offensive attack. It's really easy to control and it helps us achieve the second prong of our dilemma, sealing the victory.
AG seems like the kind of person who needs to take a step back before making decisions. It's almost like he needs to plan for as my scenarios as possible and hope that his preparation has touched upon those things. He doesn't seem very creative.
