D-Rob Final Drive

Submitted by bignige1000 on

I know Denard led them down the field for the last td drive, but how do you not put Tate in there?? The guy who has engineered 3 4th quarter comebacks on the bench?! I know hindsight is 20/20 but regardless, how do you not play him when it counts??

mikefromaa

October 10th, 2009 at 11:34 PM ^

As if it wasn't bad enough Rodriguez was throwing a fit like a spoiled child on the sidelines yelling at his FRESHMAN quarterback ON THE ROAD against #12...Then he puts his running qb in the game with a minute left and no time outs. Absolutely stupid.

wolverinefaithful8

October 12th, 2009 at 10:20 PM ^

you have to understand that even tho you didnt know it for sure when it happened that tate suffered a minor cuncussion. denard had just led the team down the field for a score and had momentum. sure if tate was healthy he should have been in but for the time being d-rob was the righ choice. and one freshman mistake ruined it for them. i wish they would have given denard more time in the first half personally...

joeyb

October 13th, 2009 at 10:46 PM ^

I would have been fine had he made his way in earlier in the game. It was just that on his previous drive he threw I think 2-3 passes on curls and cross routes then ran the rest of the time. They ate 4-5 minutes of playtime. With 1:30 left and 56 yards to go to make it within your kicker's range, you need a passer not a runner.

In hindsight, yes, Tate needed to be pulled from the game for medical reasons, but not even RR knew that at the time. I was still upset to see Denard in because I knew he would have to pass and that he was not going to be able to be able to do it the entire way down the field.

maizenbluedevil

October 10th, 2009 at 11:42 PM ^

I agree with that in every other circumstance except the one we just saw.

Denard isn't a real passing threat yet. Running eats the clock, and w/o time outs, there's just not enough time for Denard (at this stage in his development) to stage a successful drive in that situation, whereas Tate, who is an excellent passer gives a chance to win.

Honeslty, I'm wondering if Tate's hand was injured though. That would make sense to me w/ him running out and being pulled back. (If he was injured, thinking he could play, and the coaches disagreeing.)

I'll reserve judgment until we know more about any possible injuries to Tate.

Muttley

October 10th, 2009 at 11:50 PM ^

That final drive started on the Mich 17 with 1:30 to go.

DRob played well, but unless he breaks a big run in the chaos, I don't see how he gives us a better chance to manage the clock to get in FG position.

I'm still a RR fan, and this is just a little disagreement. Who knows, maybe Tate was hurt.

formerlyanonymous

October 11th, 2009 at 12:04 AM ^

FWIW he got 21 yards in 20 seconds and we still had a timeout. At that pace, we could have easily made it into field goal range in time. If he'd made the right read on that last play, we'd picked up a first down and gotten out of bounds easily. That'd have us around the 50 with ~40 seconds left. It's not like he was wasting that much time.

Muttley

October 11th, 2009 at 12:23 AM ^

http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/playbyplay?gameId=292832294&period=4

Three plays and two in-between snaps. The clock stopped on the first down for the first in-between but ran on the second after Denard was stopped three yds short of the 1st down.

ESPN doesn't break the time down by play, but I bet a good 15-20 seconds ran off between the time Denard was tackled after his run and the snapping of the ball on Mich's final play.

formerlyanonymous

October 11th, 2009 at 12:26 AM ^

Yeah, I looked back at it after the initial post, see my follow up above for my more important point. We moved the ball quickly enough that we could have made it into field goal range. So saying the running QB was the problem because of time isn't a real solid argument.

If you want to argue something else, sure, but time may not be the strongest argument.

jawz

October 11th, 2009 at 2:29 AM ^

to say that because when the game is on the line you dont put in an unproven, only 12 snaps at the most, and a Qb that doesnt maek good decisions to get you in field goal range a perfect example is when he threw the int on the last drive over almost everybodys head and had minor streaking down the field, and odoms open for 15-20 yard gain and stonum open in the corner and your Qb thros it in double coverage that is why you dont keep him in

AAB

October 10th, 2009 at 11:31 PM ^

he hadn't thrown in a while. He looked rattled. Robinson had been moving the ball. I'm pretty agnostic on the decision, but I don't have any problem understanding it.

wildbackdunesman

October 10th, 2009 at 11:34 PM ^

Robinson had been moving the ball in a drive that seemed to be about ~90% running plays - which eat the clock.

Forcier as of the moment has better passing skills and that is what you typically want moving the ball with under 2 minutes.

I would have preferred Forcier in there. However, I suppose there was still enough time to have Robinson lead a primarily running drive to get into field goal range.

Oh well.......

