[NU Sports] genius or luck?

[Jonathan Hodges]

Walker made the right decision at that point:

There were 8 minutes left in the game, plenty of time for multiple
offensive possessions (NU was down 2 scores) since the defense was on
track and was stopping them.  The punt put them deep into their own
end and NU had all 3 timeouts left, so there was definitely enough
time to stop them, go on offense, stop them again and use 3 TOs, then
get the ball back again without resorting to an onside kick.  Of
course the D did get the stop but then the offense gave the ball back
on a turnover.  Fortunately the onside kick was perfectly executed
(Walker has done a rather good job on recovering onside kicks
including the pooch kick) and the offense did get the ball back twice.
 As he stated in his postgame quotes, Walker did say he thought we
left too much time on the clock after our final score (42 seconds I
believe?) but our defense came up huge again in the final minute (see
Wisconsin and Purdue for other examples of the defense coming up big
in the end).

Jonathan


On 11/7/05, Tom Maycock <tkmaycock at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Since no one else has mentioned it:   I think that Walker made a
> > HORRIBLE
> > decision to punt on 4th and 2 from the Iowa 41 when we were down
> > 27-14 and  there were about 8 minutes left in the game.
>
> Personally, I also thought we should have gone for it at the time, but
> at the same time I could understand the more conservative decision. The
> fact that we actually lost yardage on the preceeding 3rd and inches
> certainly didn't help.
>
> And something else about that decision occurs to me now:
>
> My feeling that we should have gone for it was based in pessimism--I
> didn't think our defense could keep stopping them, or that the offense
> was playing well enough to afford giving up the ball at that point.
>
> You could argue that Walker's decision was just the opposite: a display
> of confidence in both his offense and his defense. His willingness to
> display that confidence, *especially* without a lot of supporting
> evidence to that point, may be significant.
>
> Perhaps that's just the kind of thinking that helps mold a team capable
> of pulling off what the Wildcats pulled of on Saturday?
>
> And the fact is that he was right. The defense did hold them scoreless
> the entire half (the gift FG off the INT shouldn't count against the
> D). And the offense ended up having many more chances to get the win,
> and won despite blowing a couple of those chances.
>
> I guess I vote "genius".
>
> Anyway, that was a hell of a thing to watch.
>
> Tom
>
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Jonathan W. Hodges
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