Chip Scoggins column: Kill played not to lose, and Gophers beat themselves

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per Chip:

The Gophers got the ball at their own 25-yard line with 1 minute, 4 seconds left until halftime and all three timeouts still available.

That’s an eternity in college football with that many timeouts, even with a quarterback not known for his passing accuracy. The Gophers trailed 10-7, so even a field goal would have given them positive feelings entering halftime.

The Gophers hadn’t been on this stage — a New Year’s Day bowl game — in five decades, so why not let ’er fly and take some risks?

Nope.

Jerry Kill went conservative. Ultraconservative. Painfully conservative.

http://www.startribune.com/sports/gophers/287308021.html?page=all&prepage=1&c=y#continue

Go Gophers!!
 

I haven't read the article yet, but the title says it all.

It's sad that you try so hard to not make a mistake, not realizing that That is the mistake.

Like I said in another thread, Coach Kill would rather lose than make a mistake. Well Coach, you made a bigger mistake by not taking risks.

(Well at least until 1 minute left in the 4th quarter, that was comical)

Most people fight back when they are cornered with nothing to lose. Coach Kill runs out the clock.
 

Totally agree. I posted this earlier, but in games like this, you need to be the aggressor and go out and take the damn game. You can't just try to sit around and be content with things and expect the game to be handed to you. Missouri did this, we did not. Obviously the halftime thing is the biggest thing, but why the punt in the 4th quarter?? We need two scores to win, and we are virtually sealing our defeat with a punt. At that point it seems like Jerry had given up, and was just hoping to keep the score reasonable.
 

gopher7 said:
Obviously the halftime thing is the biggest thing, but why the punt in the 4th quarter?? We need two scores to win, and we are virtually sealing our defeat with a punt. At that point it seems like Jerry had given up, and was just hoping to keep the score reasonable.
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He did the same thing in the Ohio State game... I think there was like 3 or 4 minutes left, and we were deep in our side of the field and instead of go for it on 4th down, we punted. That thought crossed my mind also... Maybe Coach Kill already gave up and just wants the loss to look like a close game by punting the ball away. That's pretty sad if that was his reasoning.
 

Don't remember the exact scenario today, but it was definitely a punting situation, and not sealing defeat. There was a lot of time left, and you want to flip the field in that spot.
 


I've posted about this in the distant past, but there is a very successful high school coach that almost never punts. Statistically his teams will score enough points to offset the inevitable failed conversions and handing the other team field position. He has won multiple state titles somewhere down south.

I'd love to see someone try this at the college level but most coaches are ultra conservative. Maybe a crusty old coach with an interest in advanced statistics at a place like, i dont know, KSU would try The no-punt philosophy as they are heading out the door. but, its hard to teach old dogs new tricks. a fact. Jerry is somewhere beyond ultra-conservative and it works to some level.
 

The other conservative play that nobody is talking about came with the Gophers up 7-0 facing a 3rd and 9 on the plus side of the 50. Limegrover calls a draw play to Cobb that gains 5 yards and the Gophers are now facing a 4th down and 4 at around the 45 yard line. I have no issue with punting on 4th and 4 in this scenario, but IF you are going to punt if you don't make the first down then you don't run a draw on 3rd and 9. Go back and look at the scores of all the bowl games, you've got to put points on the board to win. Missouri's 33 points were the fewest scored by any of the 8 winners in the bowl games played New Years Eve through New Years Day. Only one bowl from Christmas Eve on was won by a team scoring fewer than 30 and that was South Carolina 24 Miami 21.
 

EG#9 said:
The other conservative play that nobody is talking about came with the Gophers up 7-0 facing a 3rd and 9 on the plus side of the 50. Limegrover calls a draw play to Cobb that gains 5 yards and the Gophers are now facing a 4th down and 4 at around the 45 yard line. I have no issue with punting on 4th and 4 in this scenario, but IF you are going to punt if you don't make the first down then you don't run a draw on 3rd and 9. Go back and look at the scores of all the bowl games, you've got to put points on the board to win. Missouri's 33 points were the fewest scored by any of the 8 winners in the bowl games played New Years Eve through New Years Day. Only one bowl from Christmas Eve on was won by a team scoring fewer than 30 and that was South Carolina 24 Miami 21.
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Yup. That draw only to punt was ridiculous. An incomplete pass on 3rd wouldn't have affected our punt. My conclusion: staff was afraid of an interception. That's sad.

Conversely, mizzou had fake FG, punt, and an onside kick.
 

