10 Prayer for New Mexico – Mike Locksley and his exploits of inane coaching stupidity would be number 1, if I hadn't already done an entire Lowlight post on his existence as the New Mexico coach. Go read it here.
9 The existence of Randy Edsall, head coach of Maryland – Edsall was coming off a BCS berth with UConn and took over a 9-4 team with a preseason all-conference quarterback. Of course he ran it not just into the ground, but so far into the ground that two more years of this along with the excessive attrition caused by his form of discipline could move him into Locksley territory (at least on the field). Of course the Terps got what they deserved since they fired an alumni who was coach of the year and replaced him with a poor man's version of the same coach. They got what they deserved because they had the coach who looks like he is going to turn Vanderbilt into a real contender under contract as coach in waiting and couldn't wait to get rid of him. And they also got what they deserved because they interviewed Locksley for the job (seriously they did) because of his recruiting ties to the Washington D.C. Area.
8 You trusted your defense? Why? - The final score reads like a basketball score. Northern Illinois 63, Toledo 60. That doesn't tell the whole story. In this game, Toledo scored with 4:16 to go to take a 60-56 lead. Northern Illinois then drove to the Toledo 27 yard line in only two plays. At that point, what would you do? Your options are have faith in you defense to get a stop even though it had allowed 56 points in the game already or let Northern Illinois score and take your chances driving for either a tying field goal or a winning touchdown with about two minutes on the clock. If you chose the first option, you are Tim Beckman. You picked wrong. Northern Illinois scored with 19 seconds left and not even the turbocharged offenses found in this game were capable of pulling that off.
7 Ron Zook doesn't know the score - Against Indiana, Ron Zook had his team go for two. no problem there except the score was 20-13. Going for two and failing left it a one-score game. Going for two and getting it would be a relatively meaningless nine point lead. Of course that's not all though. After the game, the press asked Zook about it and he said he went for two because he thought his team was down by five. WHAT??? All you had to do Zook was look at the scoreboard. And to think, this is when things were going well of Illinois. The win in this game when his team blew Indiana out later on was number six in a 6-0 start, the best Illini start since 1951. It was Zook's final win as Illinois coach.
6 Whoever is coaching the Wisconsin secondary – It was bad enough to lose on a Hail Mary against Michigan St. when the defense forgot the first rule of Hail Mary defense: KNOCK IT DOWN.
Then came an even more mind blowing offense: allowing Braxton Miller to beat you with his arm. Even worse, the winning pass was in the air for about an hour and still nobody managed to get there.
5 Charlie Weis, Kansas head coach – LOL.
4 Derek Dooley, King of the Orange Pants – Dooley had tons of injury problems this season. He also struggled to deal with the media or have his team play hard in the face of all the injuries. He enters next season on the hotseat because of that. But he still has his orange pants.
3 Week after week, it was always the same – Texas A&M coach Mike Sherman (make that former coach) came from the NFL. And his NFL roots caused all sorts of issues. Most notably, NFL coaches are conservative with the lead. It's just how they are bred in the pros (UCLA fans take note in your complaints about Dan Guerrero). This year, that bacckfired on Mike Sherman. Week after week, A&M would get a big lead. And week after week, Sherman would get conservative with his play calling. And week after week, teams would come roaring back against a defense that had no secondary to speak of (for much of the season, A&M led the nation in sacks while somehow being the worst pass defense in the nation, meaning anytime the quarterback got a throw off, there was about a 50/50 chance of it being a 30 yard gain). After seeing offenseless Texas do it in the final meeting between the schools, the A&M administration had enough. Now they have a coach that, if nothing else, will continue to keep throwing the ball around with the lead to protect his bad pass defense (something Kevin Sumlin should be all too familiar with after the last few years at Houston).
2 RAGE FACE -
You would be angry too if your offense did what Brian Kelly's Notre Dame offense did the first few weeks of the season.
1 You iced your own kicker, Really?!? - Gary Pinkel, come on down. You iced your kicker when he had a chance to win the game (on the final play). Your overtime loss to Arizona St. because of this was well deserved. Given that statistically, icing the kicker does no good, I don't understand why more coaches don't go stand next to the official and then let the play happen. Of course that doesn't apply to your own coach. I also believe that your own coach needs to let you kick. When the kicker is lined up and hears his own coach called timeout, I think he thinks in his head WTF? Then he ices himself and misses (see also Dallas Cowboys). In addition to this debacle from way back in September, Pinkel could easily make this list for getting suspended for Missouri's home finale by getting a DUI arrest during the season. He probably would be on the list for that had Missouri not managed to come through and win anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment