OK, I haven't been on the forum since the ISU game--angry that the season is pretty much trashed.
I'm sure issues have been hashed and rehashed. But this is an outlet for me to vent, so I'll go ahead and post my $.02.
Short yardage plays should be bread and butter of an offense. They should be high percentage, and there should be some go to plays that are very high percentage for critical moments. The kinds of plays I see called on 4th down are weak and seem to be expected by opposing defenses. This was no different in the first big 4th(and 2) down play of the ISU game.
I was begging for an aggressive offense to burn clock by getting some first downs late in the game with our narrow lead. Who would want to depend on our very porous defense to win the game? We had very conservative plays and were easily 3 and out giving the ball back to Baylor with plenty of time for them to get a field goal. The kicker was when we had to be aggressive (behind with time running out) we were very successful. TH didn't seem to realize that we needed to NOT turn off the aggression.
Our defense at least kept them out of the end zone and by happenstance, there was still plenty of time left when ISU decided to kick their long field goal to take the lead when it was 4th and less than 5. That meant we had 2 ways to win, 1)they miss the 42 yard field goal and 2) we still had 2 minutes to respond with a field goal of our own. On 4th and less than 5, it is always OBVIOUS you must caution to not jump off sides. There was an earlier event in the season when we had a lead and just needed to obtain possession on a punt. But we didn't make the obvious instruction to let a punt hit the ground and instead a heroic effort was made to catch it (and muff it), potentially costing us the game. This was the same kind of thing, a basic and fundamental coaching over sight. You can debate game plans and individual play selection, but stuff like this is not debatable. This is inexcusably poor coaching.
The last game I pointed out other errors that were bad coaching and relatively independent of the players. I seriously don't understand how such a highly paid coach can make such fundamental errors. I was so excited by the progress of the team last year and did not expect such a season this year, mainly on the basis of defensive player turnover. I was giving the benefit of the doubt due to a cluster of injuries. However, there are coaching issues that are not excused by those kind of vectors. I'm sure Tom H will be with us at least another year or 2 and should be given at least one more year to right the ship after such a great season last year. However, Tom H has now lost all positive momentum of the program in the extraordinary bad performance this year. The mix of egregious errors, worst 4th quarter defense in the NCAA, and poor in game adjustments, game planning, and play calling will be a huge challenge to overcome.
I'm a horn. I want Tom H to succeed. But I'm also an objective observer that has had to reconsider TH's qualifications to be the coach to lead us back to relevancy. As promising as everything looked after last year, it is hard to have any sense of optimism with the seeming limitations of this coaching staff.
I'm sure issues have been hashed and rehashed. But this is an outlet for me to vent, so I'll go ahead and post my $.02.
Short yardage plays should be bread and butter of an offense. They should be high percentage, and there should be some go to plays that are very high percentage for critical moments. The kinds of plays I see called on 4th down are weak and seem to be expected by opposing defenses. This was no different in the first big 4th(and 2) down play of the ISU game.
I was begging for an aggressive offense to burn clock by getting some first downs late in the game with our narrow lead. Who would want to depend on our very porous defense to win the game? We had very conservative plays and were easily 3 and out giving the ball back to Baylor with plenty of time for them to get a field goal. The kicker was when we had to be aggressive (behind with time running out) we were very successful. TH didn't seem to realize that we needed to NOT turn off the aggression.
Our defense at least kept them out of the end zone and by happenstance, there was still plenty of time left when ISU decided to kick their long field goal to take the lead when it was 4th and less than 5. That meant we had 2 ways to win, 1)they miss the 42 yard field goal and 2) we still had 2 minutes to respond with a field goal of our own. On 4th and less than 5, it is always OBVIOUS you must caution to not jump off sides. There was an earlier event in the season when we had a lead and just needed to obtain possession on a punt. But we didn't make the obvious instruction to let a punt hit the ground and instead a heroic effort was made to catch it (and muff it), potentially costing us the game. This was the same kind of thing, a basic and fundamental coaching over sight. You can debate game plans and individual play selection, but stuff like this is not debatable. This is inexcusably poor coaching.
The last game I pointed out other errors that were bad coaching and relatively independent of the players. I seriously don't understand how such a highly paid coach can make such fundamental errors. I was so excited by the progress of the team last year and did not expect such a season this year, mainly on the basis of defensive player turnover. I was giving the benefit of the doubt due to a cluster of injuries. However, there are coaching issues that are not excused by those kind of vectors. I'm sure Tom H will be with us at least another year or 2 and should be given at least one more year to right the ship after such a great season last year. However, Tom H has now lost all positive momentum of the program in the extraordinary bad performance this year. The mix of egregious errors, worst 4th quarter defense in the NCAA, and poor in game adjustments, game planning, and play calling will be a huge challenge to overcome.
I'm a horn. I want Tom H to succeed. But I'm also an objective observer that has had to reconsider TH's qualifications to be the coach to lead us back to relevancy. As promising as everything looked after last year, it is hard to have any sense of optimism with the seeming limitations of this coaching staff.
) 
