The defense played a damn good game. Depth at corner has been an ongoing issue for us, when we lost Crawford we have been suspect at nickel all year. Losing love made us more suspect, they tested us, they won. And I'm not giving Vaughn shit for that second touchdown, he had great coverage, got a hand on the ball, that receiver made one hell of a catch on the deflection. Vaughn might be the unluckiest corner we have on the team.
The offensive game plan was pure dog shit. You had more time than everyone else going into the playoff to do something, come up with something, and that was what we got. Let's go back to letting an excellent pass rusher come unblocked, that worked so well against Georgia, don't worry, we'll execute this time.
The one pass play that has been damn near unstoppable all year for us was the back shoulder throw to Boykin, and low and behold the one time that I remember going to it, we got a 15-20 yard catch. Was there literally nothing that we found on tape that we could use against them? They were just that unbelievably good on defense? I call bullshit on that one.
Kelly has been able to have much better games and game plans during the regular season, against solid competition. But for whatever reason, we try to go into the bowl season and do everything that we already did before, that they know backwards and forwards from tape, and just believe that we are going to do it anyway. He needs to make a meeting with Urban Meyer and pick his brain. I know Urban got the same kind of curb stomping from Clemson we did a few years ago, but unlike Kelly, I think he actually learned from it.
All the bullshit talk about lack of 5 star talent and not enough speed outside, essentially blaming the players, or lack of them, takes responsibility away from where it should be. On Brian Kelly, and his offensive staff, who shit the bed once again. The defense gets a pass from me, that 2nd quarter was an aberration and lack of depth rather than play and coaching.