National TV game between # 20 West Virginia and # 7 TCU came down to the final play of the game with TCU kicking a field goal to win 31-30. It appeared WVU had the upset in their hands with leads of 27-14 in the 3rd quarter and 30-21 in the 4th. This was despite that West Virginia had turned the ball over 5 times, which led to 14 TCU points. Coming into the game today, West Virginia had one of the leading QBs in Clint Trickett and projected first round NFL draft wide receiver. Kevin White. TCU came into the game as footballs # 1 scoring team so the game was portrayed as a potential shootout and high scoring affair. The West Virginia defense and head coach, Dana Holgorsen changed that possibility. The defense played a pretty good game. but could not get off the field for much of the second half. Reason was that Holgorsen went extremely conservative with his play calling. The offense was run after run after run and leaving each series with a 3rd down and 4 or 5 or even 3rd and 9 or 10 only to run the ball once again and turn the ball over to the high powered TCU offense. At one point this play calling drew loud boos from the West Virginia faithful as they could feel the game slowly shifting from their coach basically shutting down their own offense.
After the game, Holgorsen was asked about the conservative play calling and was it a good move. He made some reply that it is his job to win games and he felt that QB, Trickett looked spooked and if they did not go to that sort of play calling. the outcome could have been worse. Nothing like hanging your QB out to dry. If anything Clint Trickett looked upset and frustrated with the play calling as opposed to being spooked. WVU went with 54 run plays compared to just 26 passing. Throw out one long gain of 50 yards, the average gain per run play was under 3 yards per carry. Constantly going 3 plays and a punt, some might feel that Holgosen's conservative play calling was exactly what TCU needed to pull out a win. I AGREE
2 comments:
The turnovers were bad enough and the horrendous offensive play callin in the 4th quarterclosed the door on any hopes they
may have had
the turn-overs didn't do anything except slow the game or make it a little more exciting. The collapse & loss of the game was direct from Holgersons play calls. ( ( if you can even call them plays ) )
Post a Comment