Honestly

Excellent post, Lat. it was a great game.

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My first reaction was to be pissed off at the 4th and 1 call, the crappy defense, and the FG at the end (ultimately that was the right call). This morning... I'm not upset. We were only playing for a slightly better bowl and they still didn't fold. They played their best and I feel we are pretty even with them. Feel bad for BA for having a game like that and getting the L though.

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I certainly agree with going on it on fourth down. But, I would've liked a higher percentage play to convert. We couldn't stop them on D and they basically were gifting us the game. We score there and it's OVER. They were demoralized. Highsight is 20/20, but I said right then that play would frick us. Of course, a shitty defense is what really did us in, but that's a given. And there's no excuse for such a shitty D. He's had 3 years to recruit and we have the WORST scoring D in the SEC. By FAR!!!!!!!!!! Nothing we can do about it of course, but I see no reason to make excuses for incompetence. And everyone wants to blame Petrino, but the talent we lost that everyone points to as the reason for our defensive decline was all Petrino talent.

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He thought the FG would be a given at that range

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Although the numbers say otherwise. Did he not realize our kicker is 8 of 12 on the season? And looked like he was about to shite himself? Did he not just see a kick blocked at the end of regulation against Ole Miss? That's our point. 99% of the time playing for the FG is the right decision. Maybe we're just scarred and cynical from years of this same bullshite, but as soon as it was obvious we were playing for the FG, I knew we were fricked.

8 of 13 now. And how many of the made were under any pressure whatsoever? Shitty special teams loses games, shitty defense loses games, shitty in game coaching decisions loses games, shitty recruiting loses games. But the future looks bright!!!!!!!!! my arse

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My issue is that State's O looked unstoppable at that point. 45 seconds would have been plenty of time for them to get into FG range had we made it.

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That's the thing, and it's why we should've taken a shot or two at the EZ on the last set of downs on our last series. Playing for the FG is the right call in a vacuum, but not when the opposing offense is absolutely owning your defense and getting into FG range wasn't going to be difficult. They'd been hitting the big play all night, and averaging 15 yards a clip when they weren't.

Again, I could've somewhat gotten on board with the choice to play for the FG if we had Zach Hocker sitting on the bench and our defense had had some semblance of success against their O, but we chose to take the ball out of the hands of our 5th year senior All-SEC caliber QB and put it into the hands of an inconsistent freshman kicker.

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My issue is that State's O looked unstoppable at that point. 45 seconds would have been plenty of time for them to get into FG range had we made it.

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They would have gotten the ball back with around 30 seconds left and no timeouts. The way Dak was playing that could have been enough time to do it but they would have had little margin for error.

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They would have gotten the ball back with around 30 seconds left and no timeouts. 

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We could play the what if game for a long time