Closing thoughts on the Disaster at Arrowhead

Written by Matt

Tuesday, 14 July 2009 15:01

Most weeks I've completely moved on to the next game by Tuesday afternoon but I had a few thoughts regarding Saturday's catastrophe that I've yet to post so I want to make those points then I'll change my focus to shocking the world on Saturday.

I think the hardest part about this loss isn't the fact that our team lost. It's that we had to watch and listen to kU's fans and players celebrate and talk shit after the game. That's a good example of the kind of hate that this rivalry is characterized by. Now for the next 12 months, unless we pull off a shocker on Saturday, we're going to be subjected to Beaker fans telling us their program is just as good as ours. But the bottom line is if a kansas fan says they wouldn't trade football programs with us in a heartbeat then they're either lying or they don't know jackshit about football.

On the way to my car after the game I was walking in a group of Mizzou fans when a particularly douchey looking kU fan walked up to us and starting bellowing "Lets goooo Haaaawwwwkkkkks!!!!" A Mizzou fan told him to enjoy the Insight.com Bowl and he told us to have fun in our non-BCS bowl. When someone pointed out to him that his Haaaawwwwkkkks weren't going to a BCS bowl either he replied by telling us about the National Championship that kansas won in basketball. Typical. Like talking to a fucking parrot. Then his buddy told us the conversation we were having was just like Lord of the Rings. None of us knew what the hell that meant but figured it was appropriate since he looked just like Gollum.

Did anyone else notice how this was just like the Illinois game but in reverse and without any Spoon heroics to save us at the end? The offense having a dominant half. The secondary getting torched. Even Maclin getting dinged up. Kinda weird.

I was pleasantly surprised by the way Tru Vaughns played after Castine Bridges went out with an injury. That could be because he was the only member of the secondary that I didn't notice get torched at least once. But I'm kinda interested to see how he plays on Saturday.

Is there a reason Del Howard hasn't gotten a chance to replace Justin Garrett? I don't want to constantly rip on Garrett but he's been every bit as bad as Mizzou fans have said he's been. Shouldn't Del at least get a shot? He couldn't play any worse than Garrett has so there's really not any risk.

Chase Coffman. I don't know what I can say to describe his effort other than to simply tell him thanks. I'm not sure if we'll see him against OU on Saturday. It was painful watching him limp around out there. He's certainly had more prolific games as a Tiger but none that were more gutsier.

Like most observers I was pretty baffled as to why GP decided to hold onto his final two timeouts at the end of the game and ended up wasting a potentially precious second in the process. Whitlock and Burwell touched on this situation in their Sunday columns and made several good points. Even though it didn't hurt us from a time standpoint (Wolfert would have probably taken the field to kick a FG regardless of whether there were five or six seconds left) this was still a critical error by Pinkel. Mangino said he took a timeout before the infamous 4th-and-7 play just to make sure everyone that was going to be on the field was on the same page. Pinkel absolutely should have done the same thing. If you have the timeouts to use then you don't spike the ball with only 10 seconds left. What if that next play ended up taking a second less than it did? Then there are seven seconds and you're probably able to run another play. I'm as big a Gary Pinkel fan as you can find but this was an inexcusable blunder and we haven't really gotten an explanation for why he made this decision.

Speaking of the play before Wolfert's kick, have you seen a Tiger receiver drop more passes than Danario Alexander has this season? I don't know how much not being at full speed until the Nebraska game because of that ACL injury has to do with it, but after such promising freshman and sophomore seasons Super Danario has taken a major step back this year. If there's one player that should show up to practice this spring with a fire lit under his ass it's Danario.

As much as this game sucked as a Mizzou fan, I have to admit it was incredible game to watch. A big second half comeback, four lead changes in the final seven minutes and then a blocked FG as time expires. Can't ask for much more excitement than that. Just sucks to be on the wrong end of it.

I should have some thoughts about the Big 12 Championship Game posted tomorrow morning so check back for that.