After last week’s college football game between Oregon and Washington State, Oregon‘s defensive coordinator Nick Aliotti criticized opposing head coach Mike Leach for running up the score, and passing the ball in the fourth quarter, even though Oregon won the game in a lopsided 63-38 victory, where their own offense score 14 fourth quarter points.
Calling the decision to pass the ball a record 89 times “low class,” Aliotti criticized Leach for taking advantage of the second and third string player’s his team elected to put into the game, in order to pad his team’s statistics.
The truth of the matter is, a team should be praised for trying to win the game even when it seems so out of reach. Washington State used it as an opportunity to practice against a caliber of athlete that most of its students won’t go up against again in their lifetimes. It’s a great experience for your athletes. And just because a team decides to pull its starters doesn’t mean their opponent has to accept defeat. It’s understandable for Oregon to prefer their opponents to lay down in a fetal position every week after going down 30 points, but the fact that one team was able to take advantage of their lackluster defense is actually a (slight) sign of weakness for the Ducks, who are ranked #2 in the coaches and AP polls.
Until Oregon is willing to kneel the ball every play on offense, the opponent shouldn’t stop trying to score. The reason they don’t kneel throughout the fourth is that no matter what their lead is, there’s always a .00001% chance the other team can make a come back. And for Washington State, a 63-38 game is a lot less embarrassing than 62-24. That’s why Aliotti was out of line.
WEEK 8 DELI POLL
- Alabama
- Oregon
- Florida State
- Ohio State
- Baylor
- Miami
- Texas Tech
- Stanford
- Clemson
- Missouri
- UCLA
- Auburn
- LSU
- Oklahoma State
- Louisville
- Northern Illinois
- Texas A&M
- Fresno State
- Oregon State
- Oklahoma
- Wisconsin
- Virginia Tech
- UCF
- Michigan
- Michigan State
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