Wide Right in Tallahassee

Ok, I’m calmer now (somewhat, anyway).

And, thanks to The U and The Flagship (I swear, today was the first time I’ve ever in my life cheered for an opponent of Carolina’s to lose, and although I didn’t cheer for Carolina to win, it still felt dirty), Saturday in the Atlantic ends where it began: with State and Maryland each in control of its own destiny and Florida State needing some help.

State can still make it to Charlotte. That’s great, I’ll be there wearing bells and whistles cheering them on. But regardless of how the rest of November plays out, TOB — or as BJD referred to him, TGW (aka, The Gutless Wonder) — made the absolute wrong call with the game (and probably the Atlantic Division) on the line today. For those that missed it, trailing 14-13 with under four minutes to play, State faced a 4th-and-one at the Clemson 43, and instead of making what most of us agree wasn’t just the right call for that situation, but the ONLY call (including, it appeared, Wilson and most of his teammates), TOB opted to punt…for four net yards.

Sure, State was plenty awful today before that call — poor execution and far too many missed opportunities to put Clemson away — and there was plenty of blame to share for that loss, not to mention we got the ball back with another chance to win it and failed to convert. So, TOB’s inexcusable, braindead decision wasn’t the sole reason we lost. But his decision put us in a position where winning the game would be highly unlikely.

With the division on the line and the ACC’s best quarterback needing a single yard, TOB chose to punt rather than play for the win. Make no mistake, punting was the low-percentage gamble there, not going for it. Best case scenario: we back Clemson up inside their own 10, force a three-and-out while burning all three of our timeouts, and then get the ball back around midfield with no timeouts and an unreliable kicking game. It’s not even a situation where you can claim confidence in your defense forcing a punt and trading up for better field position. Nope, the most likely best case scenario is that we trade two valuable minutes and three timeouts for a net loss of 10-15 yards in field position. Right?

I feel safe saying that most of us would’ve been disappointed had we not made it on that fourth down, but at least we could stomach going down fighting. After all, that’s our style. We didn’t like it when Amato played not to lose and we most certainly aren’t happy when TOB does it. What’s the worst that happens, we turn it over on downs and Clemson runs out the clock and we lose the game? So what? We’ve done plenty of that in the past few years. At least give us a chance to win it, coach.

Maybe TOB regrets that decision. And while I don’t think it makes him a bad coach (because his overall record shows otherwise), I do think it’s wholly indicative that State football has peaked under his leadership. We may still play in Charlotte on December 4th, and maybe we’ll win the ACC title and play in the Orange Bowl, or lose and go to the Peach, but that doesn’t mean TOB is the right coach to continue leading us forward, not if we have aspirations of national prominence that we were promised a decade ago when we started writing checks to pay for the renovated Carter-Finley. I trust Debbie Yow to make the right decision about this after the season.

Why? Because TOB will always punt in that same situation rather than going for the win. It’s just his style. And we’ll never be happy about it.

Accepting that call now is even tougher, knowing we blew a golden opportunity to seperate ourselves from Maryland and effectively eliminate Florida state, who both lost today. But the real bitch of it is that somehow we’re still in this fight and so now we’ll all resume that same dreadful, weary hope that hangs like a curse in our lives.

It’s tough being a State fan.

Many great comments from the SFN faithful on BJD’s earlier post here and also our Forums.

About LRM

Charter member of the Lunatic Fringe and a fan, loyal to a fault.

'10 Football Tom O'Brien

76 Responses to Wide Right in Tallahassee

  1. mikeD 11/06/2010 at 6:52 PM #

    What did you guys think of the Offensive play calling? Sending Washington up the middle play after play after play didn’t work once! So why did we keep doing that? I put the loss on the shoulders of the coaches. (and dropped passes)

  2. quacko 11/06/2010 at 6:53 PM #

    TGW is still a eunuch

  3. NCSUPackfan 11/06/2010 at 6:54 PM #

    I have lost years off of my life being a State fan. I fear UNC & Maryland!!

