[Goose]

I didn't mind the first 4th down attempt. We should be able to get 1 yard, and playing conservative at Clemson was not going to win us the game. 

The first down was there, but the ball protection was a little defective.

I agree that going for the fourth and one is very defensible. Lamson has shown that he can read the blocking and get a yard pretty reliably. As you say, the problem was ball security.

I also liked going for it on 4th at their 5. However, I didn't like the play (sweep by Mosley).

I don't like it  at all, for the converse of the reasons the first one made sense. We haven't shown that we can make five yards any time we want to. We haven't shown anything close to that. Not liking the play call IMO is caused by the fact that there aren't any "sure thing" play calls on fourth and five , or anything even close :-). No matter what is called it is relatively low probability of success and very easy not to like. The game situation was also important. We needed to "right the ship". We had made a lot of yards but scored zero points. A field goal would have broken the ice and reinforced the idea that we could win by calming down and just playing our game. No need for big risks.

There are times such risks are unavoidable. There are other times they are a defensible choice because the coach believes he has a play that will work with high probability or the coach wants to "get the team going". We didn't need that. We needed to methodically dig ourselves out of the hole we were in. Going for it on fourth and five sent exactly the opposite message, that we needed something extraordinary to win the game.

[Goose]

I didn't mind the first 4th down attempt. We should be able to get 1 yard, and playing conservative at Clemson was not going to win us the game. 

The first down was there, but the ball protection was a little defective.

I agree that going for the fourth and one is very defensible. Lamson has shown that he can read the blocking and get a yard pretty reliably. As you say, the problem was ball security.

I also liked going for it on 4th at their 5. However, I didn't like the play (sweep by Mosley).

I don't like it  at all, for the converse of the reasons the first one made sense. We haven't shown that we can make five yards any time we want to. We haven't shown anything close to that. Not liking the play call IMO is caused by the fact that there aren't any "sure thing" play calls on fourth and five , or anything even close :-). No matter what is called it is relatively low probability of success and very easy not to like. The game situation was also important. We needed to "right the ship". We had made a lot of yards but scored zero points. A field goal would have broken the ice and reinforced the idea that we could win by calming down and just playing our game. No need for big risks.

There are times such risks are unavoidable. There are other times they are a defensible choice because the coach believes he has a play that will work with high probability or the coach wants to "get the team going". We didn't need that. We needed to methodically dig ourselves out of the hole we were in. Going for it on fourth and five sent exactly the opposite message, that we needed something extraordinary to win the game.