Some measured observations

[ottodaorange]

Due in large part to the limitations of ESPN3. Their streaming today really sucked... even by their usual standards.

My impressions of how Marrone called this game was "not to lose" more than to win. He was particularly conservative and there were no ballsy calls today.

Their DBs were overplaying all day long and outright interferred several times that went uncalled. Consequently, the pump and go was there all day and I don't recall seeing it all.

Brandon Sharpe is huring us more than helping us and we really missed Chandler today.

This is by far Nassib's worst game of the year! He looked in a fog most of the day... and 3 picks!!! And if that wasn't bad enough Bailey lost two fumbles!

Their special teams are good, but not that good. Anselmo has his work cut out for him this week.

We need to put the QB sneak in the play book.

We can't get to the ACC soon enough... these refs really sucked!

Our defense was on the field way too much.

 

[SouthernCuse]

Okay, a measured response then. Just brutal watching that game, watching us unable time and time again to pull away, a 4 1/2 hour worryfest for me, and then ended badly.

Good call on the pump and go, it worked very well last week, and they were overplaying the slants.

We have lived close to the edge all season and this time it cost us Lets see first play and last play fumbles, Interceptions that really hurt, blocks and missed kicks, frustrating specials and it cost us today. These things lose you won games and that is how i am going to chalk it up.

That team from RU is a really plucky bunch, but lets not forget on paper they have better talent than we do. Go ahead, hate on me and the Scout star system was probably RU biased but still, on recruiting they have had more 3,4 and 5 star guys than we have, for a while. It did not look like that today.

Was it just me or did Anderson look much slower than Thomas on the fumble return TD?

In 1st OT, i suppose the safe play is to take the 3, but in this case, we did not have to score to get more downs. Given that margin of error, I thought we should have gone for it. But I suppose Marrone would have been crucified if we had not converted. Still, we don't have enough to lose as a program to not go for it in that situation.