Sunday, January 3, 2010

At some point in the fourth quarter of Friday's Gator Bowl, I looked at my attorney and stated a simple fact.

"We had a lead of at least 7 points in all of our games this season"

Another fact is that we lost 4 games. Oh what could have been. 10 win seasons for any program are hard to come by, but I really think that this team was about 2 plays away from going 11-2 or so.

I could add the Cincy game in there as well, but lets just think that they would have gone on to beat us despite the call at the end there. However, Auburn and FSU were eerily similar in that jumped on them early and failed to finish it when we had them down.

The first play was the fumble that JB had when WVU was by 17 on Auburn in the second quarter or so. On that one play our whole season changed because after that one we were never the same. Up to that point we had been punishing teams for bringing up their secondary. However on that one play JB got sacked, dinged in the head and for the rest of the season he never set his feet and completed a long pass again. Not to mention that after that play in the game we lost all momentum and let Auburn back into the game.

Fast forward to Jan 1. We are gashing FSU at will and looking like the 07 version of the mountaineers. JB throws and inexcusable pass on first down to a well covered man and FSU gets back into the game. Score a TD there and FSU has to go to the air instead of picking on our flats all day. Two plays the difference between a great 11-2 season and an average 9-4 campaign. The win against Pitt was great and the Uconn and Rutgers games were satisfying but in the end I have the next 7 months to wonder about what could have been with this team and have to question whether or not this coaching staff and team will ever figure out how to finish against any opponent.

Lets hope the recent exit of assistant coaches and GA's will not affect as much as anticipated and we can keep the ball rolling. I'm glad that stew has forecasted a championship for 2011, but I'm skeptical if he can bring it home after watching some of the miscues from this season.

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