Hey everyone, just wanted to let you all know OS now has an official Discord that you can join right now. We’ve kicked around Discords for individual games in the past, but it felt like the right time to make it more of an official thing.
Steve and I have wanted to get this going for a bit because we obviously still hear from y’all who are unhappy with some stuff on the forums, plus when there are forum outages we still want to have a place for everyone to hang. My overarching goal for the longer term is to have both Discord and the forums ultimately work together. There are some logistical issues with the vBulletin forums that don’t allow things to sync right with Discord so there will be a little maneuvering as we try to get mods and forum members any proper roles/tags they need on the Discord, but we can work through that stuff easily enough as people join.
Our general goal is to give people more options to interact with OS community members, whether that’s Discord, the forums, this newsletter, or improved apps. If people want to stick more to the forums, that’s cool. If people want to stick more to the Discord, that’s also cool. In my perfect world, we do a lot of BSing and day-to-day chatting on the Discord about games and sports, and then more of the “in-depth” discussions or hefty things like long slider breakdowns or analysis of gameplay end up on the forums so that can act as a sort of “best of” area for anything OS community related. That said, you all will ultimately shape how the ecosystem shakes out, I just want to give you spaces you like so you can have a good time with other folks in the community.
The same general rules will apply on the Discord as they do on the forums, and we’ve brought most of the forum categories to the Discord as well so there should not be too much confusion as you navigate around.
With the Operation Sports and Discord announcement now out there, it’s also worth mentioning our OS premium newsletter, which quietly launched a couple of weeks ago. Built off the Not Just Another Roster Update newsletter, it offers a mix of retrospectives, guides, interviews and deeper dives into the sports gaming world—covering both current and classic titles.
LARAMIE, Wyo. -- These two teams have been adding fresh new layers to the Paniolo Trophy rivalry series of late. Some scorching shootouts. Some late scores designed to humiliate the other. And now a cliffhanger in a conference championship game. This time it was Hawaii's time to shine, scoring on a poorly-defended screen pass touchdown for a 35-32 win as time expired.
So how did Coach Bohl's team arrive at this position? To be screen-passed into submission? Frankly, the Warriors seemed to want this game a little bit more and played a cleaner game. You can talk about Wyoming HB Kelvin Mack Jr. (JR) and him fumbling the ball on the goal line in the 1st quarter after a punishing hit by future NFL player/Hawai'i SS Tate Fuller (rSR). Left seven points off the board there. You can talk about the elite blocking by the Hawai'i O Line anchored by 81-OVR center Andrew Frederick (SR) from Compton, CA. Or talk about the efficiency of converting 66% of the time on 3rd down, not turning the ball over, and scoring five TDs in five red zone trips. You can talk about the screen passes and we already have. You can talk about QB Darrin Green (rJR) fumbling on the ensuing two drives after Mack's fumble, and despite the Pokes not losing those fumbles, it must've impacted the playcalling. And, by all means, please talk about yet another broken-tackle-a-thon; the Rainbow Warrior ground game was "officially" credited with six broken tackles despite losing their bell cow HB Henry Keyes (rSR) to a mild concussion early in the 1st quarter. Keyes was blown up on a read-option keeper which the Hawai'i QB smartly kept to make it a 7-0 early Hawai'i lead.
Wyoming perhaps made a strategic mistake in how this game was played. Darrin Green has been inching up in the Heisman race due to the team's ability to really light it up through the air as well as on the ground. However, seeing that Wyoming had ceded 165 points to the Rainbow Warriors over the previous three meetings (55 PPG), the Pokes sought to slow the tempo down a bit. It seemed to work to a point, Hawai'i only scored 35 this time. But, the problem with that was Wyoming scored just 32 as a result of the more methodical game plan. Sure, it was also due to the Hawai'i secondary shutting Wyoming down, but 175 passing yards on 24 attempts is quite low. And Green didn't even have a bad game: 17/24 (70%) 175 yards two TD one INT, 16 carries for 131 yards (8.1 YPC) and two rushing TDs. But, maybe he could've done more. This year's team, without a workhorse back like school legend Weldon Adler who graduated last year, has needed everything he's been able to provide.
MIAMI, Fla. -- Coming into this game Coach Bohl wasn't sure how things would go. Rematching against a Clemson team that the Pokes barely beat 30-28 last season. Clemson being angry at getting "jumped" by Florida in the BCS rankings. Clemson's star 99-OVR QB Erik Marshall (rSR) protected by an offensive line where none of the big uglies are lower than 88-OVR. A 97-OVR running back in Adam Hill (SR). All of these items made for a sleepless night.
The 2nd half was one for the defense lovers out there up until the bitter end. The teams would exchange field goals at a rate of three Wyoming FGs for a single Clemson field goal so denizens of the Orange Bowl found an unusual 19-10 Wyoming lead on the scoreboard deep into the 4th quarter.
Naturally, the Clemson Tigers would recover the ensuing onside kick and take a few cracks at the game-winning hail mary before, mercifully, all of their attempts were batted to the turf to fall incomplete. Praise be. That BIG GAME SKILL/LIGHT A FIRE stuff is a heckuva drug. Damn, Dabo.
I hope he's a nice guy or I might have to retire him.
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