Originally Posted by
Tear Down This Wall
We were talking about this after the game. We threw in Tom Osbourne as well as Switzer.
The difference between those guys and the coaches of today is that, if you opened the door for a Switzer or Osborne team, they'd walk through it. BYU gift-wrapped our two last possession, beggin us to beat them and our coaching staff badly squandered both of them:
(1) First and goal at the one due to a pass intereference. We'd run the ball down their throats to get inside the ten. So, what to we do, try to pass, run once without the fullback who'd been blowing up the linebackers in the second half, then try to sneak with a QB playing in his first game, then a penalty after more ridiculous checking down at the line. Too many inexperience players and too much at stake to have a guy chekcing off when you just need a yard - at the goal line! Snap it, hand it off, and be done with it already!
(NOTE TO COACHES GUNDY, HEUPEL AND WILSON: We're at the one yard line. Quit trying to be fancy. Put Clapp and Brown in there and take three cracks at it. A touchdown is worth six points even if it's a boring, old running play).
(2) BYU's kick off goes out of bound, giving us the ball at the 40. We move down to the 32 with 1:38 remaining on the pass to our third string tight end. The longest field goal we made last year was from 47. So, we're 50 yards out for a field goal and square in the middle of the field in a dome where weather isn't going to be a factor.
So, what do we do to make the game-winning field attempt closer? Do we put Matt Clapp and Chris Brown in there and jam us 7 to 10 yards closer as we run the clock down? No, we pass, pass, and pass almost intercepted with a penalty mixed in for good measure.
Our 50 yard game winning attempt is now a 55 yard effort. Then, we run on a kicker who'd never kicked in a game. Predictably, he misses. Game over. Stoops is being payed millions and his assistants several hundred thousand apiece for this kind of nonsense.
The Bottom Line is this:
-You've got four new lineman
-You've got four new receivers
-You've got two new tight ends
-You've got a quarterback playing in his first game
-Your experienced players at this point at fullback and halfback
Wilson, Heupel and Gundy ignore their experienced players when it counted and put it all on the shoulders of the inexperienced. It was, without question, the stupidest coaching you'll ever see out of that trio.
Switzer and Osborne would have played the percentages - put the ball in the hand of the experienced players and let them bang away to a win.
Utterly stupid. BYU tried to give us the game. Our offensive coaches were too dumb to oblige them. And, Stoops apparently was too asleep at the wheel to intervene.