Would have probably just knocked MC out at the one, but I have preferred to see that walk on squirt have to kick it with the game on the line.
completely agree. our D's stepped it up in the second half and our young guys are only going to get better.
Whether they get better or not will depend on how they respond to this game. Our defensive backfield was abused tonight. Tech is high octane, but the missed tackles and botched INTs (Earl Thomas on 2nd to last possession and then, of course, Gideon's huge drop) were hard to swallow. Deon Beasley, Curtis Brown...it was a long, long night. And, yes, Thomas took the wrong angle on the last play.
I went ballistic watching Thomas whiff on Crabtree's last TD catch. Crabtree caught the ball at the 2 yard line (but stayed in bounds), and Earl decides to let himself run out of bounds at the 3 yard line (upfield from Crabtree instead of trying to cut Crabtree off from the end zone).
I think they were trying to keep him in bounds to run the clock out, but it backfired. He had the angle, but let up so as not to knock crabtree out. It was a risky play, but he was playing to win.
Brown looked like he was expecting deep help and I have no friggin idea what Thomas was doing. This one hurts. Both safeties whiffed on that last drive. They will learn. Glad I'm not a young kid with that on my back. Good thing about football is that you get to play again next week. Team responds and I'm glad this next one is at home.
I agree completely. Brown was trying to protect the short pass, looking for Thomas to cover over the top. The receiver makes the catch, Brown tries wrapping him up and keeping him in bounds, while it looks like Thomas half-assedly jogs over, jogs PAST both of them, and then stands there as Crabtree breaks free for the win.
This play bothered me more than the Gideon drop. At least you know Gideon didn't drop it due to lack of effort. What could Thomas possibly have been thinking?
Who can we not throw under the bus? Hey we lost. I could hardly sleep Saturday night in fact. But it happened. We need to move on. We need Tech to lose 2 times; they do that, we're back in and OU and OSU are not (assuming we win). Paterno used to say that for every freshman you start, that is how many losses you will have (best case). We have at least 2 starting right now. We only have 1 loss. These guys will get better.
I would have preferred that he catch the INT that hit him in the face! If that happens, we aren't even talking about the Crabtree play. It hurts as a fan, I can just imagine what it feels like to be the player on Monday morning. Gideon has probably replayed that dropped INT his mind a thousand times too.
I've gone back and watched that play at least 20 more times, and I still have no idea what he was thinking. He's our last line of defense! Ugh
There were three plays that were huge for Tech: 1. Poor run blocking on the first play from scrimmage resulting in a safety 2. Colt's pick for a TD 3. Poor tackling on Crabtree on the last play, failure to wrap up. Despite the disapointment over a tough loss, the progress the secondary and total D has made this year has me excited about the next couple of years.
I've watched it several times too and for the life of me I can't understand why he he ran out of bounds behind the catch. I keep wondering what Tech would have done if there had been 5 or fewer seconds on the clock. Damn, I would like to have seen them go for a 44 yd field goal.
Thomas' responsibility was help behind Curtis Brown. Thomas made a mistake. But so did alot of other people. What if Shipley catches the long throw in the 1Q down 5-0? We score and go up 7-5. That changes the early complexion of the game. What if the coaches burned more time on the last drive, what if Gideon catches the pick, what if we actually had good kickoff coverage... But it didn't happen. We lost as a team. Time to move on and hope Tech loses 2 games.
With the magnitude of that play, I bet he plays that same play different from now on. With the time and distance we would have been better off with a pass interference.
This defensive backfield reminds me a whole lot of C Griff, Huff and co back in 03 just getting trashed by Jason White and Mark Clayton. These guys did a hell of a job in the 2nd half and right up to the last play totally shutout the Tech offense in the 2nd half. A couple of plays here and there at any point in the game change the outcome, it's just unfortunate that 2 came on the last drive by a couple freshman, but these guys are all going to be All Americans, and fighting each other out for Thorpe awards over the next couple of years. Our stud offense was worse in the 1st half than our young defense was at any point in the game. So let's lay off the DBs.
everyone belongs under the bus on this one. complete clusterfuck of a game and all coaches and players deserve blame - there were THAT many mistakes, any one of which, if avoided, could have changed the outcome. No reason to single anyone out specifically. That said, it would have been nice to see our TWO defenders actually tackle crabtree. Tackling receivers with the ball always gives you a better chance to win than not tackling them.
ricky, I agree- lay off the DBs.. Sure they made some mistakes but none of the what ifs are going to go back and win us that game. Let's move on and win out and then see where we are.
When Thomas realized he took the wrong angle, he gave up and became a spectator. If he learns one thing from that play, it's that he should never give up. It looked to me that Curtis Brown turned to him after the play to say "where were you?" I'm high on all of our Freshman dbs, I just hope they don't get down on themselves and learn a thing or two from this game.
It would be difficult to be at the top of your game, physically and mentally, after running a marathon in a football uniform! And that goes for both sides. Give TT credit, they pulled it off against huge odds.
I wouldn't go that far... The Curry incident and Texas loss blew the NC that day...We would have been #1 and would have been awarded the trophy. Despite its magnitude, this play in the Tech didn't prevent us from anything like that. As we've discussed, there's plenty more football to be played and, even if we had won, we were 4 games away from even PLAYING for the NC. Memorable, sad, unforgivable, whatever you choose...but not on the same level as 10-9.
