Bowl Discussion

[Tovarich]

Moving toward the business end of the bowls now, Liberty and Coastal are a bit chippy as expected. Lots of blowouts in bowls so far, and generally low quality, but things getting better tonight so far.

Liberty's failed attempt to not score is one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen.

[JHamilton9]

Cincinnati almost did the same thing against UCF in the regular season. They messed around and almost fumbled it away on the last play.


I hate it when teams try to get "cute" with the clock. Just score the dang touchdown.

[JHamilton9]

Cure Bowl was the best bowl game so far. If a couple of ranked G5 schools can put together a game like that, I'd definitely like to see a G5 playoff - but that discussion is for a completely different thread.

[Tovarich]

Quote: Originally Posted by JHamilton9

Cincinnati almost did the same thing against UCF in the regular season. They messed around and almost fumbled it away on the last play. I hate it when teams try to get "cute" with the clock. Just score the dang touchdown.

Most of the time, I agree just score the touchdown. There are a few scenarios where it does make sense not to score, and it's not that the coaches in those scenarios aren't right not to score, it's that they're not actually fully committing properly to not scoring. When Penn State was up 1 on Indiana in the first week, it made sense not to score because it still was a 1-score game. Indiana had only one timeout and they score on the first play. So instead of running a play, just...take a knee! The RB should have kneeled down at the 1 like he was supposed to, but even taking a knee, Penn State runs about 1:26 off the clock. Kick a FG or don't doesn't matter to me in that scenario because with 16 seconds at their own 15 and no timeouts, I like my chances. It's the wishy washy calling of a regular run play and then telling them not to score that bothers me. If you don't want to score, don't call a play that might score. Take a knee. Cincinnati 100% should have gone up two scores. That's a scenario I find it dumb when people get cute as you say. If you're Liberty last night, I think you like your chances on a short FG, so...just take a knee and Liberty is trying a 20-something yard chip shot as time expires. I think every coach would believe his team can execute that. There's no need to call any kind of a real play and that I think is what leads to these things more so than the decision not to score.

[Sportsforever]

Terrible call on that review against Miami on the two point conversion; I don’t even know why they bother reviewing if they are going to get it wrong.


Sent from my iPhone using Operation Sports

[JHamilton9]

It's a shame about the injuries to D'Eriq King and Sam Ehlinger. I like both players and I hate to see them get injured like that.


Weird observations of the night:
1. Cheez-It Bowl upped their cardboard cutout game by having those cheese wheel characters on pneumatic lifts. Puppeteers could have done the job, but you know... covid.
2. Alamo Bowl people may want to re-think the decision to simultaneously shoot up fireworks and drop down balloons during the trophy presentation.

[canes21]

Last night stung. I had low expectations given Miami's horrid defense and their bowl struggles, but last night hurt.

King is the last player that deserves that to happen to him. The guy completely changed Miami and has been the best thing to happen to the program in time. His leadership all year was amazing and him deciding to come back was great news. To see that injury occur to him hurt.

The defense lived up to expectations. How in the world has Baker taken what was a top 10 defense under Manny the DC and turned it into the trash that it is in only two seasons? The signs were there last year. A lot of Miami fans already wanted him gone last year for good reason, but he fielded easily one of the worst defenses Miami has had since the probation days of the 90's. Al Golden an D'oNofrio had a couple of defenses that were worse or else Baker would literally have the worst Miami defense of the last 20 to 30 years at least.

The drops were ridiculous even for a WR corp that is among the worst in the nation. How in the world a team in SoFla cannot find any WRs that can produce is amazing in of itself, but to see those WR's go out there and have 10-15 drops last night is disgusting. Perry looked awesome last night but Pope and Wiggins were easily the MVPs for Oklahoma State.

The officiating was horrid. The 2-pt review was a straight joke. The play should have stood because there was no definitive angle at all. The way the refs would call PI last night was a joke. Couch wasn't allowed to play DB at all last night. The one play he actually did interfere with the OKST WR there was no flag. Brevin Jordan got mugged multiple times last night and zero flags were thrown. The interception Miami got when they had all of the momentum was not even close to PI and it looked like it was potentially tipped, but no replay was had for that.

Despite all of that, Miami was right there in position to beat a decent team despite falling down 21-0 to start the game. I hate to be the one to cheer for moral victories, but that team did not quit on Manny at all and that's refreshing considering the Miami teams I have watched over the past decade plus that all quit the second adversity would strike.

Maybe Manny can be successful here if he overhauls the defensive staff. His recruiting makes no sense given the on-field performance he put up last year and the inconsistencies this year, but he is recruiting at almost an elite level. He nearly fixed the offense in one season with the Lashlee hire. If he can get the offense to build off of this year and fix the defense back to a similar quality of when he was DC, then Miami can finally start to even think about being relevant in football again.

Since 2001 or 2002 Miami has not been competent on both sides of the ball in one year. It's basically always been a great defense letdown by a bad offense. Only under Golden a couple of years and this year was it the reversal of that. Should the offense be improved next year, a fixed defense that sits inside the top 20 should make this team a legitimate top 15 team for the first time in awhile, but who knows.

With the curse that this program has, Bama will beat them 100-0 to start the year off and they'll never recover. Something has to give eventually, this program is clearly cursed and the King injury is undeniable evidence along with the last 20 years of Miami football. Maybe they'll shock the world and beat Bama and Manny will have them on the right track. Once they do that I can then wake up and get ready for work and count the days to the actual game and inevitable beat down.

[TripleCrown9]

If the Miami-Alabama game gets played, of course.