Other Bowl Games Thread!!

[Buck_Buchanan]

I don't know, but the next time Matt Millen calls someone a "Hurtin' buckaroo", I think I might lose it.

He's terrible. Always refers to Joe Tessitore as "TESS" and uses the word "Leverage" a great deal

 

[Buck_Buchanan]

I hope that ESPN had the timeout count wrong at the end of the game. It showed OSU with 2 remaining. They could have at least forced a punt at the end. It's not much, but it's better than conceding.

tOSU had first and goal in the first half with :17 remaining and 2 timeouts.
They call a time out instead of clocking it and thus keeping 2 timeouts for two plays and a FG attempt with clock stopped.
They were down to 1 timeout, had :17 on clock, and called a running play (which they did happened to score on).

The only possible explanation I could think of was that they had 2 plays called in case the run was stopped. (Keeping personnel out on the field). It was just a bizarre decision that I couldn't grasp. Don't know if anyone else noticed that or not.

 

[bleedsmaroonandgold]

I'd still use the last timeout and make them snap it one more time. Maybe that's being a little ridiculous, but even if it's 1 in a million they fumble it's still worth a shot.

I'd only do that if I were also going to try to bust up the kneel. I think I am one of the few people who was actually okay with Schiano doing that, but either way, it seems silly to call a timeout, not to go after the ball but just to hope they find some way to drop it and then you find a way to get it.

 

[GophersInIowa]

I'd only do that if I were also going to try to bust up the kneel. I think I am one of the few people who was actually okay with Schiano doing that, but either way, it seems silly to call a timeout, not to go after the ball but just to hope they find some way to drop it and then you find a way to get it.

I was fine with it as well. If a QB can just stand there and not take a knee right away, then I'm fine with the defense firing hard at the snap.

 

[Rosemountian]

LSU is not worried about losing fans I don't think. I think you might be in the minority here.

I don't like it either. I don't like it in high school, I don't like it in college. However, if it isn't going to be enforced by penalty it would be stupid not to take advantage of it.

Are you really telling me that because an LSU coach instructs his players to stay down with a minor injury rather than hustling off the field for the next play the LSU player has lost all integrity?

As rodent rampage pointed out, I would call it unsportsmanlike conduct. Regardless, there is some conduct that I think is cheating regardless of whether there is an explicit rule against it. I would put conduct which the rules commttee labeled as "contrary to the spirit of the rules" which "cannot be tolerated" in that category. If I signed up for a recreational softball league, and the other team bribed an ump before a game, I would consider that cheating even if nobody had bothered to write down an explicit prohibitiion against it. When players take a provision of the rules designed to protect players (injury timeouts) and through dishonesty induce the officials into invoking that rule in a situation where, by the letter of the rule, it should not be invoked (it says play may be stopped for an injured player, not for a player pretending to be injured), I put that in the same category.

If the Gophers did this kind of stuff, and it was systemic like it seems to be with LSU, I would call the ticket office, ask for a refund, and certainly not renew my tickets. With the well-documented struggles of our program, I have spent plenty of money watching bad teams (and I would do it again), but I would have no stomach for watching dishonest ones.

There are two things you can always control in sports, your effort level and your integrity. It hurts to see young players like LSU's so willing to throw away their integrity the way they were in front of such a large audience. Their conduct was disgusting, and detrimental to the notion of fair play. I hope to heck that there is not a coach trying to convince these young men to do this.