The onside kick

[CanesFan23]

I think a decision like this is based on the strengths of your team and how many timeouts you have.

In our case special teams and offense have been atrocious, defense is our strongest unit, and we had 3 timeouts. Kick the ball deep and let the defense make something happen.

 

[L A M P]

I didn't make it that far.

 

[LPK2006]

The onside kick was a good call. It was just bad execution.

 

[hcanes100]

The onside kick was a good call. It was just bad execution.

Agree. The only thing that would have made it a bad call is knowing all year our ST and specifically kicking sucked so **** bad, that making that call knowing that, would in fact make it a bad call.
The call itself with a good kicker wouldn't be a bad idea there.

 

[QuattroCane]

Funny thing is if we recover the kick score a TD and go on to win, everyone is praising Richt for his gutsy calls the last two games and the narrative is totally different.

 

[MikeCane18]

I think a decision like this is based on the strengths of your team and how many timeouts you have.

In our case special teams and offense have been atrocious, defense is our strongest unit, and we had 3 timeouts. Kick the ball deep and let the defense make something happen.

Absolutely should have either kicked it out of the end zone or squibbed it down and covered taking away their fair catch option hoping to pin them inside the 25. The D get the ball back and we get set up for a punt return that may have been more effective than our offense the entire night. It was not an intelligent call and that is not hindsight, that is understanding our STs and how that game was going.

 

[OrangeBowlMagic]

Funny thing is if we recover the kick score a TD and go on to win, everyone is praising Richt for his gutsy calls the last two games and the narrative is totally different.

Not even that. Just kick a normal onside kick, even if they recover, and go 3 and out from the 40, get the ball back and win and nobody says a word about the onside kick.

The onside kick was about the 400th most important contributing factor to the loss. It was 100000% the correct call. But it was executed poorly. And it STILL didn't lose Miami the game even though they ran it back to the 27 yard line. If Tito doesn't get the dumbass penalty, UVA is kicking a 37 yard FG with 2:49 left and at worst, you're down 6 with the ball and 2:30 on the clock. At best, the kid misses it and all you need is a FG to tie.

Right call, poor execution, still had a good chance to tie or win the game even with the poor execution. The decision to kick onside is a total non-issue.

 

[moshated305]

We had 3 timeouts and a stout defense. They weren't going to throw the ball with that QB so all we had to do was stack the box and make them punt. Also, kicking it deep gets us better field position even if the ball went into the end zone. You have to weigh every possible outcome. You have to think what if we don't get the onside. At best at that point they get the ball at the 50, punt and pin us deep. How is that a better option over getting the ball at our own 30-40 yard line if we kicked it deep? Then add in the fact that we had the worst case scenario, they recovered and returned the onside which we should have learned from GT last year but obviously we didn't. It was a blvery short sighted decision and wasn't thought through at all.

 

[Canesfan1899]

You kick the ball out of the endzone and let your defense do what it had done all game, get a stop and get the ball back.

 

[moshated305]

USF was in the exact same situation the other night against Tulsa. They were down 2 with 2 minutes left and 2 timeouts. Strong decided to kick it deep, his defense forced a 3 and out and they got the ball at midfield with 40 seconds left. Got in FG range and won the game. Never thought I'd see the day Richt was a bigger corch than Strong.

 

[Tee3000]

I've seen a lot of talk on Twitter about the onside kick. Hindsight is 20/20 but a lot of people were calling for it since it would only be a net 15 yard difference from a touchback with the personal foul.

My thinking was to pooch kick it to like the 10. is there a reason why that wouldn't work? Kick it high, let the team fly down hill and pin them back.

I'm honestly asking because I swear I was watching a game earlier in the day Saturday and someone waved for a fair catch in the endzone then ran up and caught the ball at like the 2 yard line and it was taken out to the 25 like a touchback.

Listen..Mark Rictd'onofrio essentially said I don't trust the #1 defense in the country and I will instead onside kick it so I can immediately put the ball in the hands of the most inaccurate QB in the entire NCAA.

That's what he said while taking a sip of the water from the fountain of youth prepared by the hydration specialist and looking at 5 year old pictures of Johnny Rictd'onofrio.

 

[OrangeBowlMagic]

USF was in the exact same situation the other night against Tulsa. They were down 2 with 2 minutes left and 2 timeouts. Strong decided to kick it deep, his defense forced a 3 and out and they got the ball at midfield with 40 seconds left. Got in FG range and won the game. Never thought I'd see the day Richt was a bigger corch than Strong.

Jesus Christ, no they weren't for the 7000th time. USF did not have a penalty that moved the ball to the 50. Miami did.

If Miami did not have the 15 yard penalty, Richt would not have kicked onside. He only did because he was gifted 15 yards, and figured at worst UVA gets the ball at their own 40, which is only a 15 yard difference if you kick through the endzone and they get it at the 25. Those 15 yards are worth the risk of possibly getting the ball back without having to play defense.

I know facts don't matter on this board, but my god. Some of you are just brainless sheep.

 

[moshated305]

Jesus Christ, no they weren't for the 7000th time. USF did not have a penalty that moved the ball to the 50. Miami did.

