Thoughts on Coaching Decisions

[WHB Brewer]

1. Why did we "defer" when we won the coin toss? It seems that after last week's offense breakout performance, we should have wanted the ball in that situation. The weather was perfect, so there really was no reason to favor one direction vs the other.

2. Why didn't we kick deep after the blocked punt TD? With 3:10 to go, down 3 we tipped that we were going to on-side kick and ILL was prepared. Though it was close, we did not recover. Any onside kick is a low probability of success. At the time of the kickoff, ILL had their deepest guy standing at the 30yd line. Why not change it up, kick it deep and let our coverage guys try to outrun ILLto the ball? Perhaps their return guy panics and we cause a turnover. Worst case is they have the ball deep on their own end, with 3 minutes to go. We force a punt and get the ball in better field position. Seems that we tried an onside kick way too soon, especially when we are only down 3pts.

Would like to hear others thoughts on these decisions by our coaching staff.

 

[tikited]

1. Why did we "defer" when we won the coin toss? It seems that after last week's offense breakout performance, we should have wanted the ball in that situation. The weather was perfect, so there really was no reason to favor one direction vs the other.

2. Why didn't we kick deep after the blocked punt TD? With 3:10 to go, down 3 we tipped that we were going to on-side kick and ILL was prepared. Though it was close, we did not recover. Any onside kick is a low probability of success. At the time of the kickoff, ILL had their deepest guy standing at the 30yd line. Why not change it up, kick it deep and let our coverage guys try to outrun ILLto the ball? Perhaps their return guy panics and we cause a turnover. Worst case is they have the ball deep on their own end, with 3 minutes to go. We force a punt and get the ball in better field position. Seems that we tried an onside kick way too soon, especially when we are only down 3pts.

Would like to hear others thoughts on these decisions by our coaching staff.

Although neither were completely boneheaded, I didn't like both decisions.

1. We have always taken the ball first as far as I can remember (home) so why change? The MSU game is the perfect example..

2. I hated the on-side kick. I get why people wanted it or thought it was the right move... I just didn't. I REALLY hated the fact that we called a time-out (our first of the 2nd half) right after a t.v. timeout. If we have three timeouts at the end of the game, we don't need to try an on-side kick. Major blunder right there.

 

[gopherfield]

I thought the on-side kick was correct. We had already used our timeouts leading up to the blocked punt and score. You have to remember, they can run off 40 seconds between plays (even longer depending on the length of the play itself), so IL would have basically used up 2+ minutes even with no first down gained. The on-side kick looked really good (high bounce, IL didn't field it, went past 10 yards, etc), we just didn't cover it correctly.

 

[Gold Vision]

1. I've never really understood deferring unless you have some horrible wind conditions, but I'm not a great football mind.
2. I agree with the onside call. With zero timeouts and assuming we forced a 3 and out, we would have roughly 45 seconds. 1 first down and the game is over.

 

[Go Gophers Rah]

At the time, I disagreed with the onside kick. After seeing how easy it was for the Illini to burn off 3:10, I don't think there was a better option.

As others have pointed out, if we had a time-out or two, it would have been a different story.

 

[Iceland12]

1. I've never really understood deferring unless you have some horrible wind conditions, but I'm not a great football mind.
2. I agree with the onside call. With zero timeouts and assuming we forced a 3 and out, we would have roughly 45 seconds. 1 first down and the game is over.

+1;
+1

If memory serves, a Gopher was just about to catch the kick off a bounce, when an Illinois player absolutely creamed him taking him out of the play.

 

[FireDaveLee]

1. I like deferring to the 2nd half. If you believe in your defense, a good 3 & out start can start the field position game in your favor, not to mention getting the ball to open the 2nd half. And in most cases if you receive to open the 2nd half, the opponent is going to kick with the wind the 3rd quarter so you have the advantage of the wind in the 4th. I prefer deferring, but that's just me.

2. I agreed with the onside kick; 3:05 would be difficult with no timeouts.

The one decision I will go on record saying I disagree with was going for it on 4th & 1 in the 4th quarter. It turned out well with Hoese taking the next two plays, but I thought we should have kicked the FG to make it a one posession game. I'll admit that I didn't agree with that call. Worked out well for the Gophers.

I guess what I take from that is a coach's decision usually is scored on the outcome. Brilliant move since it worked. Awful decision if it doesn't. I still remember John Mackovic & Texas in the 1996 Big XII championship game when they play-actioned to Gopher assitant Derek Lewis on 4th & inches for a huge gain against Nebraska. If it doesn't work, he's an idiot because they didn't run it on 4th & inches. But it worked for a 60+ yard gain, it was a brilliant call by Mackovic.

 

[WHB Brewer]

The 4th and 1 call is another worthy of discussion (point #3).

I actually agreed with the call. If you get to that point in the game, especially that close to the end zone, you have to believe you can get the yard. If not, you don't deserve to win anyway. You can't guarantee you will get that good of an opportunity to score a TD again later. Plus it's better to only need a FG later rather than a TD AND 2pt conversion.