The Quintessential Jim Grobe/Wake Forest Football Game

[diverdeac]

Clemson had 2 timeouts. Running clock means running the ball against a stacked line, essentially kneeling on it and going to OT. If we throw once and run twice the only difference in the outcome is they have one less timeout.

You're just flat out wrong if you think it's a given that we shouldn't throw or even attempt to get enough yards to win the game. The only reason we've overachieved this year is because Tanner, Givens, and Camp are elite talents. Our defense isn't, our kicking game sure as hell isn't, and our running game isn't.

Argue all you want that we should have gone run-run-pass, run-run-pass to close out the game and all but assure we go to OT with a tired defense back on the field.

I like going for the win there. The difference between fair-minded Lobo critics and hindsight geniuses is that, regardless of whether it works out or not, you have to give credit for a style change. Wake was CLEARLY more aggressive all day against Clemson, and if Newman puts a 30 yarder through we're playing for the ACC Championship.

If you put every single NFL coach in that same position they would agree with me. There is a difference between 1 minute and 30 seconds. It made all of the difference. This is not hindsight. It is basic football strategy 101.

Plus I do give credit for the style change. My issue is that even if this were a 50-50 decision Lobo takes the wrong side pretty much every time. So maybe he is just unlucky - even then - time for a change.

 

[Milhouse]

In the ACC or overall? I think that is very doable in this version of the ACC.

overall. you want someone in here that will average 8 wins (not including bowls and conference championship games). right?

 

[DCDeac]

If you put every single NFL coach in that same position they would agree with me. There is a difference between 1 minute and 30 seconds. It made all of the difference. This is not hindsight. It is basic football strategy 101.

Plus I do give credit for the style change. My issue is that even if this were a 50-50 decision Lobo takes the wrong side pretty much every time. So maybe he is just unlucky - even then - time for a change.

Ridiculous, if only because I just watched the Falcons game this weekend and saw Brees throw the ball for like 5/7 plays tied with 2 minutes left. But similar to us, Atlanta had timeouts handy and the Saints don't have a good enough running game to pound out yards when the other team knows it's coming.

Incidentally they made the game winning field goal but it was called back on a phantom hold. Then they won in overtime.

In the same game Atlanta threw the ball 5 straight times despite having a sure-thing field goal locked up to go to overtime, once getting lucky as hell a pass in the endzone wasn't picked off for the loss.

Coaches play to their strengths and take risks to win games. Brees threw instead of running out the clock for OT. Ryan threw instead of settling for OT and just about gave the game away on a pick. We threw for an 18 yard first down, tried for a couple quick hitters to Camp that missed, then took a bad sack.

The only difference in strategy is the outcome.

 

[HCF3]

overall. you want someone in here that will average 8 wins (not including bowls and conference championship games). right?

I think that is doable in this ACC. Wake should be a step ahead of State, Maryland, and BC for the years to come, and compete with Clemson and FSU every year. Years when they do not have GT, VT, Miami on the schedule, should be higher years in the 9 range. A schedule like this years should at least yield 7 wins which is what the Deacs are on track to do. And I think everyone here believes there should be 1 maybe 2 extra wins added to that if not for meltdowns late.

 

[IAppreciateIt]

Obviously what we can do as a program is limited, and you'd be a fool to ignore that. Using 2006 (or even 06-08) to determine what level the program should be is just as dumb as using the 90s.

We should try to do the best we can. And I'd say we're pretty close to achieving that within reasonable expectation. But we aren't there yet, and there are some pretty glaring things that are keeping us from reaching that point. And even if, on the whole, the program is in excellent shape, we shouldn't ignore those relatively simple things that are keeping us from maxing out our program's potential.

 

[DCDeac]

I have posted that I had no problem with a pass....but it had to be a pass that would be a 100% certain completion. Not a pattern that is usually a completion, but one that is a 100% sure completion....so that the clock will keep running unless Clemson burns a TO to stop it. And there are passes that are 100% completions....with no possibility of a sack. A short pass in the flat, or where the receiver takes a couple of steps back and the ball is thrown to him immediately, allowing him to try to make a move to gain yards. Or they could have run a reverse. We've had some luck with those this year. There are ways to gain yards without taking chances of stopping the clock with incomplete passes. We just gave them two extra free timeouts. Without those two incomplete passes, there is only about a 5% chance that we would've lost that game in regulation. And if you want to be truthful about it, there wasn't a heckuva lot better chance than that, with Newman kicking, that we would've won the game in regulation going all out for the win.

