A Horrible End to A Horrible Season.
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The Ancient Enemy
- Official BleacherCoach
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- Joined: October 30th, 2004, 2:47 pm
A Horrible End to A Horrible Season.
This year's UNT squad has been a blunder at best. With two national rushing champions in the backfield, they could not run the football, and the freshman quarterback is probably the worst college quarterback I have ever seen. Both teams playing today have no real shot at a bowl game, but ASU was 5-5 at least.
UNT came back in the game and made it 24-24 in the fourth quarter. After a few punts back and forth, ASU landed a 49 yard pass play with about a minute and a half left in the game. A few plays later they pushed it in for the touchdown.
UNT got the ball with 30 seconds on the clock, at their own 30 yard line. Playcalling has been the biggest hamper to the offensive production all year. There were multiple times where Jamario Thomas wouldn't even be given the ball. They needed to go 70 yards to score a TD and tie the game. This is, of course, the last game of the season. UNT came out with two wideouts to the right and one to the left. They did not get into a shotgun formation. Knowing full well there was 30 seconds left, on the first play they tried a 5 yard slant between the right hash and the sideline. There was no chance the kid was getting out of bounds if he caught it, and luckily he bobbled it and dropped it as he got hit by two defenders. On the second play, they came out in the exact same formation, and completed a five yard turnout to the far-left receiver. On third and five, they came out in the exact same formation and tried to run the same play, without success. It is important to note there were honest to God about 2,000 people in attendance, and the student section did not even show up. You can imagine how irritated I was at the playcalling, especially in the last game of the season, where they needed a TD to win. It does not matter if your QB sucks. You run 5 WR's in a shotgun and try to gain yardage. You need 70 yards in 30 seconds. 5 yard plays are not going to cut it, and I did my best to let Dickey know this in a vulgarity laced tirade by screaming at him from behind the bench. That's the first time I ever did that, but I was just... wow.
Fourth and 5 with like 19 seconds left, they came out in the same formation and heaved one up, which landed nowhere close to the end zone, and was batted down around the 25 yard line. ASU celebrated and that was that.
You've got to give your team a chance to win the game or tie it. You do not acknowledge defeat when there is time left and you have a chance to win or tie with time left on the clock, in the last game of the season, and the last game many of your seniors will ever play. I cannot even begin to explain to you how many times this season that the offensive playcalling has cost them opportunities and games. But then again, this is the same head coach who admittedly said that in bowl games he is just happy to be there. That kind of attitude may have won you games in the past, but the level of competition in the Sun Belt has started to even itself out. ASU is much improved, Monroe made a lot of improvements, Troy is going to be a conference contender every year now, Middle Tennessee is back to conference contention, FAU has a good staff and will be the class of the conference very soon. And as much as it may seem like this is ridiculous, Florida International is a team on the rise, already, in the Sun Belt. North Texas has a joke of a program that is led by an atrocious and counter-productive coaching staff. And this is the same program that can't understand why Conference USA or the WAC wants nothing to do with them.
UNT came back in the game and made it 24-24 in the fourth quarter. After a few punts back and forth, ASU landed a 49 yard pass play with about a minute and a half left in the game. A few plays later they pushed it in for the touchdown.
UNT got the ball with 30 seconds on the clock, at their own 30 yard line. Playcalling has been the biggest hamper to the offensive production all year. There were multiple times where Jamario Thomas wouldn't even be given the ball. They needed to go 70 yards to score a TD and tie the game. This is, of course, the last game of the season. UNT came out with two wideouts to the right and one to the left. They did not get into a shotgun formation. Knowing full well there was 30 seconds left, on the first play they tried a 5 yard slant between the right hash and the sideline. There was no chance the kid was getting out of bounds if he caught it, and luckily he bobbled it and dropped it as he got hit by two defenders. On the second play, they came out in the exact same formation, and completed a five yard turnout to the far-left receiver. On third and five, they came out in the exact same formation and tried to run the same play, without success. It is important to note there were honest to God about 2,000 people in attendance, and the student section did not even show up. You can imagine how irritated I was at the playcalling, especially in the last game of the season, where they needed a TD to win. It does not matter if your QB sucks. You run 5 WR's in a shotgun and try to gain yardage. You need 70 yards in 30 seconds. 5 yard plays are not going to cut it, and I did my best to let Dickey know this in a vulgarity laced tirade by screaming at him from behind the bench. That's the first time I ever did that, but I was just... wow.
Fourth and 5 with like 19 seconds left, they came out in the same formation and heaved one up, which landed nowhere close to the end zone, and was batted down around the 25 yard line. ASU celebrated and that was that.
You've got to give your team a chance to win the game or tie it. You do not acknowledge defeat when there is time left and you have a chance to win or tie with time left on the clock, in the last game of the season, and the last game many of your seniors will ever play. I cannot even begin to explain to you how many times this season that the offensive playcalling has cost them opportunities and games. But then again, this is the same head coach who admittedly said that in bowl games he is just happy to be there. That kind of attitude may have won you games in the past, but the level of competition in the Sun Belt has started to even itself out. ASU is much improved, Monroe made a lot of improvements, Troy is going to be a conference contender every year now, Middle Tennessee is back to conference contention, FAU has a good staff and will be the class of the conference very soon. And as much as it may seem like this is ridiculous, Florida International is a team on the rise, already, in the Sun Belt. North Texas has a joke of a program that is led by an atrocious and counter-productive coaching staff. And this is the same program that can't understand why Conference USA or the WAC wants nothing to do with them.
Last edited by The Ancient Enemy on September 20th, 2011, 12:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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retro1530
- Assistant Coach
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Re: A Horrible End to A Horrible Season.
i thought that thomas and cobbs were going to be the next great running back duo but then anything can happen in the sun belt i guess