If Miami did not have the 15 yard penalty, Richt would not have kicked onside. He only did because he was gifted 15 yards, and figured at worst UVA gets the ball at their own 40, which is only a 15 yard difference if you kick through the endzone and they get it at the 25. Those 15 yards are worth the risk of possibly getting the ball back without having to play defense.

I know facts don't matter on this board, but my god. Some of you are just brainless sheep.

It was short sighted, period. Have we had a successful on side kick since Richt has been here? Have we even seen Baxa kick one? Are our special teams reliable? Those are the things that should have also been discussed but it wasn't. It was oh we got 15 extra yards let's do an onside kick. Dumb and short sighted.

 

[OrangeBowlMagic]

It was short sighted, period. Have we had a successful on side kick since Richt has been here? Have we even seen Baxa kick one? Are our special teams reliable? Those are the things that should have also been discussed but it wasn't. It was oh we got 15 extra yards let's do an onside kick. Dumb and short sighted.

Totally the right call and worth the risk for 15 yards of field position. The only other thing I'd have thought about doing is possibly squibbing the ball down the middle of the field and hoping to get some funky bounces and either get a recovery or pin them inside the 25. I'm just happy he didnt drill the ball through the back of the endzone like almost all coaches always do and not take advantage of a penalty.

But you guys can play armchair QB all you want. If he squibs it, and it bounces out of bounds, you guys would be crying that Baxa has never done that either. Guess what? He's a true freshman and it's game 7. He hasn't had the opportunity to do anything other than kick deep. But again, it literally didn't matter. Miami still got the 3 and out stop they needed in about 20 seconds. But you had an undisciplined moron get smacked with a dumbass penalty. Take advantage of the 15 yard penalty they gifted you. The rate for onside kick success is about 20%. That's easily worth a 15 yard risk.

Again, from the 35, it's the wrong call. From the 50, it's the right call. Just didn't work out. Blame the guy for the 75 other things he did that blew the game...the onsides call was not one of those things.

 

[moshated305]

Totally the right call and worth the risk for 15 yards of field position. The only other thing I'd have thought about doing is possibly squibbing the ball down the middle of the field and hoping to get some funky bounces and either get a recovery or pin them inside the 25. I'm just happy he didnt drill the ball through the back of the endzone like almost all coaches always do and not take advantage of a penalty.

But you guys can play armchair QB all you want. If he squibs it, and it bounces out of bounds, you guys would be crying that Baxa has never done that either. Guess what? He's a true freshman and it's game 7. He hasn't had the opportunity to do anything other than kick deep. But again, it literally didn't matter. Miami still got the 3 and out stop they needed in about 20 seconds. But you had an undisciplined moron get smacked with a dumbass penalty. Take advantage of the 15 yard penalty they gifted you. The rate for onside kick success is about 20%. That's easily worth a 15 yard risk.

Again, from the 35, it's the wrong call. From the 50, it's the right call. Just didn't work out. Blame the guy for the 75 other things he did that blew the game...the onsides call was not one of those things.

You're right, it's not what lost us the game. There is no way of knowing if we score if we got the ball back anyway with our offense. My issue is Richt just seems to make the wrong decision 90-95% of the time. The onside kick to me was the wrong decision. Like you said there were 75 other things that cost of this game all of them pointing back to his offense.

 

[paksat]

it was the right call after thinking about it

you have a chance to get the ball BACK or a 15 yard penalty

kick that **** all day and twice on sunday

it's the special teams fault it turned out as terrible as it did

fkin richt

 

[OrangeBowlMagic]

You're right, it's not what lost us the game. There is no way of knowing if we score if we got the ball back anyway with our offense. My issue is Richt just seems to make the wrong decision 90-95% of the time. The onside kick to me was the wrong decision. Like you said there were 75 other things that cost of this game all of them pointing back to his offense.

If that's your opinion, I respect that. And you're right, it's not like this was some 48-45 game where I'd have any confidence in the offense to score even if we did kick deep. I just feel the roll of the dice was worth it, and truthfully IMO if the ball is just kicked like it's normally kicked 99% of the time and UVA just covers it at their own 40 yard line, I don't think anyone would give it a 2nd thought.

People are just complaining because the kick was executed poorly and they ran it back for 30+ yards. First and 10 at their 25 vs 1st and 10 at their 40 is really not a big difference when you consider you're trying to execute a play that, 20% of the time, results in you getting the ball back without having to spend any timeouts.....PLUS you have 2:45 and are already in their territory and almost FG range. No 15 yard penalty, kick deep 100 times out of 100. With the gifted 15 yards, onside it. If you come up with the kick, you're literally 40 yards away from a game winning TD and 20ish yards away from a game tying FG and you have all 3 TOs with 2:45 left.

 

[terdferguson]

I love how even our ST onside kickoff unit is a disaster both sides of the ball. FIU walked towards the ball and recovered theirs, meanwhile we basically handed the ball off to UVA.

Every unit of our special teams sucks. I've never seen anything like it.

 

[canes23]

Agree with this, especially in a game where your offense struggles so much, every yard counts

+1

 

[KrazyCane]

Lol at anyone complaining at that call. There was a lot wrong with the game, that call wasn’t one of them.

Our Special Team's is the worst in the history of D1 cfb and I'm not exaggerating... so any idea's to do something cute w/ that unit is automatically a bad call.