Seems like that throw should have gone to the outside shoulder and PInnick threw it inside.

Welp, lets regroup and end Sac's season next week.

Man, no idea what happened on that one. Don't know if that's on the WR or Pinnick but someone screwed up.

Tough spot to be in. MSU had 3 timeouts so if we end up in 3rd and long, they call a timeout with a chance to get the ball back. Once it was 3rd and short and then when we picked up the 1st down, I would have liked to see them take a shot down the field.

But we also get the ball to start the 2nd half. If it's 28-21 and our offense was clicking, I bet they go for it more.

Nice flop by Pinnick.

Yep, the positives of 4th and short in opposing territory outweigh the negatives. If you're punting from the 40 or so, a lot of times, the ball is going to go into the end zone, in which case you're only gaining 20ish yards of field position. And if you punt it, you have a nearly 0% chance of picking up the first down (unless the opponent fumbles the punt).

Things like how many yards to pick up the first, where you are in the game, how your offense is performing matters. But in a vacuum, going for it on 4th and short in opposing territory is the smart play.

I'm generally pro review. But the point of review is to overturn obvious mistakes. In all sports, too many times they review a play for 3 minutes while looking at 15 different angles. If it takes more than a minute to look at something, it's not an obvious mistake and you should just uphold the call and move on.

That was a really weird review. Like, even if the MSU guy actually fumbled it, which he didn't because he was down, the MSU guy recovered the ball anyway in the same spot on the field. So it's not a turnover no matter what and it's not like the ball got knocked back 15 yards where you want to see if the guy was down.

Or if we had pulled out the Idaho St game.

If I was a football coach, I would drill into my team to pick up every ball on the ground. That was close enough that it could have mattered.

Montana St favored by 16.5 right now. Looks like it opened around 11.5 and got bet up. Tough to disagree with it either considering they appear to be better both offensively and defensively than us.

Yep. I did hear something that it was probably tough for the guy to even think to run through home there since those guys are conditioned to slide on a close play at home. Now, that's usually because it's a tag play at home and this was a force out, but still. If you're told to slide into home on close plays, your mind probably isn't going to think to run through the bag in Game 7 of the World Series.

Nobody expects to go to Montana and win handily because it almost never happens.

I posted this in last year's game thread:

Last time Montana lost by more than 7 points at home was...

2018 when we cooked them 49-21.

Unless I missed something, before that you have to go back to 2012 when they lost to Montana St by 9.

EDIT: Arbitrary margin of victory but the last time before 2018 they lost at home by 14+ points was in 2005 to Cal Poly. And again, unless I missed something, but besides the two losses to UCD, the last time Montana lost by 16+ points at home was in 1990 to Idaho. — cmt

I mean I guess. But then you're likely going to Bozeman or Missoula and playing outdoors in late December which won't exactly be an enjoyable experience either.

North Dakota reminds me of the 2019 Aggies, but a better version.

They're 6-4 but their four losses are by 3 to Kansas St, by 1 at Montana, by 5 at South Dakota and by 5 at home against North Dakota St. They still have a home game against South Dakota St to end the year. It seems like it would be a shame if they lose another close game and then get left out at 7-5 with 5 close losses.

If we're worried about Sac, which we should be, we should want Idaho to knock them off this week. I mean, we can take care of business ourselves if we just beat them in two weeks, but Idaho beating Sac would help us. Honestly not sure any other results matter besides ours as far as seeding goes.

If we go 2-0, we get a top-8 seed.
If we go 1-1, lose a close-ish game against MSU but handle Sac, we could be in the discussion for a top-8 seed (this would be the one scenario where other results matter).
If we go 1-1, get handled by MSU and beat Sac, we get a 9-16 seed and a home game in the first round.
If we go 0-2, we sweat but I think we still get in unless Sac smacks us.

I mean, there's seeding within each group, but I'm not sure it matters much if you're the 5 seed vs. the 7 seed or the 12 seed vs. the 15 seed.

That's a Sac St education right there!

I have zero expectations for this game. Just hoping for a respectable showing where we don't get blown out. If we go there and lose like 42-28, that's not the end of the world (assuming it's not 42-7 and we get 3 TDs when they've got their 3rd stringers in the game in the 4th quarter).

Yeah, there's no way this was a better win than winning by 16 at Montana when that team basically never loses by more than 1 score at home. Realistically, beating down Illinois State was probably better too.

But yeah, like somebody else said, it's all heat of the moment.

Both the Montanas are now locks and will probably play for the #2 seed when they match up in week 13 (and the loser is probably still the #3 seed). UC Davis is trending towards in but they have two tough ones left starting Montana St this weekend - they can lose that one and still be fine but if they do lose that week 13 matchup with Sac St is going to leave the loser in a tough spot. Both Sac St and NAU need to win out I think and NAU has a pretty good shot at doing that although the bubble did tighten a bit today so even at 8-4 NAU might be nervous. It's looking like 2-3 seeds for the Big Sky and 3-4 bids depending on how things play out these last couple weeks.

NAU needs us to beat Sac to have a chance. If Sac and NAU win out, that likely means we lose out. Sac probably gets picked before us and we should get picked before NAU.

UCD: losses to FBS, likely top-5 Montana St, likely ranked Sac (if they win out), 4-6 Idaho St
Sac: losses to FBS, likely top-5 Montana, top-15ish South Dakota St and 3-7 Cal Poly
NAU: losses to FBS, likely top-5 Montana St, ranked UC Davis, 4-6 Idaho.

The only ranked wins would be the H2H wins, if all three are ranked. If those three end up 8-4, 8-4 and 7-4, there's basically no reason to pick NAU over us and there's basically no reason to pick us over Sac. If the Big Sky gets 3, Sac is in. If the Big Sky gets 4, it's us and Sac. The only way NAU has a chance, is if we beat Sac and they win out.