Any team with a good QB is going to have those kind of numbers. Even in blowouts, most coaches are just going to run the ball to keep the clock moving and won't be having their backup QB's throw the ball all over the place. We can debate whether that's right or wrong, but throwing the ball all over the place, even with the backup, will be seen as running up the score.

And even if we did have the backups throw the ball a bunch in blowouts, while it gives them reps, in no way will it help them learn to overcome adversity because the stakes are low.

Would 100% be a Deion-type hire. Deion had no college coaching experience in any role when he got hired.

Well this is interesting.

Montana St -7.5
South Dakota St -2.5

I remembered somebody posted this game on AGS a couple weeks ago so just remember, it could have been worse. Sometimes weird things happen in the playoffs. South Dakota St was the #5 team that year but had a 10 turnover game in the national semifinals.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/boxscore/_/gameId/401003826

Totally fair. IIRC, the only other game he had more than 1 pick was the Cal game. But that also speaks to how good he was all year long to even help us get to this point.

Don't hate just because I'm trying to educate you. I'm not the one who thinks Hastings had a turnover problem this year (and I mean the whole season, not today) when he threw 5 picks in 12 games against FCS teams before today. I'm not the one wondering if they should bench the QB who led the nation in passing yards and passing TDs.

Like yeah, he didn't have a good game today. But again, how many of those picks were for sure on him? The last one absolutely. No one could possibly argue otherwise. Two were tipped. And only Hastings/Plough/the intended target know who was at fault for the other two. It's really easy to just blame the QB each time they throw a pick because hey, they threw the ball. Maybe the other two picks that weren't tipped were Hastings's fault. But unless Hastings or Plough comes out and says "hey, those two were on the QB, he made a bad throw/decision", we're never going to know either way. And how much was on the OLine and/or their DLine? We barely got any pressure on the QB. How many picks would Hastings have thrown had he gotten the protection their QB did.

So sure, if you want to just say "Hastings threw 5 picks, he was awful today and this loss was almost all on him because of those picks", well that's on you. I prefer a more nuanced outlook on things.

Likely wasn't their best game. They did throw a pick in the end zone on a ball that could have been caught and fumbled on a toss play at the 5. So they gave away 14 points too.

This should have been on linear tv. — SoCalAggie

Agreed. It was clearly likely to be the closest of the 4 games and yet it's only on streaming. Maybe they knew they'd get better ratings with the Dakotas or MSU (which could definitely be true for all I know).

North Dakota St too. Didn't play them.

Yep. Who knows about how good some of these teams will be, but we'll likely need to rack up wins before at Idaho and at Montana St in games 9 and 10, right before Sac.

Anyone know if we're trying to add a 12th game? Only having 11 makes me a little skiddish with potentially getting screwed over by the committee because we have one less FCS win.

I mean, two of us (at least) had already said it was a bad throw. So yes, you're being a troll at this point. When you want to make a logical, thought out point, you're welcome to join the rest of us at the big boy table.

Going to be interesting to see how they do next year with a new QB and RB. I'm sure there are other studs who are graduating but those two specifically are going to be really hard to replace. Was this just a 1 year fluke or can we adequately replace those guys (obviously, whoever the RB is won't be Lan and the QB likely won't throw for 4000 yards) and get back to the playoffs.

LOL. Stop being a troll and maybe you'll learn something about football.

Yeah, I'm not going to say the defense was great, but I think the couple blown coverages stand out and make the performance seem worse. The defense isn't the reason we lost. The turnovers were.

Ok, that was a bad pass that he forced.

Why are we substituting and allowing them to substitute and kill time? Come on, Plough. LIke we shouldn't have to substitute after 1 play when you're trying to run a 2-minute offense.

Welp, that will pretty much do it. Sucks to play our worst game of the year in a very winnable playoff game. And get our star RB hurt in the 1st half.

You said it's been an issue for multiple seasons implying that it's been an issue this year. It wasn't an issue this year.

Two picks today were tipped. That's not necessarily on the QB. And the other two, do we know those were on the QB or maybe the intended target wasn't where they were supposed to be. That's something we're not likely to find out.

Going to need a turnover or a missed FG at this point.

Kudos to SD for now going uber conservative there also.