Not blaming the loss on this but the Pick 6 was a badly missed PI call

I really don't think that was very bad. He was looking back for the ball. I could see it called but it's not a no-brainer. Honestly, if that was an Ag we'd say it was a bad call if it was flagged. The INT itself, Johnny definitely made the wrong read. Evans had single coverage on the outside and while he didn't have a lot of separation, there is no way he any help was coming. It was 2nd and 1 too so there was zero need to force that.

The call on Zo was obvious. You may not like the rule, but he should know it. You have to teach guys to stop for safety reasons. It's hard to do, but it's the rule and I bet he never does it again now. You can argue about whether it should have been hands to the face on the OL but either way, Zo has to stop. I believe we'll submit something to the league that the Bama oline brings their hands up a lot. They did it to Ennis too later. That needs to be strictly enforced because it's just as dangerous.

I couldn't really tell from my angle but my initial thought before they even said what it was, was that it was on Evans. I was actually looking at him and he got his arm extended. Whether there was much push I didn't know but it certainly looked like it. Watching the replay I can see it was hardly anything but I can understand how that is easily missed.

Gary Danielson made a good point about it in that if you use your elbow it isn't going to get called even if it's violent but even a slight push with your hand when you extend your arm often gets called. It just looks worse than it is.

this must be what all the LSU fans meant when they say the REC does work.

He hit him in the facemask so hard it moved his head back well before the ball arrived. You can't hit a guy like that prior to the ball arriving, period.

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Only thing that matters. Frankly I think this may have been JFF's only mistake of the day.

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Eh, he wasn't perfect. Here's an example. This is 3rd and 6. If he runs outside of Harrison it's an easy first down as he could easily outrun the DT on that play but he cut back in. You can see the space on the replay. This was a pretty critical juncture in the game as well.

He made a couple of bad reads otherwise. His talent, particularly his accuracy, makes up for it but that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. For instance, on Kennedy's first TD he made an incredibly risky throw when the safety stepped up to spy leaving Mike Evans in man with no help. Manziel stared down Kennedy and never once looked at Evans whose man fell down basically on the snap. It worked but it was an extremely high risk pass. On the replay look at the window he's throwing into. ***

He's come an amazingly long way since last year at this time though. I remember at the Arkansas game as good as his stats were, he stared down receivers as others ran completely free more than a time or two. If today's Manziel played that game we probably score 1000.


*** ETA: I know Kennedy is absolutely the first read on that play. But Manziel's key is the safety that walked up. He needs to move him with his eyes to open up the passing lane to Kennedy. The way to do that is to look to Evans and if he had he'd have seen Evans was wide open and he'd have just thrown there.

Thanks for the vid.


Yeah that really was bad. Yes he had his hands on him, but it doesn't appear that he pushes off at all. However from the officials viewpoint directly behind the play I could see him missing that.