[stupac2]

I still like the last touchdown making it a two score game.

I never said I didn't like it, I said that it was needlessly ruthless. I was just trying to point out that Shaw, contrary to a lot of his detractors, really does have a killer instinct and doesn't just play conservatively. That's one example where he really did go for the jugular in a sort of bizarre way, and most fans loved it! The problem is that most fans also don't remember it, but they do remember the end of the Fiesta Bowl. I think that a lot of the fan narrative around Shaw is just confirmation bias, confirmation bias, confirmation bias.

But in an awesome display of forum jiu jitsu,  I can use your argument to buttress my claim that Coach Shaw is at best average at end game management !

Yeah he does do some bizarre things sometimes. I have no idea why we were running at the end of the Oregon game, for example. But he tends to be pretty aware of clock management, which some coaches can really screw up. Did you see Green Bay a few weeks ago? McCarthy's use of TOs at the end of the game was outright baffling. Les Miles has a pretty bad reputation for end-game clock management too, and he's one of the more successful college coaches. Shaw, for all his faults, has never completely screwed up the clock, as far as I can remember.

I generally subscribe to the WIM/Hank theory that Shaw's (and Bloomgren's, though it's hard to know who's doing what) main fault this year is trying to get too cute with personnel. But it's not 100% obvious to me how big of a difference that makes, even (for instance, Pratt and Trojan had some pretty key catches last night). It seems clear that we have some kind of problem, but I'm not sure what it is.

Then again, a WIM has been pointing out all year (and I have too, to a lesser extent), football is an inherently probabilistic game, and even really good, truly elite teams can drop a game or two to good opposition. What makes accepting that conclusion difficult is that our two losses were so damn winnable, it feels like we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. But, before the season, who would've bet the house on us going better than 10-2? Two losses with our schedule is really not that bad! Going undefeated takes massive amounts of luck!

I don't really know how to square those two feelings.

[stupac2]

I still like the last touchdown making it a two score game.

I never said I didn't like it, I said that it was needlessly ruthless. I was just trying to point out that Shaw, contrary to a lot of his detractors, really does have a killer instinct and doesn't just play conservatively. That's one example where he really did go for the jugular in a sort of bizarre way, and most fans loved it! The problem is that most fans also don't remember it, but they do remember the end of the Fiesta Bowl. I think that a lot of the fan narrative around Shaw is just confirmation bias, confirmation bias, confirmation bias.

But in an awesome display of forum jiu jitsu,  I can use your argument to buttress my claim that Coach Shaw is at best average at end game management !

Yeah he does do some bizarre things sometimes. I have no idea why we were running at the end of the Oregon game, for example. But he tends to be pretty aware of clock management, which some coaches can really screw up. Did you see Green Bay a few weeks ago? McCarthy's use of TOs at the end of the game was outright baffling. Les Miles has a pretty bad reputation for end-game clock management too, and he's one of the more successful college coaches. Shaw, for all his faults, has never completely screwed up the clock, as far as I can remember.

I generally subscribe to the WIM/Hank theory that Shaw's (and Bloomgren's, though it's hard to know who's doing what) main fault this year is trying to get too cute with personnel. But it's not 100% obvious to me how big of a difference that makes, even (for instance, Pratt and Trojan had some pretty key catches last night). It seems clear that we have some kind of problem, but I'm not sure what it is.

Then again, a WIM has been pointing out all year (and I have too, to a lesser extent), football is an inherently probabilistic game, and even really good, truly elite teams can drop a game or two to good opposition. What makes accepting that conclusion difficult is that our two losses were so damn winnable, it feels like we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. But, before the season, who would've bet the house on us going better than 10-2? Two losses with our schedule is really not that bad! Going undefeated takes massive amounts of luck!

I don't really know how to square those two feelings.