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long pass, not with five minutes left when you have the lead with a great running back too. Not the same dumb play calling as against Ohio State last year but similar in why the hell did we try to pass?

ND ran a Double post with our fastest receiver in single coverage. It was a no brainer. Great call, lousy execution.

You put the ball in a place where only your WR can catch it. If you overthrow it that's better than a wounded duck.

Now you can make a case that Freeman should not have trusted Leonard to make that throw.

I suspect Denbrock knows that Leonard has the yips on long balls and he was trying to give him a layup. NIU sold out to defend the run (this is why there were only 15 running plays, can't run into an 8 or even 9-man box), the WR was open, and anything better than an absolutely, completely terrible throw would have been completed. Hartman would have hit that throw, and so would Coan. Leonard should have hit it.

I think Denbrock's play calling was defensible, unless he knew that Leonard was going to miss that badly (which is possible, I suppose).

He was not. He was wide open.

It was a really bad throw. Not a bad play call.

The safety was right there too.

Whoever the passer, it was a very tight passing lane under the best of circumstance and passers.

While it may have been a good play if the WR was open, he wasn't and Leonard, forgetting the fact that he literally stared at the receiver the entire route, should have chosen a different target.

Given that in our short season thus far Leonard has demonstrated very little skill as a passer, Debrock was inviting disaster, which is exactly what happened. Sure, it was a lousy pass, but it was a lousy call for Denbrock to make given the state of that game as well as the (in)ability of his passer to deliver in that tight of space.

All around fuck up.

Let's pretend Denbrock expected a receiver to be wide open, and that Leonard would hit it. We were only up by 1 point.....we'd have almost certainly kicked the XP and then been up by 8, leaving them the full 5 minutes to aim to tie it.

3-4 more minutes of possession time and a possible F.G. attempt would have been a more valuable result.

second and one around mid field, inaccurate passer, and a one point lead. Get in FG range and make them score a tutty to win it. They were playing the safety high there for a reason.

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1) the flow of the game was going well with the short passing game. Why change? There were lots of "alternate" calls to choose from on 2nd and short.
2) why go downfield, particularly with that route, with a qb who has shown almost no ability to throwing accurately downfield.
3) the route itself was fraught with peril. The DB (who got the INT) was there to cover underneath and the safety was there playing the middle of the field to potentially get an INT even if Leonard passed it properly.

STUPIDSTUPIDSTUPID call!

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We were doing what we did to A&M to close out the game and decided to go off script. Dumb play calling, even if the play should have succeeded.
Even if they only run off 2 more minutes and need to punt, don’t believe the D lets them drive the full field for a score in under 3 minutes.
Get a first down on the 2nd and 1, run 3 plays and even if they don’t get a first, the game is likely won.

We have a punter that could have netted 10 yards

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Even though Riley had all day, Freeman might well have known that Leonard can't make that throw in a critical situation.

Leonard choked. He wasn't the only one.

blow up in their face. Whether that was Leonard's call or a designed play, anything other than a 90% plus probability play was the right call there.

Of course, had Leonard made the completion, we'd be signing a different tune. But it still would have been a high risk call not appropriate to the situation. At most, you do that before the half.

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