  4. Clarksa 11/06/2010 at 7:02 PM #

    UNC-CHeat will now have the pleasure of knocking us out of the title game…

  5. EdMar 11/06/2010 at 7:15 PM #

    Unfortunately all that game at FSU did was: make Carolina look better, put more pressure on their Admin. not to get rid of BD, give them added confidence, help their recruiting (as if they need any more help) and worse of all continue to give us hope. I would love to win the next three, but the chances of us beating UNC and Maryland at their places is probably slim and none.

    The only good thing about this FB season coming to an end is that unlike most years there is at least hope in Basketball.

    PS: Since the Cross Country team DID NOT win the ACC this year we might as well pack it in for the year.

  6. BJD95 11/06/2010 at 7:33 PM #

    The Holes have decided to start passing deep. As badly as they burned the Noles…what do you expect they’ll do to us?

    Especially now that our offense has gone into hibernation.

    P.S. – I have no hope for basketball, either. But maybe Duke or Carolina will do something that suits our schadenfreude fancy.

  7. rky 11/06/2010 at 7:38 PM #

    learn to be satisfied with 7-5

  8. 61Packer 11/06/2010 at 7:41 PM #

    I’ve been telling you all that UNC will skate free of all this. After what the league did to the FSU woman’s soccer coach, while nada has been done to UNC (or will be done) for a boatload of atrocities, how much more will it take for you to see the double standard here?

    As for the FSU wide right, at least they didn’t punt.

  9. 61Packer 11/06/2010 at 7:44 PM #

    What’s this PS from BJD “I have no hope for basketball, either”?

    Surely whatever basketball failings we have athletically will be more than made up for by astute coaching.

  10. Packfan28 11/06/2010 at 7:45 PM #

    I’d prefer not to see TJ Graham on the field again. He has done way more harm than good this year.

  11. ChiefJoJo 11/06/2010 at 7:48 PM #

    From the post-game thread:

    “old13 Says:
    November 6th, 2010 at 5:51 pm

    * Blocked field goal
    * Interception thrown into endzone
    * Fumble deep in own territory
    * Dropped passes
    * Long balls thrown up for grabs
    * Long kick return
    * Failure to down EASILY downable ball on one yard line
    * Coach fail on fourth-and-1-1/2 (never should have come down to this)
    * Four-yard punt
    * 13-14 Clemson”

    Look at all the mistakes we made (add in the penalty that called back the Manning pick six) and there’s just no way we deserved to win this one. Sure we had a chance, and sure we probably should have gone for it on 4th & 1, but there were so many opportunities missed during the game, it’s hard for me to lay all the blame on O’Brien for the loss.

  12. redterror16 11/06/2010 at 7:59 PM #

    How has TJ Graham done more harm than good?

  13. RegularExpression 11/06/2010 at 8:06 PM #

    I wonder if TOB is really a gutless wonder or if he just sucks at clock management? This isn’t the first end of half/game situation that he has mangled beyond belief. Pitt and one other game last year come to mind. Given the amount of time left the absolute obvious choice was to go for it. I wonder if TOB even realized that 1 Clemson first down would have won the game for them.

    Did anyone have the stomach to listen to his post game remarks? Did he try to defend the call?

  14. LRM 11/06/2010 at 8:12 PM #

    Haha, so the upside is that TOB = The Mad Hatter’s evil twin!

  15. Statefan1998 11/06/2010 at 8:19 PM #

    To answer that tj question. ECU.

  16. Packfan28 11/06/2010 at 8:34 PM #

    Or Va Tech

  17. Packfan28 11/06/2010 at 8:34 PM #

    Or today.

  18. ADVENTUROO 11/06/2010 at 9:19 PM #

    I was attending a funeral and a reception for the family in Richmond and only caught parts of the game….some on TV and some on XM. The game was what it was. Both teams looked bad. Both teams made mistakes. I wondered about the TOB call, but decided that he would have to live with that and my reputation as a Monday Night QB (@ the Backyard Bistro) was still intact.

    I also listened to the UNC game on XM. John (I coached there once) Bunting was doing the color. I finally had to stop and get all the blue blood that he let off the dash. He did gloat a little and he is still a true blue person. Not really a bad guy.

