Wednesday, January 03, 2007
The plays that never work
Count me among the idiots who turned off the Fiesta Bowl and went to bed Monday night. The guy who wanted to be awake for the drive into work. The guy who flipped on ESPN News Tuesday morning and said, "Wait, they won? And they, what? How? How did that...!?"
My football career peaked at age 11 and ended two weeks later, so I don't claim to have any extraordinary knowledge of playbooks. But I've watched enough games to know that the hook-and-lateral/ladder (take your pick) rarely ends well, and the statue of liberty play hasn't worked since single-bar facemasks were in vogue. I know this because in my pee-wee days, our coach tried the latter in practice, with QB Jimmy handing off to RB Mikey, and even the second-team safety (guess who) sniffed it out.
I've read a bunch of stories about Boise State, but so far, I like my wife's synopsis best: "What do you expect? They painted their field blue. They've got balls."
My football career peaked at age 11 and ended two weeks later, so I don't claim to have any extraordinary knowledge of playbooks. But I've watched enough games to know that the hook-and-lateral/ladder (take your pick) rarely ends well, and the statue of liberty play hasn't worked since single-bar facemasks were in vogue. I know this because in my pee-wee days, our coach tried the latter in practice, with QB Jimmy handing off to RB Mikey, and even the second-team safety (guess who) sniffed it out.
I've read a bunch of stories about Boise State, but so far, I like my wife's synopsis best: "What do you expect? They painted their field blue. They've got balls."
# posted by Budds @ 11:11 AM 
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The best part was in the postgame news conference, when the Boise coach was explaning how they run the hook-and-ladder play every day in practice because his players enjoy it. The one of his DBs chimed in and said, "Yeah, but it's never worked, even in practice. Not once."
Good stuff -- really the coolest finish since the tip to Bryce Drew before he nailed the 3 for Valpo.
And count me among those who stayed up 'til 1 am watching the game. And count my wife among those who didn't care how cool the end was when I woke her up going to be at 1:30.
As I said in an earlier post, it ranks up there with USC-Texas last year and the classic Miami-BC game as the best college games I've ever seen.
Plus, you gotta be psyched for Boise. Coupled with Wake Forest (who played a much tighter game than I expected last night against Louisville) and Rutgers beating the aforementioned Cardinals, it was a great year for the underdog in college football. The overdogs (Miami, Florida State, etc.) did not fare as well.
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Good stuff -- really the coolest finish since the tip to Bryce Drew before he nailed the 3 for Valpo.
And count me among those who stayed up 'til 1 am watching the game. And count my wife among those who didn't care how cool the end was when I woke her up going to be at 1:30.
As I said in an earlier post, it ranks up there with USC-Texas last year and the classic Miami-BC game as the best college games I've ever seen.
Plus, you gotta be psyched for Boise. Coupled with Wake Forest (who played a much tighter game than I expected last night against Louisville) and Rutgers beating the aforementioned Cardinals, it was a great year for the underdog in college football. The overdogs (Miami, Florida State, etc.) did not fare as well.
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