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[QUOTE="Scooch, post: 351305, member: 628"]
Ultimately the vast majority of football coaches are a lot like Congress -- their M.O. is to kick the can down the road.  That's what punting on a 4th-and-2 from the 49, down 12, with 13 minutes remaining in the game is: kicking the can down the road.  Marrone is saying that he'd rather lose the game later, than lose it now.  
 
It's silly of course, and shows an utter lack of understanding of probabilities.  But it's a decision an alarming number of coaches make every week, albeit often not in such stark situations.
 
What's most discouraging to me is that, while I've come to expect that most coaches make these kinds of decisions, it shows a particularly poor feel for the condition of the game at that moment in time.  SU just spent the past 10+ minutes playing very well offensively.  After going down 21-3 they engineered an excellent 78-yard, 4 1/2 minute scoring drive.  Then after that amazing pick they ran a 50-yard, 2 minute scoring drive.  The offense was humming.  But then... 
 
SU goes 3 and out pinned inside our own 20, and USC takes advantage of a short field off a great punt return to score quickly and make it 28-16.  So at this point USC's offense was humming too.  They had scored TDs on 3 of their last 4 possessions, going back to the 2nd quarter --interrupted only by that interception.
 
So at that point I'm thinking the calculus has to be the recognition that USC has largely solved our D (refer to the 3 TDs in 4 possessions note above) and, being down 12 and all, we'll probably need to try and outgun them over the remaining 13 minutes to have any shot of winning.  And yet we tried to play field position football.
 
Clearly I'm not a coach.  And it's clear Marrone is having success turning this program around from an athleticism and competitiveness standpoint.  But he botched this one badly, and it's not the first time.
 
Oh Lord
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