While I'm sure there were things Day and Patricia could have done in retrospect to put their players in a position to better succeed (e.g., tighter DB coverage on third down, more RB screens, playing with more tempo on offense), overall, I can't say that the playcalling was as abysmal (particularly on offense) as it was in the B1G CCG. Last night's loss weighs even more heavily on poor execution.
Obviously, everything starts with the offensive line looking leakier than a broken umbrella in a hurricane. There were plays where we had receivers open for big gains, and had our linemen put up even a whimper more resistance in pass pro, we may have hit them. We had our TEs chipping Bain and Mesidor and them still absolutely abusing our tackles en route to taking Julian's head off. This clearly rattled Sayin, as he was seeing ghosts in the backfield and playing scared for huge stretches of the game. That said, even QB1 had quite a few plays where he missed an open guy, and his inability to recognize green grass in front of him on scrambles was almost comical at times (the end of the first half looms so damn large). That said, we have to have grace for Julian, as he has literally started all of 13 collegiate games prior to the Cotton Bowl. Contrast this to old man Carson Beck, a sixth (?!) year player with 41 games of starting experience in the SEC, including two conference championship games and four CFP runs. The difference in their experience was profound. I'm proud of what Julian has been able to achieve in his first season as a starter, and he has a universe of potential, but he's still got quite a bit of growing to do and it showed.
While people are quick to blame Day's choice of outside screen on the pick-6, that was a laughable blocking effort on the edge for us, and the DB basically ran completely freely straight for the ball. We slow him down and that's a short gain or an incompletion. Similarly, Tate gave up on a route over the middle on 2nd and long on our final drive--had he continued going through the ball, it would have brought up 3rd and long, not 3rd and Mesopotamia that sealed the need to punt. Continuing the theme of poor pass blocking, it wasn't just the OL. Bo Jackson got absolutely blasted backwards into his QB by a safety to cause yet another sack on a pivotal play. People had their 1:1 opportunities and simply did not do their jobs.
Even our sure-handed defense showed a bunch of rust, turning in their poorest tackling effort of the season. A few of those missed tackles could have been the difference between a sustained Miami drive and a FG.
And I don't know if I'll ever let go of how frustrating our special teams has been the past few years. I'm out of words to explain why we don't let Jackson Courville at least get a try at placekicker in-game, and why we desecrate the good name of Jim Tressel by allowing such mediocrity in the punting unit. We finally flip the field on McGuire's one good punt of the day, and we have a completely unforced error while lining up. Pathetic.
Of course, at the end of the day all of this filters back to big C "coaching", as technique, film study, on-field adjustments, and personnel decisions fall squarely on the shoulders of the coaching staff. That said, I felt that while not great, playcalling was not the primary reason we lost last night. Just my two cents--feel free to flame away if you feel otherwise.
