Posts: 4,635
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Joined: Dec 1969
Hank91 - That was a nice try, but it actually was WORSE than that.
On the up by 8 kickoff the returner literally took a dive at the 18 so that he would not get touched. Likely a touch too conservative but not a crazy idea. I guess he got his late game coaching in HS because that smart conservative philosophy was clearly not shared by members of the offense. The one bad thing about his quick dive to the turf was it stopped the clock in a way that suggested a 4th down play MIGHT be needed. If he ran around for a few seconds, maybe even Leach would have realized the team only needed 3 slow victory formation snaps.
After Holliday's fumble was overturned, the play clock was set to run with 2:01 left in the game. A decent Jr. High coach would have realized that the clock was going to run and would have told the team to wait until 2-5 seconds were on the play clock, especially after the 1st down nightmare. But noooooo Wazzu couldn't wait, so even though the clock started at 25, they literally snapped the ball with 21 seconds to spare. Just crazy. They deserved to get another fumble. Additionally even though Holliday was stripped by #56, the Cougs decided to run a play right at the very same defender. This time the FB had the ball I believe, but he felt the need to get an extra yard rather than stay with the ball. Ugh!
Technically, Wazzu was hurt by the whole first fumble overturn because the clock stopped with the initial ruling. So instead of getting the clock to go down to 0 seconds with 3 plays (2nd at 1:25, 3rd at 0:42, likely not requiring any play for 4th) the replay essentially gave Colorado State 15 extra seconds since the play clock was set to 25 seconds after the stoppage. Still, even with that time bonus the proper set of plays seemed clear. Run pretty slow to develop running plays at 1:36 & 0:51 and then call a time-out with 6-9 seconds left in the game. At that point a nice bouncing line drive punt that the entire team can surround and watch bounce would have ended the game. It was definitely possible for the QB to take 3 snaps and stall for a few seconds with each play before taking a knee. The fumbles, overturns and last second FG should never have happened.
Good news - Since Leach won't be taking that UT opening or any other high profile job, WSU can save some money on his contract renegotiation.