AAB

October 10th, 2009 at 11:37 PM ^

We had to go like 35 yards in a minute. Even with a running qb that's pretty doable. If you want to argue that Forcier is more accurate, I can buy that. But he hadn't looked particularly accurate or comfortable for the past 2 and a half quarters, and Robinson had established something of a rhythm with the offense.

wildbackdunesman

October 10th, 2009 at 11:42 PM ^

It was 2nd and 3 from the 38 yard line.

There was 46 seconds left and zero timeouts.

Those 35 yards to a field goal could eat up 46 seconds quick if Robinson started getting tackled in bounds short of a first down.

Seems that the best thing to do would be go with the best passer....but who knows, maybe Denard could have ripped off a big run or hit a wide open WR. Maybe Tate throws a pick too... I think the odds would say Forcier would play better in that situation though.

AAB

October 10th, 2009 at 11:50 PM ^

by track record. If you mean "this guy is generally better at throwing the ball, and I think his prior bad decisions and bad throws were aberrations" then I might by that.

If you mean that Tate Forcier is "clutch" and leads big game winning drives, then I've read too much FJM to buy into that.

wildbackdunesman

October 11th, 2009 at 12:02 AM ^

Do you honestly think that as of right now, Robinson is a better passer than Forcier and can make all of the wide range of throws that Forcier does and better?

If not, then that is my point. Play the better passer when you need at least 35 yards in 46 seconds with no timeouts.

wildbackdunesman

October 11th, 2009 at 12:16 AM ^

You don't think that Forcier has the arm strength to throw the ball exactly 31 yards beyond the line of scrimmage?

How many games have you watched this year?

P.S. Even if Forcier doesn't have the arm strength to throw the ball down the field 31 yards (which is laughable), all you need is a QB to throw 1st downs when Iowa is playing deeper....perfect for Forcier.

Edit: My bad I misread your post.

I don't think Robinson has any better velocity on the ball than Forcier. There was nothing about that pass to Odoms that looked amazingly different than what Tate has done.

fatbastard

October 11th, 2009 at 12:07 AM ^

Of course you could also simply watch them in action, in which case you'd easily conclude that Denard is nowhere close to ready to throw the ball in a situation where the defense is expecting it.

And, as far as the comments above regarding running 35 yards in 40 some seconds, it looked like Rich didn't think we could since he called a pass . . . .

fatbastard

October 10th, 2009 at 11:54 PM ^

but we STILL had a very good shot to get into field goal range. The 5th turnover, a ridiculous pass that should not have been thrown at all, was the result of RR's decision put the guy in there in a situation where he had no chance to succeed.

Wendyk5

October 10th, 2009 at 11:31 PM ^

It was a childish decision to put Denard in. He's just not ready for that situation, but Tate is. This will be remembered as one of the worst coaching decisions of the season.

Wendyk5

October 10th, 2009 at 11:52 PM ^

I don't want to undermine DRob. The guy's out there, working his ass off. Who knows if that was the right decision. Tate could have produced exactly the same end given how he was playing. Heartbreaking end to a game that shows we're on our way.

Muttley

October 10th, 2009 at 11:58 PM ^

He performed very well for what he was asked to do.

It's just that asking him to run a clock-managing drive with no timeouts is like asking Shaq to shoot the three for the game.

It doesn't mean that you think Shaq is a bad player.

DisneyWorldGoBlue

October 10th, 2009 at 11:54 PM ^

I'm pretty sure D-Rob can pass. Tate was obviously struggling with making reads, too. It's not like we needed to throw bombs, it was a bad read by Denard, move on. People act as if OMG IF TATE WAS IN WE WOULD OF WON FOR SURE!!!!!!!111, he could of done the same thing.

fatbastard

October 10th, 2009 at 11:59 PM ^

watched Denard's passes this year you know that he throws more interceptions in a drop back set than completions. He called a dropback pass. He couldn't make the read. He lofted the ball in the air to noone. It was intercepted. No surprise there.

Not saying we would have won, but we sure as hell could have. Looked to me like RR's emotions and pissed off as helledness at Tate was the reason Robinson was in there. It was a bad decision.

Muttley

October 11th, 2009 at 12:11 AM ^

or one for every 5.5 attempts. Tate had thrown 3 INTs in 119 attempts, or one for every 39.67 attempts.

The best chance we had with DRob in there was DRob breaking a big run on a chaotic scramble.

fatbastard

October 11th, 2009 at 12:46 AM ^

have been on rollout passes for less than 10 yards. Every time he's dropped back he looks uncomfortable. He threw a pick vs. ND on a 3rd and 15 on a dropback. I believe he threw one vs. IU also from a dropback set. RR put him in. He then called a dropback. Denard couldn't read the D. He threw a pick.