No offense, but there's no such thing as a 100% completion. And I don't think a reverse would have worked with the defense Clemson was playing. In hindsight I would have loved the first play to have been a pass to Givens in the flat, but who knows because Clemson was all over our receivers. I'd say the odds of going 3 and out on passes after we clearly caught them on their heels on the first play were extremely slim. We'd been completing those throws all day and just picked a horrid time to come up 0/3.

I think with a tie game and nothing to lose Newman has a great shot of coming through from 45 or closer. I mean, he'd just hit 12 straight and was 25/26 at one point. Considering Clemson would also have to make the plays to get close enough and their own kicker just blew one, I just can't second-guess taking a risk there and telling Tanner to go try to win.

My gut tells me we either complete two passes and hit that field goal or we'd have lost in OT. But who knows.

 

[IAppreciateIt]

Clemson was playing extremely tight coverage. I've got no real complaints about the final drive, but if anything I thought we tried to go a bit too "conservative" and do what bfk is describing. Those short crossing routes weren't available with the press coverage Clemson was playing, while they might have been more vulnerable down the field like we did on the first play of the drive.

 

[Haros]

I'm not a huge fan of Lobo for reasons I've outlined many times in the past, (i.e. inability to make in-game adjustments and never placing an offense in the nation's top 40), but I'd have a really tough time pinning this one on him. The decisions to go on 4th down early in the third and especially the decision to try for the win at the end of regulation were no brainers. They were absolutely the correct decisions even though neither worked out, and the coaches did a fantastic job of putting us in the position to win that game.

The bigger issue is captured perfectly by the title of this thread. It speaks volumes that to a person here we knew that somehow we'd find a way to lose this game even after getting the 14 point lead. For all the things they do extremely well as a staff, they are not good game managers at the end of games. The biggest reason they don't protect leads well is that as a coaching staff, they fail to grasp situational end of game stuff like time and position.

For one common example, when we are trying to keep the ball and run the clock with a fourth quarter lead, we consistently snap the ball with 12-18 seconds left on the play clock. Look back at our drive where Newman missed the field goal, we left somewhere in the neighborhood of 55-65 seconds on the clock that didn't have to be there, which could have made a huge difference had we gone up 10 there. While this is but one example, you can see the alternative execution on Clemson's second to last drive, where they ran the play clock way down before each snap, which left us just 1:18 on the clock to go for the win (or what could have been needing points to tie). Other numerous examples over the years are inclusive of but certainly not limited to using the playclock to your advantage.

That's the toughest thing to reconcile, is that we love this coaching staff for all they've done, yet somehow we expect them to lose this type of game in exactly this type of fashion. It is uncanny.

 

[PhDeac]

Obviously what we can do as a program is limited, and you'd be a fool to ignore that. Using 2006 (or even 06-08) to determine what level the program should be is just as dumb as using the 90s.

We should try to do the best we can. And I'd say we're pretty close to achieving that within reasonable expectation. But we aren't there yet, and there are some pretty glaring things that are keeping us from reaching that point. And even if, on the whole, the program is in excellent shape, we shouldn't ignore those relatively simple things that are keeping us from maxing out our program's potential.

Clemson was playing extremely tight coverage. I've got no real complaints about the final drive, but if anything I thought we tried to go a bit too "conservative" and do what bfk is describing. Those short crossing routes weren't available with the press coverage Clemson was playing, while they might have been more vulnerable down the field like we did on the first play of the drive.

Good posts. We couldn't have just run the clock out there. But we did need to open up the field a little more since they were staying at home and shutting down the slants all half. We couldn't have done much except run the clock down against that coverage without going downfield.

 

[bmoneydeac]

after a measurement i believe playclock goes to 25. with the dude having just missed one a couple minutes earlier, i doubt they wanted him standing back there thinking about it an extra 20 or so seconds.

 

[diverdeac]

Watched the replay and there is NO EXCUSE FOR LOSING THAT GAME.

I don't give a shit where the program is .... the fan base overall and me especially cannot take losing anymore of these games like this.

I am pissed. No excuse. I don't give a damn what the reason is but Grobe better damn well figure it out because he makes $3 million a year, and clearly something is wrong.

The refs are a huge part of this too, and I'm tired of getting raped.

I hope we play those assholes for the same stakes next year and hammer them.

