re: The Loss to Tech

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If a guy has a huge return...so be it. I would rather lose that way

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We can talk about fumbles and leaving 17 points on the field all day long....that doesn't matter with 18 seconds left. When the chips were down and the game was on the line and we were in a very winnable situation, Richt chose poorly. We know it, he knows it, the whole dang world knows it.

Now if there had been 10 or less seconds on the clock then the squib would have been the right call.

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The kick and the prevent were both insanely idiotic.

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I will give that concession on the prevent...they should have known to contain Thomas better...his feet set them up for that hella long kick...

Don't think the clock starts until the ball is touched...but yes...that is another advantage to squib over a deep kick. The opposing team is forced to return the ball, thus burning time...rather than going with a touchback/fair catch and saving those last few seconds for an orchestrated play, or 21 yard scramble

Had we deep kicked it, GT could have had 18 seconds on the 20 (or maybe less time farther up if they chose to return it). Instead we squibbed and they had 13 seconds on the 43. They only had time for 1 play rather than 2. Remember, they had no timeouts.

18 seconds on the 20 vs 13 seconds from the 43? If Thomas scrambles from his own 20 and even gets 30 yards, the play takes up nearly the entire clock and they have to throw a Hail Mary or kick a 67 yard field goal.

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I coach 9-10 year olds and they know to hold on with two hands to the ball when they see contact coming...

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You don't say... And would that have anything to do with your coaching ability?

It was going to be an absolute classic win for the ages for one of the teams. Ended up being Tech.

Had we pulled it out in OT we would've played the highlights of it forever.

But we lost so now, apparently, we need to fire everybody.

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But we lost so now, apparently, we need to fire everybody

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The fact that Tech, who may have 2 NFL players on their entire roster, came into Athens and won tells me a lot about the state of UGA football right now. Had we won 24-21 it would have been great but I would have also had a lot of concerns heading into any bowl game because we got our lunch money stolen on the line of scrimmage by a team that, again, has about 2 NFL players on the roster.

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Had they got the ball on the 20 with 18 seconds, they could easily run 2, possibly 3, passing plays and still have time to spike for a FG attempt.

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GT is much more likely to hit one 21 yard scramble than 3 consecutive passes covering 50ish yards to get into FG range with no timeouts.

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But with that said, I'm pretty sure CMR would have said something similar about kicking the ball deep if it were returned for a TD,

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I'm not so sure but maybe. The truth is in those situations you should instruct your kicker to kick as deep in the endzone as possible and Morgan is capable of that though somewhat inconsistent. That's what I would have done. Had they done so GT starts on their 25 instead of what their 45? As such, a 21 yard desperation run by the QB makes no difference. I agree that the defense sucked on that play but when you are playing prevent damn defense you always have to allow for extra yardage to prevent a big play. And btw, I hate prevent defense. All you are doing is giving space for playmakers to make plays in front of you plus then you are out of position to make a tackle. I want to be up close and personal when an offensive player does make a catch against my defense.

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FooManChoo, I agree with you. The problem is, there are people around here who are too lazy to figure out what actually went wrong. They'd rather cherry-pick one play that cost us the entire game, as if the rest of the game were played in a total vacuum. The squib vs deep kick is probably #10 on the list of reasons we lost Saturday.

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You and Foo are idiots.

In spite of what happened earlier in the game WE WERE WINNING THE GAME WITH ONLY 18 SECONDS LEFT TO PLAY!!!

We had the game won.

Since we ended up losing the game only a call after we got the go ahead TD cost us the game.

I know which call that was.

Kicking the ball deep into the endzone would have forced GT to run it out and if they ran it out to the 20-25 yard line then it would have taken at least a few seconds off of the clock.

If it had be a longer run to the 30-35 yard line then it would have taken even more seconds off the clock.

GT would have been in the position of having to throw a Hail Mary or a long sideline pass. If they didn't pass and had a long run to even get in field goal range then it would have run out the clock.

BTW, yesterday I caught the end the Chargers vs. the Ravens game and the Chargers went ahead by one point with only 38 seconds left.

On the previous kick off in the game by the Chargers a player on the Ravens had a long run back.

Did the Chargers kick a squib kick because they were afraid of another long run back?

HELL NO!!!

THEY KICKED THE BALL INTO THE END ZONE AND MADE THEM RUN IT OUT!!!

It took 5 seconds off of the clock.

Then the clock ran out before the Ravens could even get into field goal range.

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Don't think I've seen anybody discuss just how terrible the GT placekicker is. Everybody on that field (GT included) probably thought GT had to get the ball to the 25 to even have a fighting chance. Since most of you probably didn't know, I'll go ahead and tell you, the GT kicker was 42% on the season at 30+ yards. His long was 46.

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None of that matters.

The squib kick got GT close enough for their FG kicker to make the FG even though it was the longest of his career.

That bad call gave him the chance and he made it by inches.

If GT had been a few inches further back which is where they would have been if they had to run it out of the end zone or even from a few yards outside the endzone then it would have been too far away for him to make the FG.

Even Richt is now admitting he made a bad call by doing a squib kick.