The CheckerBoard

Yes, totally agree - ESPECIALLY with the way we were running the ball, even with our 3rd & 4th string rb's out there.

I think our offense had 3 possessions in the first half and I am not sure how you blame the OC for calling a pass when WR were wide open underneath and before yesterday we hadn't been good running in short yardage situations all year.

My two major complaints were these:

#1 Situational awareness on this team is abysmal. On defense it's somewhat understandable because the defense as a whole is abysmal, but the offense is at least functional which makes the headscratchers ever more perplexing. On third and 1 last night, after our defense had been on the field most of the first half, Bray checks off to a deep pass. Then on third and four in a similar situation where the defense is winded he checks off to the deep ball Hunter alligator armed. In addition, we ran a ton of third and X's where our gameplan seemed to be to throw it X-3 yards and let the guy make someone miss like he's Wes Welker. None of these worked. Finally, Bray is terrible at adjusting protections on blitzes and the fact that as a junior his idea of moving within the pocket is STILL to back up and throw off his back foot instead of stepping up into the pocket is ridiculous. All night long MSU burned us by hitting the hot read out of a vacated blitzer's area yet we consistently fail to do the same thing. It's as obvious as it is disappointing.

#2 The final drive. We were down ten with under nine minutes to play, and instead of hurrying up we played it straight, ran the ball, and ate half of the time left on our final TD drive. This would be somewhat defensible if our defense was a good one. But with the way it had played all year depending on them to get almost an immediate three and out was a terrible decision. If we hadn't ran the ball and instead had scored by throwing we would have had two more minutes left and they would have been forced to kick the field goal and give us the ball back at the end. We really failed to maximize our potential to win the game, which in the end is what football coaching is all about.