My sarcastic comment to my son during the Oregon/FSU game – where FSU got smeared like a bug on a shoe – was that at least FSU had the excuse of not having known who the opponent would be.
Except, of course, we did know that we were going to play Oregon.
I guess that maybe the excuse turns into “At least FSU didn’t have a way to examining any game film on Oregon, so the pace caught them by surprise.”
At least the latter part of that statement is true! FSU was caught flat-footed by a very fast-paced Oregon attack – the “Blur offense” – and had no answer for it. Add to that FSU’s turnovers, and you had a terrific win by Oregon in which FSU looked slow and outmatched and outcoached.
I don’t mind the loss. Losses happen. It’d be a poor person indeed who couldn’t handle losses – even bad ones.
I do mind being outcoached from top to bottom. We never really compensated for their defense; we never compensated for their offense.
We had weeks to make sure we were conditioned for Oregon’s pace. We knew what they wanted to do on offense. Why, why, why didn’t we come in ready for them? Why was FSU left to twist in the wind?
Well… why not, I suppose. It’s not like FSU came into any game this year looking like it was ready to play; FSU played every game from the third quarter on, and that’s just not a good way to win and stay winning. FSU was good enough to make it work every game until it ran into an opponent that was prepared from start to finish.
I’m glad to see loyalty in the program… but at some point our coaches have to take the games seriously, and come in with a plan designed to annihilate the team’s opponents, as opposed to just riding with a default game plan and hoping.
We saw FSU’s defense take a terrible dip in quality from last year to this year – from a coaching standpoint. One expects and accepts that players come and go; one does not accept that the players available don’t have the preparation that a program of FSU’s stature should demand.