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ORIGINAL: David Levine

Kind of an odd choice to go for 2 with a 7 point lead late in the game.

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ORIGINAL: David Levine

Kind of an odd choice to go for 2 with a 7 point lead late in the game.

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ORIGINAL: drew

Good stuff everyone. We won, but I have more concerns coming out of that game than heading into it. Hopefully some of the problems were knocking off rust in the first game, but these things concern me.

1. Lack of discipline. I'm not just talking about the targeting penalties (all of which were legit, IMO). Way too many offsides by our OL. Poock totally deserved to get ejected for his stupid display which directly lead to a TD for OSU. Without that penalty, they are punting from their 10 yard line.

2. Was Limegrover calling in the plays from Penn St? Looked pretty similar to me. The most frustrating sequence to me (which ironically turned out ok) was our 2 minute drill before half. We get the ball on the 35-40 yard line with more than a minute left and all 3 TO's. What do we do? Run the first play. Mason said you either coach to win or not to lose. This would fall into the latter category. Overall, play calling too conservative for my taste.

3. Claeys end of game coaching. A lot of people were up in arms about going for 2. I would have kicked, but it is defensible to go for 2 as Karl noted. More concerning to me is the clock management during that drive when we were trying to drain the clock. There were at least 3 plays where we snapped the ball with more than 10 seconds on the play clock. Inexcusable!! He needs to hire a game management coach, because this is a trend after the Michigan debacle last year.

4. Leidner. Looked like Mitch from last year to me. He made some big plays and deserves some credit - the pump fake to get the guy in the air and run for the 1st and goal was a beauty. But accuracy and more importantly, game awareness is totally lacking. He's a one read QB and the game seems to move too fast for him to process info and make the right decision.

On the bright side, Tyler Johnson and that DE from Georgia who got ejected looked like studs! Where was Coughlin? I thought for sure we'd see him after we lost all our LB's. Maybe he's hurt too. Rodney Smith with a real nice game. Santoso was huge all night, great weapon. Richardson is a stud in the DL.

Happy for the win, but a lot of work to do. The next couple weeks should be a good opportunity to iron some of these issues out. Oregon St. isn't very good and was outgaining us 2-1 at the end of the 3rd quarter. If we play like last night all year, 6-6 is looking a lot more likely than 9-3.

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ORIGINAL: drew

3. Claeys end of game coaching. A lot of people were up in arms about going for 2. I would have kicked, but it is defensible to go for 2 as Karl noted. More concerning to me is the clock management during that drive when we were trying to drain the clock. There were at least 3 plays where we snapped the ball with more than 10 seconds on the play clock. Inexcusable!! He needs to hire a game management coach, because this is a trend after the Michigan debacle last year.

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ORIGINAL: Jeff Jesser

Those pundits that said ML could be first round pick need to find a new gig. Dude overthrows a 6-10 TE like he was on his knees.

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ORIGINAL: Karl Juhnke

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ORIGINAL: drew

3. Claeys end of game coaching. A lot of people were up in arms about going for 2. I would have kicked, but it is defensible to go for 2 as Karl noted. More concerning to me is the clock management during that drive when we were trying to drain the clock. There were at least 3 plays where we snapped the ball with more than 10 seconds on the play clock. Inexcusable!! He needs to hire a game management coach, because this is a trend after the Michigan debacle last year.

Speaking of the end game, What was the deal with Liedner dropping back 8-10 yards and taking knees at the end? I could sort of see it one time, I thought maybe they were giving the punter some room to make a better goal line kick? But they kept doing it, and kept moving back. Why? They only got bailed out by a penalty which gave them a first down.

Just run the ball. If you get a first down the game's over.

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ORIGINAL: Karl Juhnke

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ORIGINAL: Jeff Jesser

Those pundits that said ML could be first round pick need to find a new gig. Dude overthrows a 6-10 TE like he was on his knees.

It looked a lot like the same Liedner, except skinnier. Every game he has a half dozen or so throws that are nowhere near a receiver, usually overthrows. He made some nice throws too. Some weren't caught, one long one that should have been an interference call, but was a nice pass.

History says he'll get better as the year goes on, but he's way too inconsistent right now to be that 1st round draft pick guy we've been hearing about. The offense only got going when he started running the ball.

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ORIGINAL: drew

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ORIGINAL: Karl Juhnke

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ORIGINAL: drew

3. Claeys end of game coaching. A lot of people were up in arms about going for 2. I would have kicked, but it is defensible to go for 2 as Karl noted. More concerning to me is the clock management during that drive when we were trying to drain the clock. There were at least 3 plays where we snapped the ball with more than 10 seconds on the play clock. Inexcusable!! He needs to hire a game management coach, because this is a trend after the Michigan debacle last year.

Speaking of the end game, What was the deal with Liedner dropping back 8-10 yards and taking knees at the end? I could sort of see it one time, I thought maybe they were giving the punter some room to make a better goal line kick? But they kept doing it, and kept moving back. Why? They only got bailed out by a penalty which gave them a first down.

Just run the ball. If you get a first down the game's over.

That was actually one thing that I understood. I believe there was exactly 1:00 when we got the ball and OSU had two timeouts. If the first two plays can burn enough time(about 7-8 sec/play) we can run the clock out by kneeling on 3rd down. It certainly was interesting.

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ORIGINAL: Karl Juhnke

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ORIGINAL: David Levine

Kind of an odd choice to go for 2 with a 7 point lead late in the game.

I kind of like it. I would have to do a probability tree to see if it makes sense to like it. You have a roughly 50% chance of icing the game right there.

But I'm an advocate of going for two more anyway. Coaches do it backwards, going for one by default and switching to a situational approach later in the game. I'd do the opposite. Go for two by default and only go for 1 later in the game under certain situations. Like up 3 when either an extra point or a two puts you up by more than a field goal.