I agree that Byrd was not walking, but everyone else was. It took nine full seconds for everyone to be set, and 1 second later Flynn snapped the ball. And your point is correct about the play before. I was not overly impressed with the clock management of the "2 minute offense".
Why was the time such an issue? Obviosuly Matt Flynn and Gary Crowton knew how long this play would take because they have practiced this play many many times (or else they would not have called it with the game on the line). Byrd caught the ball with 4 seconds, with time to spare. I personally believe Flynn came up to the line casually because he wanted to throw the defense off because I defintely was not expecting that play call. Flynn came up to the line slow but once he snapped the ball he was very quick in stepping back and throwing the ball. He knew what he was doing. Blame the clock issue on the time keeper and TV announcers for being retards. Honestly when is the last time ESPN had an announcer that had a meaningful unique thought instead of stating the obvious.
You likely have a point there. In watching the clip again, Flynn is very casual going to the line. The recievers were MOST DEFINITELY set 4 seconds before the ball was snapped. But, when the ball was snapped...Flynn was all bidness! He took a quick drop, and with NO hesitation, fired the DAGGER to Byrd. It may well have been set up that way, because I CERTAINLY was fooled by it.
How many remember this Florida game in Tiger stadium several years back? The score was tied, Florida had the ball in field goal range with no time outs with three seconds on the clock. They lined up, ran the play, and, the quarterback threw the ball out of bounds and the clock read "00". That was before the spiking the ball to kill the clock rule so he had to throw it out of bounds to kill the clock. The on field time keeper put one second on the clock allowing Florida to kick a field goal and win the game.
I've been catching some of the Sports Talk Radio Shows today and CLM has been getting killed by the talking heads. I say let them have their fun. We might look back at this three game stretch as the turning point in our season. Our players have overcome a lot of obstacles. Now it's time to throw out all the statistics and let's just win. We know when we go into Bama and our offense plays for 60 minutes and never lets up we will blow Bama out. If we don't then we give Bama a chance. We've had "The Drive" against Florida, a Triple overtime loss to a good Kentucky team which we almost won on a 57 yard FG and "The Catch" against a very good Auburn team. We are now battle tested. Our guys need to take one play at a time and win their individual battles. If we take one game at a time and do this we will make it to the SECCG. I like where we are with an extra week of rest and preparation. :thumb: :lsup:
I wonder how long the writer had to pull all of those thoughts together? A lot more than the :55 seconds CLM had to work with, I'd bet. I know in high school, the clock operator is the extra official usually assigned to a game, assuming there are enough officials to go around. I can't imagine that the NCAA would allow schools to select their own clock operators.
I just wanted to interject here and tell you guys what a pleasure it is to see posters who want to DISCUSS the game in an objective rational manner. Disagreeing with each other but without malice and with humor. It's great to see a thread like this. I started a thread about the different groups on this forum and I think you guys are in the OBJECTIVE group.
Nice work in this thread. You are absolutely right. I have seen plenty of instances over the years where refs declined to put time back on the clock in similar situations, either b/c the ref was late to signal or b/c the timekeeper was a little tardy. Essentially, the rule allows for human error. There was a play in an NFL game just the other week where a team clearly should have had 2/3 seconds left to try a field goal at the end of the half. Tough luck. It's not like basketball, where refs to go great lengths to make sure the clock is precisely correct w/r to the way the play should have been called. It was a great call, and well executed. Seemed to take everyone by surprise when it really shouldn't have. They simply needed to snap the ball about five seconds sooner. If that ball gets tipped/bobbled up in the air, the play doesn't end until it hits the ground, and the clock doesn't stop until the ref makes the call. Scary. As it turned out, it was an incredible ending to a fantastic game. I just hope they are a little more careful next time. And, not to pick on Les, but his on field post-game comment about still having one timeout left didn't make a whole lot of sense. Maybe that's addressed in the linked article (I didn't read it), but if you are throwing the ball into the endzone a timeout isn't going to change anything. The clock is going to stop regardless (unless the defender returns an interception). Maybe Les was referring to the possibility of a sack or stumble or something else that might have blown the play up.
No, he was answering a very stupid question. Holly Rowe asked about the play after the timeout, and Les had no clue what the crap she was talking about. He said, "you mean the touchdown at the end?", and she said yes. He answered whatever her question was, and at the end of his answer, said "we still had the timeout". Her ignorance is why he even brought that up. The play after the timeout never happened...because there was no timeout.
