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I thought when I saw the replays that there wasn't conclusive evidence to overturn the call. On one replay that had it paused with the ball already having touched and bounced out of his hands, and then his foot rolled out of bounds. Regardless, we scored on that drive...

I was expecting more of this open letter. At least more than five lines. So I'll toss out a few honest, hopefully dispassionate thoughts:

1) Kendall Fuller is now the team leader in interceptions (5). I can't recall a game where a single player had three interceptions, and Kendall had more catches from a Duke QB than all but one of Duke's players. Let's not get lost in the loss so much that we forget that we did have players that played well.

2) But let's also not forget the players that didn't prepare for this game. JR Collins and Deon Clarke were both suspended for the game for violation of team rules. Given that story, I won't guess at what it was, but I think it is one of the usual stories. Early in the game, it looked like they could run outside effectively, and at times I thought the outside was wide open. Who knows if JR would have made a difference, but I have to believe he would have, given that we haven't lost contain on backs like that all year. I also heard a rumor that Michael Branthover had to be called out of the stands for kickoffs. What on earth were we doing today?

3) I've been off of the JC Coleman bandwagon since late last year, and jumped off again when Trey Edmunds had that 76 yarder against Alabama. I think on a different team, with a different level of run-blocking effectiveness, JC could be a good RB. But this isn't that team. JC ended up getting split out wide later in the game, which I think is good for him. He doesn't get enough time to display his quickness when we hand it to him in the backfield. I'd like to see more of Chris Mangus, as he displays the quickness and shiftiness I like to see in our RBs. Trey is a tough kid (see: hitting that guy who caught Logan's pass), and can get tough yards, but Mangus looks to my eye as the best RB (maybe even skill-position) talent we have.

4) Play calling on 3rd and 4th and short was surprising to me. Logan sneak is generally effective. Even the announcer ("Anthony Exhume") called it out. This isn't the first time this year we've seen Loeffler not sneak on something-and-1, including goal line situations. I'll point to something I said to a friend when he said he was debating the winner of the UCLA-Oregon game: "Don't overthink it. Don't fool yourself" Also, hurry-up running with Trey seemed to work on that one drive in the first half. I wonder why we didn't get back to it.

5) Logan didn't play well. But he's the only guy that's prepared. Enough.

6) Journell has worn on all our nerves at this point. Just wait, we only have a few game left with him.

7) Early in the season when we couldn't run at all, I thought it was probably because we were spending all our practice time on the passing game, and I figured we'd spend much of the bye week installing more running options. It looks like we did that (guess), because the passing game didn't look good and we tried to use the running game more, but it wasn't effective. I wish we had at least one option in the playbook (by option, I mean run down the line with an RB behind you and decide when you hit the DE whether to pitch it or not. With Logan and Trey Edmunds, I think the 3rd and 4th and shorts would become a lot easier to make a yard or two if we ran a few of these.

8) I started #1 with a positive and I'll end on a positive. Anthony Exhume, uh, I mean, Antone Exum was back. I didn't hear his name called all day, and not just because the announcer didn't do a lick of research. Kendall had a bunch of INTs, but I didn't see them throwing Antone's way all day. I'm hoping this means he was great in coverage. Either way, it feels like he did well in waiting to return. Can't wait to see the secondary the rest of the year.

That's all. On to BC.

Turkey leg for the correction

We lost because our entire offense is Logan Thomas. His inconsistency meant that he was bound to have some terrible games, and one of those games happened yesterday. There were many plays in the game where this inconsistency was on display, but I just want to point out one particular play:

We had the ball around the red zone on a 2nd and 8; Logan drops back to pass and Byrn comes underneath on a quick drop off pass misdirection screen play; when Logan throws the ball Byrn is literally about 5 yards away from him; the ball is thrown so far behind and high that Byrn has no chance to catch it.

Now, natural QBs will hit that pass 100% of the time. It's inexcusable to not throw a catchable pass from that sort of range. Unfortunately, Logan is not a natural QB. He maybe hits that pass 9 out of 10 times with most of those completions thrown too hard and either high or behind the receiver and certainly not being thrown in stride. This absolutely kills the receivers because they have become accustomed to expecting these passes to not be well thrown. They expect to have to plant both of their feet and make an amazing grab behind them before they can even think about gaining more yards up field. It's a huge reason for why our bubble screens are completely awful. As a result, plays that should gain 8 yards only go for 3, and plays that would've gone for 3 end up being a loss of yardage or no gain. Danny Coale and Jarrett Boykin were able to overcome a lot of this and keep their forward momentum going even though the pass was awful. That's what great players do. However, we no longer have any solid playmakers on offense, which is why I hate blaming Logan Thomas because the guy has the entire offense on his shoulders.

Despite his flaws, he is still a good player. Not a great player, but certainly above average. I feel like the entire rest of the players on offense are average at best. No one has stepped up to become a legitimate threat that opposing DCs have to game plan against. So, instead of expecting Logan to be 120% of our offense, we should be expecting other players to pick up the slack.

I really feel for Logan. The guy probably would have been a great TE and probably drafted in the first three rounds. Instead we tried to teach him how to play quarterback even though he is clearly not a natural QB. He still had enough talent to overcome that and become an above average QB, but that just doesn't cut it at the next level.

Holy f-k!!! Is that a hot asian chick on UCLA!? Dayum you just exposed my kryptonite! This reminds me of the Robin Thicke vid for "Give It To You"

Well, he must not have played badly, and no injuries so I guess it was a successful return.
I'm sure it gave him some confidence too.
What about Foster revamping his secondary and D-line and STILL shutting down Duke's offense?

It was a brutal hit. Loved to see it. But it was a little too little a little too late. I thought he might have gotten called for...something...when it happened. Stanford got rocked after the first pick, too.

Man, I witnessed all of that. What a great perspective. I'm still sad about yesterday, but anything can happen on any given week in college football. Let's get ready for BC.

Really? A down vote for that?

Being mad and being disappointed are two different things. However I think I agree with what you were really trying to get at, which is hopefully this loss will put a fire under the team and really get the passion going. But as for me, I'm still going to enjoy my weekend and I suggest you try to do the same.

I agree--I just thought the 4th down play calling and offensive play was less than smart. I think beamer knew the defense would be good enough to help if they didn't get their fourth down conversions, but this is one of those games, in hind sight, would have been better played conservatively. Take 3 points when you can, punt the ball when you can't. I like some of the risk but not all of it. Gotta move on :/

Yep, it was pretty bad... Oh well.