There is no such thing as a cynical dog.  There are cowardly dogs, playful dogs, vicious dogs, loyal dogs. . . but a dog will either bite, bark or hump your leg and in any case you will always know the score.  There is no social complexity in a dog's life.  So when a dog looks up a human being with eagerness and innocence in its eyes, only to be set on fire by an asshole, unless you're a psychopath you feel emotional pain.

These players aren't dogs, but the same lack of cynicism applies.  They were told that they will be put in a position to succeed if they did EXACTLY as they were told.  They were recruited and conditioned to buy into the system.  The value of their scholarships aside, AT LEAST the assumption is that the work will pay off in the form of victory on the field.  That's what they bust their butts off for, so it kills me when that effort is pissed away.

The coaches last night took all that faith and trust and gave the players specific orders that would cause them to LOSE the game.  Don't put the opponent away.  Don't do what's been working.  Do what HASN'T been working, keep the opponent in the game, play scared.  It took PSU a LOT of tries but eventually Michigan finally managed to blow it for good.

If you're willing to take the responsibility of leadership by fiat and deliver, fine.  Or if not, make your case and win them over with merit.  But don't demand unquestioning obedience and then march the army into a no-man's land to feed your own damned stubborn ego.  The run game was practically moving backwards yet seven of the last nine plays in regulation were runs into nowhere when a field goal puts the game away?  That's not strategy; that's a damned Black Adder skit:

    Melchett: Field Marshal Haig has formulated a brilliant new tactical plan to ensure final victory in the field.
    Blackadder: Ah. Would this brilliant plan involve a Toussaint run into a stacked box?
    Captain Darling: How could you possibly know that, Blackadder? It's classified information!
    Blackadder: It's the same plan that we used last time and the seventeen times before that.
    Melchett: Exactly! And that is what is so brilliant about it! It will catch the watchful Penn State defense totally off guard! Doing precisely what we've done eighteen times before is exactly the last thing they'll expect us to do this time! There is, however, one small problem.
    Blackadder: That everyone always gets slaughtered in the first ten seconds.
    Melchett: That's right. And Field Marshal Haig is worried this may be depressing the men a tad. So he's looking for a way to cheer them up.
    Blackadder: Well, his resignation and suicide seems the obvious choice.

I really want the coaches to own this one, but I doubt they will.  When they say they're accountable it's only on vague terms they dictate.  Exception being Mattison who will go out and say, "I told this guy to do this and it was wrong," though I will be very interested to see what he has to say about that last-drive collapse.

+ 1,000,000 . . . 

+ 1,000,000 . . . 

"Setting up your usually consistent kicker for relatively easy kicks isn't exactly conservative in that situation. It is conventional"

And that's exactly what Michigan did NOT do in the last drive of regulation.  They needed to get Gibbons closer to put the game away; they decided to milk the clock instead.  They got lucky on two straight 3rd-and-longs and then opted to run-run-run and went BACKWARDS, then opting to punt.  Then the defense went away from what was working and allowed PSU to cross the field in 30 seconds.

The one time they could've used Gibbons conventionally, they declined to do so.  From that point they were FORCED to be aggressive in OT because they HAD to score.