[CTcard]

Hate this thread, too.  Not even going to address the issues.

I think I am a little uncomfotable with the tone of the thread, if not necessarily the substance.

It is the very function of a board like this to muse about, "If I were the coach, I have done ...". So, go ahead and postulate about strategy. However, it could also be done with a thought that it is at least possible one's own ideas are either not better than Shaw's - or not much better in cases where things are far from clear.

In addition, a coach makes lots of decisions in a game. There is no coach anywhere where every single one is the absolute best (beyond the fact that there is no such thing as an absolute best decision most of the time). It's worth remembering that when it seems Shaw made a bad to questionable choice.

So, a few add ons (which might be crazy wrong).

1. I also think taking the timeouts while Notre Dame was down deep would probably have been a good idea. There are some attitude issues I wouldn't like about that decision, but still think it would have been a better idea for increasing our chances.

Given how the game actually unfolded, and what it appeared und was trying to do (i.e. score as soon as able), I am fairly sure that using TOs would have given us more time at the end. I probably would have preferred keeping one TO and having some amount more time as a trade off. But, of course it is not clear and the difference in effect is probably not so large as people are imagining.

[And I also thought that the kick was through the uprights with 0:02 on the clock - nothing like a home-hand on the clock to make sure we didn't have to do a kickoff.]

2. On our last two ineffective drives, while I believe in concept that we should have passed more and perhaps utilized more personnel, still there was only one particular call that I really disliked given the particular situation at the time.

ON the first of the two, McCaffrey got 5 then 4 yards on the first two plays. Both pretty good, and in general we'd been great on third and short in this game and this year. Running with McCaffrey in the game fairly deep in our own territory gives a lot more options that with Wright. At the least, it wasn't crazy to run McCaffrey up the gut there.

On the second series, first remember it wasn't a three and out. McCaffrey rushed for 8 then 2 yards for a first down. When he then got stuffed, we did throw an underneath pass to Rector for 6 (I think on a check-down, but that is on a memory I am not too sure of). The Hogan sweep I didn't like on third down - especially given how well other plays were working. So that's the one play I really didn't like.

[CTcard]

Hate this thread, too.  Not even going to address the issues.

I think I am a little uncomfotable with the tone of the thread, if not necessarily the substance.

It is the very function of a board like this to muse about, "If I were the coach, I have done ...". So, go ahead and postulate about strategy. However, it could also be done with a thought that it is at least possible one's own ideas are either not better than Shaw's - or not much better in cases where things are far from clear.

In addition, a coach makes lots of decisions in a game. There is no coach anywhere where every single one is the absolute best (beyond the fact that there is no such thing as an absolute best decision most of the time). It's worth remembering that when it seems Shaw made a bad to questionable choice.

So, a few add ons (which might be crazy wrong).

1. I also think taking the timeouts while Notre Dame was down deep would probably have been a good idea. There are some attitude issues I wouldn't like about that decision, but still think it would have been a better idea for increasing our chances.

Given how the game actually unfolded, and what it appeared und was trying to do (i.e. score as soon as able), I am fairly sure that using TOs would have given us more time at the end. I probably would have preferred keeping one TO and having some amount more time as a trade off. But, of course it is not clear and the difference in effect is probably not so large as people are imagining.

[And I also thought that the kick was through the uprights with 0:02 on the clock - nothing like a home-hand on the clock to make sure we didn't have to do a kickoff.]

2. On our last two ineffective drives, while I believe in concept that we should have passed more and perhaps utilized more personnel, still there was only one particular call that I really disliked given the particular situation at the time.

ON the first of the two, McCaffrey got 5 then 4 yards on the first two plays. Both pretty good, and in general we'd been great on third and short in this game and this year. Running with McCaffrey in the game fairly deep in our own territory gives a lot more options that with Wright. At the least, it wasn't crazy to run McCaffrey up the gut there.

On the second series, first remember it wasn't a three and out. McCaffrey rushed for 8 then 2 yards for a first down. When he then got stuffed, we did throw an underneath pass to Rector for 6 (I think on a check-down, but that is on a memory I am not too sure of). The Hogan sweep I didn't like on third down - especially given how well other plays were working. So that's the one play I really didn't like.