November 21, 2009
Last-second debacle raises larger questions
By Stephen Evans
It’s happened all year long, and it finally cost the LSU football team a game.
Throughout the 2009 season there have been glaring, alarming instances of poor clock management at the end of halves. It happened against Georgia. It happened against Florida. It even happened against Vanderbilt.
Previously, it just cost the Tigers potential points, but did not have a real impact on the game’s final outcome.
Saturday evening in Oxford, Miss., it cost LSU a chance to win the game. Instead of capping off a great come-from-behind victory against Ole Miss, the Tigers fell 25-23 amid chaos, confusion, and, bluntly, ineptness on the sidelines in the game’s waning seconds.
By the time you read this, you’ve undoubtedly seen the final moments of the game more times than you can stomach. It was immediately replayed time and again on ESPN and accounts of the mishap were posted on numerous national sports websites.
To add insult to injury, LSU head coach Les Miles also did a poor job of describing his rationale in the game’s final seconds when asked for an explanation by CBS sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson, an embarrassing clip that has also been replayed hundreds of times by now for all of the country to see.
Miles’ postgame comments to the media also did not shed much light on the situation, nor did they give Tiger fans any relief to the heartburn they were experiencing after the clock hit zero.
Here’s what Miles had to say, in all of its glory, as released by the Ole Miss media relations department:
“We played a very inspired game, a very competitive game. I can only tell you that the management at the back end of the game was the issue. I think the blame, without question, is when my quarterback needs to throw it away and we’re calling a timeout to save as much clock time as we can but then we’re late to the field. Again, I take that to myself. Down to the one with one second, they had a difficult time getting the chains moved. We could have gotten lined up to kick a field goal with one second. That would certainly have been the end of the game that we would have foreseen. It’s interesting, I felt like the team played awfully hard. I felt like our defense played better in the second half than in the first. I think guys came back from mid-game issues. It’s my fault that we didn’t finish first in that game.
“We were throwing balls that should have been ruled incomplete. If he steps back there to throw, understanding the situation and it’s not there, let it go. He’s trying to keep the play alive and that puts us in the initial issue. We were close enough to kick the field goal at that point, even though long, close enough to kick. Then we throw a screen to pick up some yards down the boundary and get out of bounds and so that was ill-fated as well. That play, the clock ran down, timeouts were being called verbally and I didn’t relate to the official apparently and that was the mistake. We didn’t know that it hadn’t been called and then we come down to nine seconds and the opportunity to get a first down and we make it the play there after. It was a very long position to be in to go for the Hail Mary, then, we make a great catch. Those seconds that ticked off before would certainly have made a difference because if we clock that ball, we then have to opportunity to kick the field goal to win.”
We didn’t know that the timeout hadn’t been called? Really?
Usually when a coach calls a timeout specifically to stop the clock at the end of a game, he makes sure the referee sees him and blows the whistle. Moreover, he then glances toward the scoreboard to see how much time is remaining in the game so that he can devise a plan based on how much time is left.
So we are supposed to believe that the LSU coaching staff called a timeout with 26 or so seconds left in the game, the time that was left on the clock after Stevan Ridley was tackled on the wayward screen pass, and then didn’t realize that the clock hadn’t stopped until there was nine seconds left, at which time they called a timeout again?
If that’s the case, there should have been a hell of an argument by every LSU coach on the sideline as to why the clock wasn’t stopped at the “original” timeout. None of those protests occurred, so that scenario rings pretty hollow, especially given the numerous clock management issues that have occurred already this season.
But let’s move beyond the timeout issue. There were nine seconds left on the clock when they finally got it stopped. The ball was spotted at the Ole Miss 48-yard line. It was third down with no more timeouts remaining. Given those circumstances, there’s not a whole lot to consider. You can either try a Hail Mary pass, knowing the clock might well run out on a complete pass or even if the ball is batted around and takes a while to fall incomplete. Or you can throw a pass to try to pick up the 15-20 yards the team needs to get into Josh Jasper’s range.
Either way, the quarterback has to understand that if the ball is caught in the field of play, it must be beyond the first down marker so that the clock stops. Also, if three or more seconds are left, the quarterback must race his team to the line and spike it in order to allow the field goal team a chance to win the game. Finally, if there are one or two seconds left, the sideline must either race the field goal team onto the field or the quarterback must know that it’s on him to get the team to the line and run another play, this one into the endzone.
Those are the options. These situations are weekly, if not daily, and prepared for in detail during the course of implementing a game plan. Certainly these last-second scenarios should be second nature by the eleventh week of the season.
And, remember, there was a timeout called by LSU prior to that final ill-fated play, providing yet another opportunity to go through the scenarios.
Instead, despite all of the practice time, despite the conversations during the timeout, and despite the situation just being a basic late-game football scenario that should be second nature to players and coaches who have been in the game all of their lives, LSU never got its chance to win the game.
And that is unfortunate.
So where does the team go from here? Miles has made it a point since the Alabama loss to say that this team is much different than last year’s squad which suffered a late-season swoon. He may well be correct in that assessment. However, after a very promising start that had visions of an SEC championship and even a national championship just a few short weeks ago, this year’s ending is eerily familiar to that of last season – a loss to Alabama, a scare against an inferior non-BCS conference foe, and a loss to Ole Miss.
Who knows what will happen next week against Arkansas on Senior Day. The Tigers lost their championship goals, then readjusted their sights to being a 10-win team and finishing in the top five for the fourth time in five years. Now those goals are also unattainable.
What inspiration is left, other than sending the seniors out the right way? A win would likely propel LSU to the Cotton Bowl. But another loss could bounce the Tigers to the Liberty Bowl against the Conference USA champion.
Talk about hard to get up for. That would be embarrassing, for sure.
This loss is going to be hard to swallow for many. For Miles, his postgame remarks just don’t add up, and he now has more doubters than he has ever had since arriving at LSU. He must now do something to win them back.
For the LSU administration, the Ole Miss loss may have cost them 15,000 – 20,000 in Tiger Stadium on Saturday night with it being the weekend after Thanksgiving and nothing left on the line as far as LSU fans are concerned. That is an unexpected slap in the face at a time when there is a need to collect every penny possible from the athletic department’s gravy train.
Was this just a loss stemming from unfortunate circumstances, or does this latest debacle represent a crack in the foundation? Those are the debates that will be going on throughout the state, on talk radio, and on Internet message boards.
This holiday week is going to bring added significance for Miles and his coaching staff. Not only do they need to devise a game plan that will put it in a position to pick up a win against Arkansas, but they also need to begin the process of winning the fan base back.
That will certainly prove more difficult. And, unlike the glaring clock management problems that have surfaced throughout the season, winning back the fan base is something that cannot be ignored.