Mistake free plays entail other risks that Jerry Kill could learn from. Making 2 yards and not fumbling three times in a row is as bad as a turnover. Most of the time it results in a punt.
 



M&G BUSt said:
Don't remember the exact scenario today, but it was definitely a punting situation, and not sealing defeat. There was a lot of time left, and you want to flip the field in that spot.
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I see the rationale behind that argument, but not sure that I agree with it.

The play-by-play guys basically said they didn't understand what he was doing, and that punting basically concedes a loss considering Jerry's offense. They're paid to be as politically correct and impartial as possible, and they couldn't find a way sugar coat it. Not sure how gopher fans, who should hold him to much higher standard, can rationalize some of the decisions he made.

They were still huddling and running the play clock down to 10 seconds at that point. It's either incompetent, or chicken-****. No way around it, in my opinion. But, as I've said dozens of times already, I still love Kill as the leader of this program. Coaches have bad games just like players. But he's not above criticism when he sucks. I just hope he learns from it.

Can you imagine if Meyer, Franklin, Dantonio, or other B1G coaches pulled something like that in a game like this (Pelini got canned before the bowl game after a 9 win season).? Even if Mizzou's coach laid down laid down yesterday, or any SEC coach took that approach? At minimum, there would a huge uproar, if not full-blown torches and pitchforks sending them out of town. If we ever want this program to reach those heights, Kill needs to be held to that standard. If you're happy being the cute little program, acknowledged with a pat on the head from the big boys, then you're absolutely right not to criticize Kill after that ****-show.

Sadly, that punt wasn't even the worst coaching blunder of the day. Not even the second worst, in my opinion. I firmly believe the Gophers still had a chance to win that game with more aggressive coaching, even considering all of the turnovers and mistakes. He's supposed to pick up the kids and do his best to put them in a position to win, not the other way around.


Could the kids have played better? No doubt. But that's irrelevant to Kills awful coaching yesterday.
 

gopher7 said:
Totally agree. I posted this earlier, but in games like this, you need to be the aggressor and go out and take the damn game. You can't just try to sit around and be content with things and expect the game to be handed to you. Missouri did this, we did not. Obviously the halftime thing is the biggest thing, but why the punt in the 4th quarter?? We need two scores to win, and we are virtually sealing our defeat with a punt. At that point it seems like Jerry had given up, and was just hoping to keep the score reasonable.
Click to expand...

It was 4th and 17 with 7 minutes left in the game and we were down 9. If it was 4th and 10 or less, then I understand going for it. But it's more likely that we pin them deep and force a 3 and out than us converting a 4th and 17.

We didn't get it done after the punt so it really didn't matter, but I think going for it there would have been the wrong move. The conversion rate when it is that long is extremely low, even for high powered offenses.
 

The players were noticably pissed on the field, the fans all around us were cussing him out and the Mizzou fans were laughing at us. But we can't criticize him or he's just a bad coach....
 

I had no problems with the punt in the 4th. There was 7 minutes left with 2 timeouts. We've talked enough about how 1 minute left in a half is an eternity in college football...so is 7 minutes. Plus it was 4th and 17. If it were 4th and less than 10 you could make an argument but 17 yards is a very small percentage chance for conversion. We were only down 9 points at the time. So if you can pin them around the 10, stop them and get the ball back around midfield you still only need 1 TD and 1 FG and you're on the cusp of field goal range.
 



GophersInIowa said:
It was 4th and 17 with 7 minutes left in the game and we were down 9. If it was 4th and 10 or less, then I understand going for it. But it's more likely that we pin them deep and force a 3 and out than us converting a 4th and 17.

We didn't get it done after the punt so it really didn't matter, but I think going for it there would have been the wrong move. The conversion rate when it is that long is extremely low, even for high powered offenses.
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HA - I started to respond with almost the exact same thing but got sidetracked at work.
 

Gopher028 said:
The players were noticably pissed on the field, the fans all around us were cussing him out and the Mizzou fans were laughing at us. But we can't criticize him or he's just a bad coach....
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Totally pissed me off.
 

I think the issue is that when Kill's original game plan of mistake free football started to fail (as someone obvioulsy greased that pig before Leidner or Cobb touched it) we needed to accept that the only way to win was by being aggressive. Turn momentum back to our side.

Pinkley did a great job of giving his guys a chance to win and they converted on plays. Mizzou didn't dominate us, they beat us by being the aggressor and executing a few key plays.
 

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