In the Narduzzi press conference yesterday, he said that when it was 10-7 he told his defense they can win this game if Louisville doesn't score again.
Go back and look at what I said in the game thread (but ignore my 75 other psychotic comments). As soon as we went up 10-7, I 100% knew that Narduzzi thought that could be the final score. But why does he continue to make this mistake? How many examples do we need of teams scoring when they absolutely HAVE to before we begin to realize that things are just different in the 4th quarter?
2018:
You hold Notre Dame to 12 through the first 3 quarters, but they go 80 yards for 7 points when they need to with about 5 minutes left.
You hold Stanford to 6 through the first three quarters, but they get 7 when they need to in the 4th (78 yards).
2019:
We're the team that is held to 10 against Delaware through 3 quarters and goes 90 yards for a TD when we absolutely needed it.
Miami, after being held to 10 points through 3 quarters, goes 62 yards for the game-winning touchdown with a little under 4 minutes left.
Shoot, even look at the near misses... we almost got it in against VT in 2017 stuffed at the goal line despite not moving the ball well all day. Same with Penn State in 2019 (had it deep in their territory twice at the end despite only putting up 10 points all day).
And I wasn't even including high-scoring games, like when UNC came down and scored on us at the end of 2016, when PSU almost did, when we did that to Clemson and GT that year, the 4th quarter comebacks Pickett orchestrated (Eastern Michigan 2019, Duke 2018, Syracuse 2018, Duke 2019, UCF 2019, etc., etc.), the ones that happened on us (NC State 2020, Louisville the other night, etc.). This happens all the freaking time.
Long story short: The end of the game is not like the rest of the game. Sure, you might stop them. But, for the most part, you cannot predict how players will perform when everything is on the line in the waning minutes. You simply can't. They'll take chances they otherwise wouldn't; they'll either shine or buckle under the stress; they'll do things that wouldn't have happened during the first 90% of the game. It's irritating as hell to hear him confirm what I hypothesized. Wake up, coach. You win by lighting up the scoreboard and playing with balls.
Go back and look at what I said in the game thread (but ignore my 75 other psychotic comments). As soon as we went up 10-7, I 100% knew that Narduzzi thought that could be the final score. But why does he continue to make this mistake? How many examples do we need of teams scoring when they absolutely HAVE to before we begin to realize that things are just different in the 4th quarter?
2018:
You hold Notre Dame to 12 through the first 3 quarters, but they go 80 yards for 7 points when they need to with about 5 minutes left.
You hold Stanford to 6 through the first three quarters, but they get 7 when they need to in the 4th (78 yards).
2019:
We're the team that is held to 10 against Delaware through 3 quarters and goes 90 yards for a TD when we absolutely needed it.
Miami, after being held to 10 points through 3 quarters, goes 62 yards for the game-winning touchdown with a little under 4 minutes left.
Shoot, even look at the near misses... we almost got it in against VT in 2017 stuffed at the goal line despite not moving the ball well all day. Same with Penn State in 2019 (had it deep in their territory twice at the end despite only putting up 10 points all day).
And I wasn't even including high-scoring games, like when UNC came down and scored on us at the end of 2016, when PSU almost did, when we did that to Clemson and GT that year, the 4th quarter comebacks Pickett orchestrated (Eastern Michigan 2019, Duke 2018, Syracuse 2018, Duke 2019, UCF 2019, etc., etc.), the ones that happened on us (NC State 2020, Louisville the other night, etc.). This happens all the freaking time.
Long story short: The end of the game is not like the rest of the game. Sure, you might stop them. But, for the most part, you cannot predict how players will perform when everything is on the line in the waning minutes. You simply can't. They'll take chances they otherwise wouldn't; they'll either shine or buckle under the stress; they'll do things that wouldn't have happened during the first 90% of the game. It's irritating as hell to hear him confirm what I hypothesized. Wake up, coach. You win by lighting up the scoreboard and playing with balls.