Down 14, 3 minutes to go...

by Bleed Blue 'n White on Jan 1, 2009 9:04 PM EST

Yeah, OK, we lost. But I'm not going to complain about any of the players, or the playcalling, or the interception. I don't care about that - what happened, happened. It's a game.

What I am going to complain about is the announcing. Down 14, with 3 minutes to go, with the ball, Brent Musberger makes a comment that "they're trying to make it a one score game," and half chuckles at it. Kirk Herbstreit says something like "they're playing for pride."

No, idiot. Down 2 scores, with the ball, with 3 minutes to go, you're still playing to win. If they hit a quick TD, it's a one score game and USC's unable to kneel out the clock, so you still might not even have to kick an onside kick. Yeah, it's Hail Mary desperation time, but who knows - maybe USC's long snapper fires it over the punter's head just like he did again.

Later, Herbstreit says something like "USC's gameplan changed..." and he's right. It did. They went from trying to continue to score to trying to run out the clock. That's how you win football games - you throw to gain a lead early, and run to finish the game late. And USC couldn't do that against Penn State. That's dangerous. You can lose games like that - even ones where you're up big. USC didn't "dominate" the game. If they "dominated" the game, they would've been able to gain a single first down on the last few drives so that they could kneel out the clock.

USC knew that they were letting Penn State have life. Sanchez was pissed on the sidelines, trying to get the defense to focus and the skill players to stay in bounds. But instead of the announcers noticing any of this, we got to listen to the announcers blather on about nothing.

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that had to be

the worst play calling i had ever seen. even my uncle who is a pitt fan had to change the channels b/c he was sick of it….it was like they were being paid to give USC all the BJ’s.

at least kirk started to say something at the end…i think he was just tired of being on his knees

by amandakt on Jan 1, 2009 9:29 PM EST reply actions

I agree

I usually enjoy Herbie and Furburger announcing games but when USC started pouring it on in the 2nd quarter they didn’t stop with the USC is the greatest chatter throughout the rest of the game. It was horrible. Anyways I was really proud and excited watching our team continue to go all out. The only player that kinda pissed me off was #2. It was like he was pouting and like he kinda gave up. Probably wasn’t the case but it just what I felt watching him out there. Anyhoot, great year. Can’t wait to talk this offseason. Thanks BSD folks.

Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

by wookieeman on Jan 1, 2009 9:37 PM EST reply actions

I lost a lot of repect for Herbstriet during this game, a lot. He was so disrespectful to PSU. Acting like PSU was a bunch of little kids, it was condescending and rude.

You can actually give praise to one team without being a dick to the other, they havent got that yet. I’m not mad about the lost, we all knew in our hearts of hearts that we had to play great to win. I am pissed about being disrespected by a washed up buckeye.

by Roland86 on Jan 1, 2009 9:49 PM EST reply actions

Like I said, the thing that drove me the most nuts was them not realizing that Penn State had clawed their way back into the game. Down 31-7, we came back and were within 2 scores with a manageable clock situation. Not easy, no, but manageable.

Clark’s interception was a killer, and it barely rated any attention from Musberger and Herbstreit. It’s easy enough to say “oh, the game was over when Green fumbled in the second quarter, letting USC go up 31-7,” but that’s not true at all.

The worst bit was when they made it sound like bringing out Kevin Kelly for the field goal after driving down the field was just to say he kicked a FG in the Rose Bowl. Except that field goal put us a score closer to USC – it was absolutely without a doubt the right thing to do if you were trying to win. Which we were.

I don’t even mind the USC slurping so much. It’s the completely clueless part that drives me nuts. Part of me was hoping that Penn State would pull within a score and then miraculously grab the onside kick for a chance at a Hail Mary, just to hear one of them go “wait, when did this become a game again?!”

by Bleed Blue 'n White on Jan 2, 2009 3:00 AM EST up reply actions

Sitting there and watching them roll out the FG team

drew all the SC and a decent amount of PSU fans asking ‘WTF’ but I was on the same page with them. I had to explain to them that we still needed a 3 as we were down by 24 and people still didn’t get it. We did the right thing and even on the RB replay screen you could see Quarless fall down so I don’t hang the entire thing on DC as he was getting nailed in the backfield while letting it go. Those kids did their best to come back and that damn bomb Sanchez threw was the real dagger, IMHO.

I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member

by TheMightyErik on Jan 2, 2009 11:33 AM EST up reply actions