 

[DCDeac]

Having an extra timeout on offense is more important than 20 seconds whether we were going for a tie or a win.

 

[BillBrasky]

Watched the replay and there is NO EXCUSE FOR LOSING THAT GAME.

I don't give a shit where the program is .... the fan base overall and me especially cannot take losing anymore of these games like this.

I am pissed. No excuse. I don't give a damn what the reason is but Grobe better damn well figure it out because he makes $3 million a year, and clearly something is wrong.

The refs are a huge part of this too, and I'm tired of getting raped.

I hope we play those assholes for the same stakes next year and hammer them.

This was pretty much my exact reaction after the game. Regardless of the who the opponent was, that game was served to us on a silver platter. There was zero excuse for losing that game. Anyone who says that we played well is full of it, Clemson just played like absolute shit. You will never see a worse perfromance from a Top 10 team at home.

 

[Milhouse]

This was pretty much my exact reaction after the game. Regardless of the who the opponent was, that game was served to us on a silver platter. There was zero excuse for losing that game. Anyone who says that we played well is full of it, Clemson just played like absolute shit. You will never see a worse perfromance from a Top 10 team at home.

oklahoma played worse against a shitty texas tech team

 

[DCDeac]

It's easier to stop the clock on offense than on defense. 20 seconds is pretty damned important when there are only 90 seconds left.

You can't seriously arguing that you would prefer 1:40 with 2 timeouts over having 1:20 with 3 timeouts on offense?

Are you kidding?

 

[Haros]

It's easier to stop the clock on offense than on defense. 20 seconds is pretty damned important when there are only 90 seconds left.

I agree with this, especially in the college game, and especially since it would have been 25 seconds had Clemson not snapped the ball early on their missed FG. The extra flexibility with using the middle of the field if you get to the marker makes it well worth having the extra 25 seconds over a timeout ON OFFENSE.

The reason is that you can stop the clock in the following ways:

1) Go out of bounds
2) Get a first down
3) Incomplete pass
4) Spike the ball
5) Use one of the remaining 2 timeouts.

When on offense, you also have the power to snap the ball more quickly, so a timeout is worth about 14-18 seconds depending on how good your team is at lining up quickly and how fast the umpire is getting the ball spotted.

It also makes a difference that you'd be using the first timeout and have two left in case you do get tackled rather than using the third timeout. Having a last timeout is crucial to getting your

If you flip the scenario around and you're on defense and trailing late, you would much rather have all three timeouts with the clock a little lower, because the difference is a full 40 seconds when the other team controls when the ball is snapped

Summary:
Offense -- You would rather have the extra 25 seconds than the timeout which is worth 14-18 seconds.
Defense -- The timeout is worth 40 seconds and is more valuable than 25 seconds on the clock.

 

[BillBrasky]

oklahoma played worse against a shitty texas tech team

Maybe on defense. However I don't think Landry Jones threw at least five catchable interceptions. Boyd threw so many ducks on Saturday.

 

[Deacsfan27]

Maybe on defense. However I don't think Landry Jones threw at least five catchable interceptions. Boyd threw so many ducks on Saturday.

Two of the three interceptions that we dropped were intercepted later in the drive too.

 

[BillBrasky]

Two of the three interceptions that we dropped were intercepted later in the drive too.

True, but until we went into the dreaded prevent mode Boyd was throwing a questionable ball every other play. Until the final 10 mins or so Clemson could not have played worse.

 

[DCDeac]

If Clemson hadn't also screwed up by kicking so quickly, it would have been 1:05 instead of about 1:28.

And yeah, I think I'd take 1:28 with two timeouts over 1:05 with three timeouts. You can kill the clock by spiking the ball or running out of bounds on offense....in addition to those two timeouts you have left. If Clemson had run the play clock down like they should have after the 4th down measurement at 1:30, there would have only been about a minute left after the kick.....while we just stood there and watched 25-30 seconds run off the clock.

Not sure what to say. Would anyone else trade a timeout for 20 seconds on offense?

With a timeout you can throw over the middle. You can run the ball. A timeout means you have to play legit defense. A sack doesn't lose the game.

We only needed a couple of pass plays to win in regulation. Had we made a play or two, the timeouts would have been infinitely more helpful. Time wasn't that big an issue.

We just didn't make the plays. What I really wish is that we'd given Tanner the same chance to win against Notre Dame instead of going run-run-pass-kick for so many set of downs. Even if we'd lost he might have had more confidence closing out Clemson.