Should have been over yesterday. The bad calls on the defensive subs, and pitching moves cost us the series and the national title.
As someone noted on another board, you cannot second-guess something with this many variables. If UT had won game one, LSU would have changed its pitching rotation. Who knows what happens next? Everyone makes mistakes. Does it serve any purpose to blame Augie or anyone else for this?
as long as you give augie credit for our string of miraculous and improbable wins/comebacks during this post-season, then i'm okay with you pinning the loss on him.
I dunno what blaming Augie accomplishes. This loss stings less for me than the 2004 loss does. I still feel bad for Thigpen and the boys after that one. This team played and left it all out of the field. There is no shame in what this team accomplished this year.
It would be easy to blame a decision in the 1st game to change pitchers. However in game 3 we saw that our relief pitchers continually got hit up and could not get that out when they needed to. Thus we don't know that the result that happened on Monday would have happened regardless if he left the same pitcher in. It just wasn't meant to be. We didn't have that lights out closer that we needed this year. Team was in position to win and and couldn't get it done. I think all a coach can do is put the team in a position to win and a position to be great. This team just didn't get it done despite being in that position. Still though, it was a great run and this team went farther than anybody would have predicted they would go this season. We didn't really have any power hitters to put pressure on the opposing pitchers and that showed as well. Fun season to watch though.
Again I will just state that what puzzled me most is why Dicharry and Wood kept being used over and over in big situations when they had so clearly struggled for so long. Neither of them was anywhere close to being on and I do not really get what happened to them.
Texas went into the game with the rep for top notch pitching and fielding, and LSU went in with rep for power hitting. LSU surprised me with outstanding fielding. UT's fielding looked like a run of the mill college fielding team. Ultimately what lost it was a series of pitchers not being able to find the strike zone at critical times.
Wood should have not been used the remainder of the series after Game 1. That was his fourth game in the series to give up at least 1 run. That does not make a closer, and actually is a very poor reliever. If his name was not Austin Wood and he did not have the heroic 13 inning game, he would have not seen the light of day with some of the performance he was turning in at the CWS.
Augie is the reason we got to the championship. But no one can argue he made mistakes in the championship with the player moves. But then again, it's easy to point it out after the fact.
If you would have told me after getting swept by KU and not winning a game AT HOME to KSU that we would come withing 1 out of winning an NC, I would have LOL'd.
Every move in coaching does not work out to your benefit. Some moves backfire. In baseball, where the best hitters fail over half the time, second guessing every move is a fool's game. The best team won, the favorite won, the team with the most power won, the team with the best defensive position players won, the team with the most major league prospects won, the team that pitched the best at Omaha won, the team that made far fewer errors and mental mistakes won. There are second guessing scenarios which would have produced a Longhorn victory, but it is unlikely a manager's decisions can overcome all the factors I listed above, so quit bitching.
Okay, look geniuses I never said Augie was a bad coach. He's proven he's best the college coach there is period. With that said, there was no excuse for pulling the out hitters especially Moldy in the first game, and he even admitted as much. Just disappointing to get that close and come up short. I'm also not taking anything away from LSU they proved they were the better team.
Augie is the Reason Texas got as far as they did. LSU is the better team they came back and won the first game, hats off to Texas for winning game 2. Give LSU some credit, they were blowing out everyone until they played Texas in games 1 and 2.
if you lined up all the players from both teams and had a "tryout" , how many texas kids would u pick? unbelievable athletes on the other side. our staff did a great job of coaching and tip your hat to the other guys
you people act like Wood was some dominating closer all year until after the BC game. That's revisionist history. He was a decent relief pitcher by Texas standards (3.0 or thereabouts ERA, win some and botch others) that had an amazing game against BC.
