What you saw from Book in the final drive is who he is. He's quick to release the ball, generally has great instincts and if it's not there he usually runs for 4-12 yds. That's what we saw in 2018, in the bowl game win against LSU in 2017, and prior to that in the 2017 Spring game.
What we've seen this year is the mental mutilation of a quarterback by Brian Kelly.
No longer does Book quickly find and hit the open guy. It seems he's now thinking throw progressions trying to hit a **specific** WR instead of just saying that guy is open, let it rip (exactly how he's always done it). It seems, and I would not be shocked, that Kelly has said on this play you only throw it to this certain guy. That's how Kelly does it and that's how he demands it because his ego needs to be the genius.
I remember years ago when Kelly brought a VR game simulator or whatever in for all the QBs and they had to play the game and hit the right WRs, they were apparently graded on it. It's one thing to "find" the open guy, but an extremely different thing to be **forced** to "find" a specific WR. Real games are different than simulations and they are never the same. That's just stupid and seems to be what has been the downfall of QBs under Kelly.
I totally agree with your assessment of Long. Yes, he's the O-Coordinator. Yes he calls the plays, but there is definitely a Kelly override. You can see it in situations like the 2 minute drill Saturday. That was not Kelly at all, somehow he was removed. It was all Book - take what you see with confidence, Claypool making key plays, and Long calling different plays... one's that work. There was absolutely no Kelly fingerprint on that.
Kelly totally changed when he got pants and completely embarrassed by Alabama in the 2012 National Championship game. Remember he missed the Cincy embarrassment against Florida when he left them high and dry in their first major bowl game. This brought Kelly to his knees and he came away from that game wanting to suck Saban's d&*k. BK spent the next 2 years trying to implement the Alabama brand of football, only to fail. Kelly has never recovered. He lost any creative genius he had, and has muddled around for the last 7 years with no identity because of the unprepared, ass raping he took... All because he chose to prepare for NFL interviews instead of a National Championship game.
The problem with Kelly is that instead of promoting players and coordinators and letting them shine, he gets jealous and takes over the reigns only to ruin it.
We see it often in the beginning of games. The O (not really in 2019) will come out blistering. Functioning at a high level, scoring points at will with creative plays and then poof it all goes away. It then turns into the 4 core Kelly formations where it's obvious that it's a run up the middle, then off the guard and then it's 3rd and 10. Boom, then the 8 yard out. In 2019 we added the wrinkle of the underneath 4 yard drag which we run on about about 90% of pass plays.
Read the article in the link for the real story. I posted it Saturday morning as well.