Cal celebrates Big Game win.
Did New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick start a trend with questionable decisions to go for it on fourth down instead of punt? Not in the NFL, but maybe in college football if two calls from Saturday are an indication. And like Belichick’s call, these two also flopped and helped their teams lose.
First up came Stanford, playing in the Big Game against Cal. The Cardinal trailed, 31-28, and faced fourth-and-8 at its own 23 with about 3:50 to play, but with all three timeouts. Punt, right? Nope.
Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh inexplicably went for it, the play failed and Cal went on to kick a field goal for a 34-28 lead. At game’s end, Stanford needed to play for a touchdown instead of a tying field goal and the result was a game-ending interception in the red zone. Dumb.
The worst go-for-it call, though, came in the Harvard-Yale game. Yale led, 10-7, with 2:30 to play and faced 4th-and-22 from its own 25. A punt was obvious and the Bulldogs went into punt formation. But Coach Tom Williams ordered a fake punt. The fake gained 15 yards, but still left Yale (7-3) well short. Predictably, Harvard (4-6) took advantage of the gift and won the game on a last-second touchdown to pull the upset. Dumber.
Belichick is the savviest coach in the NFL, while Stanford and Yale are two of our finest institutions of higher learning. But even smart people sometimes do dumb things as we saw the past two weeks.
on Nov 23rd, 2009 at 2:05 AM
i was thinking the same thing while watching the Big Game, wtf was Harbaugh thinking?! his defense was doing great and the offense was flat, is that a time you really want to gamble like that? and why would you take the ball out of Gerhardt’s hands at all in the 4th quarter? Harbaugh done effed up, that loss is completely his, he should apologize to his team and their fans….
on Nov 23rd, 2009 at 9:56 AM
What about the Ole Miss-LSU game? Miles thought he could spike the ball with 1 second left? I don’t even think it would be possible with 2 seconds.
on Nov 23rd, 2009 at 9:58 AM
@ DruggyBear – Apparently that’s the price of beating USC this season. Beat them, then lose your next game.
on Nov 23rd, 2009 at 11:57 AM
Definitely the worst coaching decision was made (or not made?)in the LSU/Ole Miss game. That was just inexcusable.
on Nov 23rd, 2009 at 12:42 PM
Harbaugh made an equally dumb call in their game against Oregon. 4th and 1 at the Oregon 28, up 6, 15 seconds left. Harbaugh goes for the field goal (about 5 mins after his kicker had missed a 40-yarder). The kicker made the kick, but why would you potentially give Oregon the ball at their 35 with 11 seconds left? Or, worse yet, have the kick blocked? Plus, you have a running back who hadn’t been held to 1 yard the whole game (OK, I don’t know that, but he had gashed them for over 200 yards).
A lot is put on coaches, particularly in college: Recruit, manage practice, strategize, and call the game. Many are good at one or two of those things, but few are good at them all.
on Nov 23rd, 2009 at 1:23 PM
Yes, the Les Miles takes the cake in the LSU game but my angle was fourth-down calls.
For those who missed it, Miles let about 25 seconds run off the clock because he “assumed” the refs had heard him call timeout, when they didn’t. Then he had his QB spike the ball when the clock restarted with :01 left (instead of take a shot in the end zone from about the 10), so the spike ends the game.
Harbaugh: Dumb
Yale coach: Dumber
Miles: Dumbest x 10.
on Nov 23rd, 2009 at 4:26 PM
For me the Yale coach takes the cake. The LSU situation had a lot of confusion, miscommunication and time pressure because the clock was still live (i.e., clock was about to restart when the ball was spotted after the final 1st down).
At Yale, there were so many factors working against the coaching decision it’s impossible to even fathom what he might have been thinking. To name just a few:
1. Yale needed 22 yards. So even if the fake worked in fooling the other team (which it did to a certain extent), it was still extremely unlikely they’d pick up 22+ yards for the 1st down.
2. It was a 10-7 game at the time of the fake punt. The Yale defense had given up only one score the entire game. And they weren’t exactly facing Peyton Manning or Tom Brady in the Harvard offense.
3. The coach was not under any ‘clock’ duress. He was able to take the time to consider the circumstances and then he inexplicably made the decision for a fake punt.