Bill Parcells was the last guy onto the bus when the victorious Giants departed Candlestick Park after winning the 1990 NFC Championship Game over San Francisco. He immediately made eye contact with Bill Belichick and said three words regarding the mighty Buffalo Bills, their upcoming opponent in Super Bowl XXV: "shorten the game."
Shorten the game. Why? Because the offensive talent assembled on the Bills' roster far outclassed anything the rough and tumble Giants could throw at them. But by shortening the game Big Blue could limit the amount of time Buffalo's vaunted K-Gun offense was on the field and maybe, just maybe, they could control the clock to have a chance late. It would take smart, disciplined football and it would require no mistakes from Jeff Hostetler, their backup QB....but it could be done. And it was. The Giants had the ball for nearly 41 minutes and, thanks to Scott Norwood's field goal miss at the horn, NYG won its second Super Bowl, 20-19. The gameplan formulated by Bill Belichick for the contest resides inside the walls of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
A football coach's number one objective is not to make pillars of the community. It is not to lock arms at midfield and project an aura of familial togetherness. The number one objective for every football coach from the University of Oklahoma to Panhandle State is to win football games, and for a team to have a chance to win football games those coaches have to put their charges in position to be successful. What we saw Saturday afternoon in the Cotton Bowl was a team that had two weeks to prepare and still chose to attack the #1 team in the country with one hand tied behind its back.
I haven't played a down of tackle football in 30 years. I'll never be confused with Amos Alonzo Stagg, but I have a basic understanding of the game, and I know that it's damn hard to score when your offense is sitting under those little tents on the sidelines. If you're controlling the clock, if you're matriculating the ball down the field, you've got a chance. I remember sitting in Owen Field in 2018 when we played
Army. Kyler Murray threw a pick at the Black Knight 1 with 12:23 to go in the 4th. The score was tied at 21. I turned to my buddy and said, "we might not get the ball back." I was very nearly proven correct.
We have a true freshman at QB who can run like a gazelle. We have three serviceable running backs. The attrition in our wide receiver room is bad enough to be compared to Mr. Burns'
softball team. I guarantee you somewhere on the roster are five linemen who can block the man in front of them. And if those five guys can block the five in front of them then there's a good chance somebody can pull or chip and trap. And maybe if you bust one for a few yards off right tackle then you can run a little bootleg off of that and get your quarterback in space. And if the D has to think about the pulling guard and the boot action off of that then maybe decent play action has a chance to freeze that linebacker for a second.
It's old school football. But it works. We don't have to go out there and show everybody how damn smart we are. We don't have to prove to the world we can run RPO and wow the pundits with our creative schemes. We just need 2nd and 7. We are the worst first down team since the 1928 Pottsville Maroons. We are in 2nd and 14 more than I ever thought possible. Matriculate. Hold onto the ball. Positive yards. Quick hitters. If we can't block as a unit let's run it up the guard's ass a few times so we're only depending on one good block instead of five. Bring in the splits. Ass cheek to ass cheek and knock the **** out of the nearest guy in orange.
There is no reason in the world for this team to run tempo. None. Get the play called, get everybody on the same page, and run your stuff correctly with mere moments left on the play clock. We don't need flash. We don't need an elaborate route tree with three-level concepts. We need to make yards on first down. We need our defense fresh. We need to flip the field. We need to STAY IN BOUNDS! What we saw Saturday was coaching malfeasance. That's not hyperbole. I was in the stands for all but one of John Blake's home games. I know steaming piles of crap when I see it. How we could have two weeks to prepare and produce THAT festering turd of an offensive game plan is beyond my limited understanding.
The first quarter Saturday reminded me of the
2015 game, a 24-17 Texas win. The Horns took advantage of our early mistakes and jumped out to a 14-0 lead. We completely panicked. Riley abandoned the run and we never got over the hump. The 2015 game was the third of four consecutive trips to Dallas where we were double-digit favorites. We were undefeated; Texas was 1-4. The Horns had Jerrod Heard and TYRONE SWOOPES as quarterbacks. And they won. They kicked our butts. Four straight years of being two touchdown dogs, the end of Mack Brown, the whole Charlie Strong era, and those assholes outscored us over that stretch to the tune of 126-113. We had them completely on tilt for a solid quarter Saturday. Had the offense done anything.......who knows? When you're not getting the breaks the doubt will fester. When you fumble out of the endzone to go up 14-3 it can really jack with your psyche. Instead the offense does nothing and that little wideout outruns the whole fleet to recover the fumble. Game OVER.
The two great Sooner coaches of my lifetime both faced existential crises after a decade on the job: Switzer in 1983 and Bob in 2014. Both responded with keen hires and great recruiting to place the program back on its proper pedestal. The King brought in Mack Brown (say what you want) and turned the D over to a youth movement en route to winning the Big 8 in 1984. Stoopsie conducted a true OC search, and brought in an absolute wizard (again, say what you want) to turn the offense into an absolute juggernaut. The hiring of Seth Littrell and the promotion of Joe Jon Finley is an unmitigated disaster. Shooing away a Heisman candidate in favor of an unproven player will have long-lasting repercussions that are difficult to fathom.
I sure hope we beat South Carolina. It's going to be mighty ugly the rest of the way if we don't.
Thank you for your time.