    After I found out that the U of Miami fame had put down the not so mighty Turtles, I decided that it was time to pull for UNC. My wife, the ultimate ABCer was also pulling for them.

    This is the lady who once, while seated in the RED (tickets from the WPC) section of Keenan once told a UNC fan who was there (why, God does NOT even know…) and had been trashing the team, spouting stuff about the Ref’s going to the same church as our coaching staff, and getting really BENT out of shape about the “Go TO H@LL, Carolina” line in our fight song. I went to get my lovely wife a coke and when I got back, she was fuming and told me about her encounter with the UNC lady(?) behind her. Apparently my wife had enough and stood up, in the lady’s face and told her that there was a reason why we said “Go TO H@LL, Carolina” and that she and other fans like her were it. The husband told his wife to cool it and then they left. There were a few other UNC fans in the section and they were almost high fiving my wife. They said that SHE was the epitimy of an OBNOXIOUS and ELISTIC UNC fan.

    SO, when she uttered the phrase and cheered when UNC scored, I immediatly starting dialing 911 as she must need immediate medical attention….

    I congratulate the UNC team, and I mean the ELIGIBLE player. They are showing real heart.

    I think that CLUELESS is the catch phrase for Coach Davis, but the NCAA will have to determine if he, the Captain, is ultimately responsible and will get the dreaded LOIC or if they will, as in Michigan’s case, stick to the lesser Failure to Monitor.

    TOB stated that we will need SOMEBODY to help us out if we lose….and we got the help.

    I only hope that today’s game is NOT a sign of things to come and that we will bounce back against WFU…and that we FULLY understand the importance of beating UofMD and UNC….

    Thanking the UNC TEAM today, who virtually RESET the system (since Miami also helped) so that “today” never happened, as far as the standings go. Sure we lost, but we are in JUST as good a position NEXT week as we were THIS morning.

  19. ADVENTUROO 11/06/2010 at 9:47 PM #

    SFN,

    In my opinion, and I am not the moderator or the owner of this site, it is time to DELETE the previous thread. I posted here first, then got around to reading the 177 posts. Either my ISP is messed up or the thread is closed. It needs to disappear as UNC leveled the field for us and the anger (and maybe the buzz) also started to wear off.

    The call was NOT the greatest, but all the dropped passes and dumb mistakes (offense, defense and special teams) was the real reason. Some of the folks that saw the game commented that Wilson appears to be sliding first, then taking care of the ball. Maybe he’s bruised more than we think….cut him some slack. Cut TOB some slack. The insidious remarks about Woodson are way off base. I have met the man at a WPC rally and heard him speak. He seems to be a straight shooter. Trashing him is totally disrespectful and should not be allowed until we fully understand WHERE he is coming from. I think that he is the MOST refreshing breath of fresh air that we have seen. I guess that folks want another Saint Monteith or slimey politico like Oblinger.

    Just one opinion.

  20. baxter 11/06/2010 at 9:55 PM #

    ^100% agree. However, I suggest we just move it potentially to the forum instead. This cry fest to a potential new viewer might quickly turn them off.

  21. Plz2BStateFan 11/06/2010 at 9:59 PM #

    How about we actually enjoy a couple 7,8,9 win seasons while increasing our depth before we start talking about another coaching search.

    Sheesh

  22. redterror16 11/06/2010 at 10:03 PM #

    Most of that was just emotion comming out from a tough loss. I would suggest that SFN just edit all the comments on TOB to say Wade Phillips. DAMN YOU WADE!!!!!!

  23. Plz2BStateFan 11/06/2010 at 10:04 PM #

    Lets actually get to the point that BC fans were at. Where they were tired of TOB and his crappy 8-10 win seasons and competing for ACC CG…

    Then we can be called spoiled

    Lets get there first….

  24. redterror16 11/06/2010 at 10:07 PM #

    Its about time for a new vid plz2b. When the man comes around by johnny cash might be a good place to start

  25. eas 11/06/2010 at 10:22 PM #

    No way Yow gets rid of TOB after a decent season. I agree the coaching is lifeless and the equivalent of the HWSNBN of college football.
    However, unless we loose out big the remainder of the season….TOB is here next year.

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