Originally Posted by OLS
Hard to know where to start or what is wrongest.
A catch has one definitive characteristic. You hit the ground and maintain possession of the football.
Basically you stand up to demonstrate possession and are then free to drop the ball. A.) who had the
ball when the players got up?, and B.) What do you think instant replay and coaches challenges are for?
It's not like a run, where you hit the ground and you are down. In THAT case, it would have been
Bama ball on the one yard line. It's not like the refs didn't look at the play over and over.
It was not the difference in the game. The difference in the game might well be three missed field goals
by Bama. That is three good drives wasted in non-scoring endings. You can't do that in what has to
be the tightest game in the SEC we'll ever see.
On the surface, the overtime MIGHT have been poor coaching, but it is more about poor execution. DUMB
penalties. However, you are driving from 25 yeards out. It doesn't have to be rocket science. Why make
your players execute complicated or slow developing plays? Just run the ball til you have to pass and kick
a field goal if you can't score a TD. But you are right in one way. After Saban decided to complicate
the most basic part of the game to that point, his attempt to outcoach Les Miles led to Les Miles only
having to do it RIGHT in order to walk out with the win. But the players incurred the penalties,
not Nick Saban.
And kickers are on the team for one reason, to kick a field goal from any reasonable point on the field.
It would seem to the uneducated of us that Nick focused too hard on finding the most rugged horses he could
get to the detriment of the kicking game. Sure he has two tough lines, amazing backs and a couple of
great receivers, but his kicking game is apalling. LSU is a complete football team, as I have argued here
many times. Opportunistic on SPECIAL TEAMS and highly capable in the kicking game. There has been
lot of justifiable homerism in this thread prior to this game. I am a little surprised that none of them have
come back in to admit they were all wrong. If LSU had lost in OT last night, I would have posted my
congratulations within minutes, because it is important when I was so adamant about us winning.
OT wins are no way to win a game, but LSU got to the NCG in 03 with TWO OT LOSSES. There is no s
hame in Bama losing this game in OT. They made a few more mistakes
than LSU and paid the price.
But let's be honest. They LOST the game not by the bad luck in the end, but because they are inferior
to the LSU Tigers in terms of DEPTH, and BALANCE. Our two interceptions and Mathieu's stupid flagrant
foul could have opened the door to Bama beating LSU but they did not get it done. The Tigers beat the
Tide with the kicking game. Before the game I warned you that Brad Wing would keep you in your own
end ALL NIGHT. There are three phases of football, and special teams is one of them. Ignore it at your peril.
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Les Miles said it best, and classy I might add. EVEN IF you guys do not get to the SECCG, you might YET
play LSU in the final game of the year. If you do , we would be HONORED to play you guys again. Just
don't expect a different result. With 101,000 tickets for sale, Bama made available an embarassingly
pitiful number of visitor tickets. That is shameful, but it happened. In the Superdome, there will be
much better balance amongst patron fans.
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