Quote from: SagatagSam on January 03, 2025, 01:12:45 PM

Quote from: BDB on January 03, 2025, 08:09:09 AMI feel sorry for that Georgia kid. Here he is all excited to be at the Sugar Bowl, although not suited he's got his jersey on and is right there with the team.

Next thing he gets in the way of a ref on the sideline and a huge play turns into just a nice gain after penalty.

TV did him no favors by zooming in on him a couple times and saying his name and hometown. Wasn't long he was the #1 trend on X.

It was definitely a penalty and needed to be called. But I feel bad for the kid. He's in the Bartman/Cubs zone now.

My football crew was texting during the game and joked that one of our linesman would have likely knocked out the kid with his elbow because he's tall and runs with his elbows up for the express purpose of protecting himself from unauthorized persons in the restricted area.

I ran over a new head coach once. Poor guy (kid?) was about 5'5". He was a wrestler so it was like hitting a pile of bricks. I'm surprised it didn't blow out my knees.

My favorite part of the play from the Sugar Bowl was the slow motion shot where you could lip read Kirby Smart yelling at his sideline to "get the f*** back!"

You didn't have to butter up to Duffman like this. Lot of wrestlers are kind of wimpy.

Quote from: DuffMan on December 23, 2024, 03:14:43 PMWhy not play the semifinals and championship on the same day?  Just start both semis at noon, then the winners play each other at 7:00, after they get some dinner in the teams.
Also, since the officials seem to ask be buffoons, play it sans officiating.

For decades Indiana hoops did this back in the one-class days. The state semis and finals were on the same day. So if you were in that later semifinal game, you only had a couple of hours to recover. Was the same way with the equivalent of their sections: semis and title on same day. It sounds ludicrous and they eventually did away with it but I'm sure it was a lot of fun for fans to see all that action in one day.

My years of advocating for the Johnnies to pay more attention to JUCO players paid off the past two seasons with the performance of Marselio Mendez. Will be interesting to see how the JUCO world transforms if last week's ruling involving Diego Pavia becomes the law of the land. Two years in junior college would not count toward four years of NCAA eligibility. So, for instance, Johnnies would have Mendez for a few more seasons. Like the portal and NIL would add some more chaos to college sports but I'm sure prove useful to top programs.

But teams that look overwhelming on the line of scrimmage in most of their games get upset by teams that don't all the time.

Folks had these same arguments about NCC last year...right up until they got beat in the Stagg. By a high-powered offense. By a team that had lost by 3 to Susquehanna earlier in the season!

The good thing is neither of us can be proven wrong, unless the NCAA does the right thing and schedules a "real" semi between NCC and SJU to be held in this gap before the Stagg.

Gonna speak up a little bit for the Johnnies. Do I think they beat NCC? No. But they would have had a decent chance. Homefield, offense would have put up points. Whether enough points maybe not but maybe it would have been. Comparing scores to mutual opponents is usually meaningless. Concordia probably should have beaten the Johnnies. Bethel was ahead of Concordia 42-3 in the fourth quarter. Therefore Bethel should have stomped the Johnnies.

2003: Johnnies barely beat a 3-7 St. Thomas team. Mount Union beats everyone by 50. No way SJU can keep it close.

Etc., etc., throughout the entirety of sports history.

Jung enters the portal. Figure big bucks are coming his way at a bigger school.

We need the ultimate stat geek with access to huge databases of info and a lot of time on his hands to dig through the data and answer a question I'd love to know: In the history of football--pro, all divisions of college and high school--how many times has a pass on the last play of the game involved a call for offensive holding? I'm going to guess...not many. In the same way defensive pass interference is rarely called in those situations even though there's often a lot of contact. Which means, right or wrong, the game is called differently in those moments. And so, especially in a game featuring zero holding calls to that point, it does stand out that it got called at that time.

Again, maybe I'm wrong and this is something that often happens. But I doubt it--and I also have no doubt hundreds of players have committed fairly blatant holds on those passes that refs ignored. Actually, the Washington Hail Mary against Chicago featured a couple of missed holding calls. It's just not something that usually gets called.

Kind of reminds me of the kerfuffle over UConn women getting called for illegal screen last year against Iowa. Yeah, probably right call letter of the law. But again, in the history of hoops, how many times has that call been made in a one-point game in the final five seconds? Not many.

Rewatching final two minutes, and based on the angle they showed, the pass interference call against Susquehanna on the final drive was an absolutely god-awful call. Obviously even without it Bethel still has a chance to move it closer on one of their final plays but that was a huge one that went in their favor.

These procedure penalties in big moments last few weeks could be good learning clips for college coaches to use with their offensive linemen (hat tip Redtooth), many of whom might think everything is like the NFL as well when it comes to those situations.

Asked my uncle, who's a football official. I pointed out the jersey tug. His take, take it as you will:

"I saw that in the video. To me that's not enough for a flag because it didn't really impede the D end."

Yeah a tug for sure. Ref probably gets more grief if you don't call this.

https://x.com/MartyDietz50/status/1868023390428123601

They didn't call a number so let's assume it's on the right edge. The guy does seem to get tugged a bit, perhaps by both guys? But not a call I think should have been made. Not just because of time of the game (I definitely believe in calling something in the final second that you'd call in the first minute and not just letting things go) but seems the flailing drew more attention to it than anything. But at the same time if it was that, I can see some argument for throwing it. Still brutal.

https://x.com/tsntalkssports/status/1868021174992855475

Strange timeout for Sus before the fourth-down play. Gives Bethel this last chance.

Quote from: RoyalsFan on December 14, 2024, 02:23:01 PMHuge call - looked like SUS was offside but they called Bethel for false start. Would have given Bethel a 1st down but had to punt.

That's a key play in the Sus playbook! Big one against Johnnies last week too.

Quote from: Pat Coleman on December 10, 2024, 11:12:12 PMThere's no better way to convince an official you got one foot down than by getting two just in case?

But enough about Blake Elliott's stolen TD in the 2003 Stagg...

Quote from: GoldandBlueBU on December 10, 2024, 04:16:29 PMNice Jung article from Ruesse....  Ruesse - Jung - Strib

Didn't know much about Jung's story so really enjoyed that. What a stud.

Story mentions MN State Mankato. For those who haven't followed their postseason adventures, the Mavs are now in the national semis. THREE straight weeks they've come back from two scores down in the second half. I'm guessing that's never been done before in D2, D3 or FCS playoff history. First one against Augustana they scored twice in last two minutes and recovered an onside kick. And last week against Bemidji were down 23-14. Cut it to 23-21 in fourth and Bemidji had it inside the 5, looking to seal it. Fumbled, Mavs scooped it up and took it deep, scored few plays later. Then held off three Bemidji passes from the 4 yard line in the final 25 seconds to hold on 27-23. They definitely aren't as good as some of the great Mavs teams of the past decade but on a magical run.