College Football 2016 Week 5 running thread

Or the clock finally ran out on Fulmer's selling the program's soul to the devil in 1998.

 

Losing to Colorado may not be too bad, since the Buffs look pretty decent and the Ducks would have/could have won if not for a piss poor INT. But the ass kicking from the Cougs last night was different. Oregon simply got pummeled on both sides of the ball. They gave up 280 yards of rushing to a Mike Leach-coached team, while also giving up 371 yards of passing to a QB who constantly had all the time he wanted. What amazes me the most about Oregon is they go from a stud QB brought up in their system to having to rely on one-year graduate transfers two years in a row, in part because the second string guy in place was so bad. Plus consider all the freshmen starting on both lines.
As bad as Saturday was in Pullman for the Ducks, I can't imagine how ugly next weekend could be against the Huskies.
Oh, and that wasn't an 18-point game last night. It was a 30-point ass kicking, if not more. The Cougs left at least 17 points on the field in the third quarter, thanks in large point to Shanky the Kicker.

 

The inability of the Cougs to have a kicker who can simply make FGs from 35 yards in continues to astound me.

It's cost them games in recent seasons, and might have cost them a win in their opener with Eastern Washington (although if memory serves, BOTH teams missed medium-distance kicks).

 

Smart apparently went off after the game on how "undisciplined" his players played at the end of the game - the excessive celebration and offsides on the kickoff basically handing the Vols 20 yards before the hail mary. But you're right, those mistakes come down to coaching. I'd also love to hear what he told his guys during the timeout before the hail mary. Not to take anything away from the catch, but that was some piss poor coverage in the end zone.

And speaking of lucky sumbitches, his bad clock management actually saved his ass during that last drive. Had he not saved that timeout, the game likely would have been over after a false start that would have forced a 10-second run off. I did have to wonder why they weren't clocking the ball during their last drive. You need second more than downs in that instance.

 

Ohmygosh Washington State missed a 19-yard kick that would have beaten Cal two years ago. They Coug-ed it last year with a missed field goal that would have beaten Stanford.

A placekicker was once considered "good" if he made more than 70 percent of his attempts. That's pedestrian now. In that context, there is no excuse for neglecting such an important facet of the game.

There's having a good kicker who just misses under pressure (see Boise State vs. Nevada in 2010 and TCU the following year). Then there's just ignoring how important the kicking game is Oregon. The last two games Chip Kelly lost (vs. USC in 2011 and Stanford in 2012) came down to missed last-second/OT field goals, from a team famous for choosing fourth-down and two-point conversion attempts over the kicking game.