Chop To The Head
I’ll make this short, and I won’t talk much about FSU. That’s not to short the Noles on credit; they shored up their confidence from November in the first half, then opened up a can on Tech in the 3rd quarter. Congrats to them; they earned the championship. I also won’t talk much about VT’s late rally, because I left in disgust after FSU’s last score in the 3rd quarter to take it to 27-3 and didn’t see it. It’s the first time I’ve done that since Pittsburgh ‘01, and I had a non-football reason to want to get back to Blacksburg then. All I had here was a hotel room, an Internet connection, and a blog.
*Tech has no idea how to play as the favorite. That’s the difference between champions and pretenders, and we’re pretenders until proven otherwise. Chokie Hi, baby! *Other than Virginia, Tech gameplanned every game the second half of the season the same on offense. Tech counted on speed to make whatever headway they could in the first half, then waited for that speed plus physicality to wear down the opposing defense. That’s inverse Spurrierism: it’s a long way from the Fun-N-Gun, but both strategies require you to have superior personnel. It doesn’t work against programs like Miami and FSU that have talent and practically invented team speed in the late ’80s and early ’90s. *The refs: If you allow them to decide the game, you don’t deserve to win anyway. Some of the calls and no-calls in the late second and early third quarters were simply shameful, but Tech’s general inability to execute for three quarters had nothing to do with the refs and a lot to do with (1) gameplan and (2) a maligned FSU defense that roared back to life.
Thoughts?
4 December 2005 / 5 Comments / Tags: football