Monday Tailgate: Lessons learned from Week 9 of college football
So you think you've seen it all? Nah, not even close.
College football's capacity to leave its audience awed, amazed or utterly speechless is driven home week after week. It is, after all, what keeps us coming back. And November is just beginning, so we hope everyone's ready for a wild ride.
Here's what we learned from trick-or-treat-filled Week 9:
That last tackle is the toughest
You've seen Saturday's most improbable finish dozens of times already, we're sure. Whatever should or should not have been done by the officiating crew during and after Miami's California circa 1982-esque kickoff return, there's one inescapable conclusion — if you're Duke, you've got to make a tackle and not leave it up to the booth.
Yes, we know — not easy when the ball is being tossed around like a hot potato. But there's a reason such plays occur only once in a generation. Quite simply, they shouldn't work.
The Blue Devils don't have long to grieve over it with archrival North Carolina up next in what has suddenly become a defining ACC Coastal division matchup. And hoops season hasn't even started yet.
Someone has to make the tough decisions — Part I
It didn't work, but Minnesota interim coach Tracy Claeys should be commended for his decision to eschew a tying field goal and go for the victory against Michigan.
College football overtime is essentially a crapshoot, and the Golden Gophers had spent most of the fuel in their tank just hanging with the favored Wolverines. On the 1-yard line with time for only one more snap, Claeys calculated that his team's chances for the win were better in that moment than they would have been if he'd elected to try and extend the game.
One might take issue with the play selection — something with a bit more misdirection at the line of scrimmage might have had better odds of success —,but the conservative call is so common in the sport that a gutsy decision should be applauded.
Someone has to make the tough decisions — Part II
Speaking of conservative, Stanford coach David Shaw nearly paid for playing it too safe at Washington State.
When an interception gave his team the ball in Cougar territory late in the fourth quarter, he seemed contend to play for a short field goal to take a two-point lead. A touchdown would have afforded the Cardinal much more defensive leverage on the Cougars' final drive.
As it was, Stanford was fortunate to get out with the win as Cougars' kicker Erik Powell, who had been money all night on his five previous field-goal attempts, hooked his final attempt from 43 yards wide right.
Who are those guys?
And finally, it's sometimes hard to recognize a team from one week to the next. The squad that wore the Texas uniforms Saturday against Iowa State certainly didn't look like the same one that took down Oklahoma a month ago, and the Georgia Tech team that couldn't get past Virginia bore no resemblance to the one that took the field just a week earlier and defeated Florida State.
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