Posts: 399
Threads: 12
Joined: Sep 2012
Agree that Washington played well, and hung around long enough to pull the upset. Congrats to them for a great game. Wish it didn't have to happen on national TV. It felt very much like the San Jose State game to me, which could easily have gone the same way, except that our defense pulled through that time.Â
Also give some credit to the Washington clock operator. I finally had the displeasure of rewatching the game and on our final drive, after Hewitt scoops up the Nunes fumble and gave us a shot, the clock is wound to 25 seconds rather than the full 40. We don't get the next play off (just barely miss) and then it goes to 1st and 15. Of course, we eventually miss on a 4th and 4, and those penalized 5 yards loom mighty large for us. [I hate the fade play to Toilolo on 4th down by the way, I think our percentage of times that has worked for us this year has been something like 20%, maybe Shaw was re-living Pritchard to Bradford?]
I am being somewhat facetious about the clock operator, but even if the clock is wound fast, why have we picked up so many delay of game penalties? (The one against SC on the first play of the game is another that baffles me) This one in particular is a crucial one. We pretty much know this is going to be our last drive, we have 2 timeouts, take a timeout to regroup before we lose the yards. Or even to be able to argue to the officials that we should have been given a full clock. Ugh.Â
Similarly, why are we so disorganized on 4th down defense? We gave up a 65 yard run to UW that was crucial, and a 4th and 19 to SC, not to mention the multiple times Oregon did it to us last year or the 4th down play in the Fiesta Bowl to Blackmon (really, you're just going to let him run a slant?). It's like we are too busy congratulating ourselves for 3rd down stops, and then suddenly it's "Oh crap, they're really running another play? What do we do?" I would rather we took a timeout in some of these situations as well.