Wait… What? (*UPDATED*)

Kazzy

One man. Two boys. Twelve kids.

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28 Responses

  1. Mike Schilling says:

    I can sort of almost see the vague glimmer of a ghost of a point there. Aliotti is saying “We put our sixth-string defense in, and WSU proceeded to embarrass them.” Of course:

    1. Oregon wasn’t just being good sports. They were also resting their starters.

    2. Their sixth-stringers might have felt embarrassed, but I’m sure they felt better about playing against a team that was trying than against one that had given up.

    3. It’s idiotic to criticize the team that’s losing for trying to run up the score.Report

  2. Will Truman says:

    My alma mater has been criticized for “running up the score”… I am of two minds about it. Actually, I basically have my own code I think that teams should follow: Take out the starters, but let the kids do what they do or at least have fun out there.

    It’s frustrating to me when I see schools take out their starters and put in their backups only to have their backups run it up the middle three times and punt. Come on! Backup QB wants to throw the ball around!

    In my view, apart from letting more kids play, it’s good policy to take the starters out so that they don’t get hurt. And it’s good policy to let the backups play because they can use the experience and are an injury away from playing.

    Beyond that, though, it is a disrespect to the losing team to stop giving 100%. (I’m excluding, of course, kneeling the ball at the end of the game. That has tactical advantages.)Report

    • D’oh! I don’t read too good. I thought WSU beat OSU and kept trying. Well, all of the same rules apply, more or less. Except that there is no dishonor in keeping the players in, just a lack of wisdom.Report

    • Kazzy in reply to Will Truman says:

      I believe it was OU that received criticism a few years ago when Bradford was there. They ran up the score in many games and kept him in. When he got hurt in the national championship, their backup had very little in-game experience — something it would have been easy to get him during their various blowouts.Report

  3. J@m3z Aitch says:

    As a die-hard Duck, I have two comments.

    First, to say Oregon makes no bones about putting up large numbers is only a half-truth. In most games this season starting QB Marcus Mariota has not played in the fourth, nor have they passed much after they take him out. They run up large numbers through 3 quarters, but then don’t try to run up the score through the fourth. Of their 403 points this year, 63–only 15%–came in the fourth quarter, and in 3 of their 7 games they have scored no points in the 4th.

    Second, this may be the dumbest thing Aliotti, normally a class act, has ever said. It may not have been wise for Leach to leave his starting QB in ’til the bitter end, but it’s not wrong to never give up. Aliotti should apologize to Leach.Report

    • Mike Schilling in reply to J@m3z Aitch says:

      Of their 403 points this year, 63–only 15%–came in the fourth quarter, and in 3 of their 7 games they have scored no points in the 4th.

      So in the other four games they’ve averaged almost 16 points in the fourth quarter. Let’s see…

      21 points in the 4th quarter of a 66-3 blowout
      14 points in the 4th quarter of a 59-10 blowout
      14 points when going into the 4th leading by a touchdown
      14 points in the 4th quarter of a 62-38 blowout

      You can see why they might have a reputation for running up the score.Report

      • J@m3z Aitch in reply to Mike Schilling says:

        What Michael Cain says. If you can’t stop the second and third string, that’s not the other team running up the score. In fact the last two games are the first games Mariota has even taken a fourth quarter snap.

        And at least two of their games this season ended with Oregon taking a knee in the end zone, once at about the 5 yard line. Teams that run up the score don’t do that.Report

      • Kazzy in reply to Mike Schilling says:

        I wouldn’t criticize Oregon for running up the score. But the Oregon philosophy includes the idea that more plays is better. So why criticize a team — one that is losing by multiple scores — for utilizing a similar strategy in attempting a comeback?Report

    • …but it’s not wrong to never give up.

      Many years back one of Bob Devaney’s Nebraska teams beat Army at Army 77-7. After the game the national writers were accusing him of running up the score. Devaney’s answer was roughly, “I pulled the starters at the end of the first quarter and the second team at halftime. The NCAA only lets me take 88 players on the road and they all played. Today may be the only chance some of them get to play in a game this year. Am I supposed to tell them, ‘Get in there, but don’t do your best’?”Report

    • J@m3z Aitch in reply to J@m3z Aitch says:

      Kazzy,
      That’s why I think Aliotti is in the wrong.Report

      • Kazzy in reply to J@m3z Aitch says:

        Was an Oregon defender injured late in the game? If this is out of character for Aliotti, that would be a possible explanation for this sort of boneheadedness.Report

      • Michael Drew in reply to J@m3z Aitch says:

        The thing about that, Kazzy (and I know you don’t know that’s what was on Aliotti’s mind, and I know you know all this if it was) is that if OU was *so* damn sure WSU couldn’t come back and cared only about not getting their players hurt at that, they could put *their* third string defense in (maybe they did do that), and perhaps even just 7 or 8 of them or less, and instruct them to just lay beck off the line at the snap, not cover anyone, and just be sure not to get hurt. If they’re not so sure they would win if they did *that*, then it’s OU who are expecting WSU to concede without a test that they can’t beat whatever defensive unit OU puts out there – on the assumption that that unit would actually play real defense. And why should WSU do that? But if OU concedes that they need to play some kind of real defense, and take the chance of an injury, to be sure of the win, then why shouldn’t WSU make them do it? You don’t just get to unilaterally make the game shorter in order to eliminate the risk that comes with playing the game, just because both sides would concede that, if both sides accept that risk, it’s nearly known who will win. If you want to eliminate the risk of playing the game, then you need to accept the greater risk that you won’t win the game. The logic of expecting less than 60 minutes of physical risk to your players in the course of a win in a football game is the logic of forfeit.

        Ugh.Report

  4. Miss Mary says:

    I don’t care for the pink helmets. I think we’re all aware of breast cancer by now… Not that the money spent on the stunt makes a measurable difference…

    I’m already regretting this comment 😉Report

    • Kazzy in reply to Miss Mary says:

      Ya know… I have generally felt similarly about the onslaught of pink this month. “Aren’t we all aware?” I would say. However, as I talked with a colleague whose mother is a breast cancer survivor as we attempted to arrange a “Wear Pink!” day for our students, I changed my tune. My colleague informed me that there are a number of women who still do not avail themselves of early detection as well as they ought to. And while there are diminishing returns amongst those of us who are “aware”, there are new dividends paid by reaching new audiences. Not only do we hope to educate our students, but every one of them who engaged their parents in a conversation about why we are participating in the campaign raises the possibility of their mothers (and fathers) who might be immune to pink flags and helmets to have their awareness renewed.

      It is also my understanding that much of the pink paraphernalia is auctioned off as memorabilia with proceeds going to research.Report

    • J@m3z Aitch in reply to Miss Mary says:

      Well, they are auctioning some of them off to raise money for the Kay Yow Cancer Fund, which supports cancer research.Report

  5. Tod Kelly says:

    As a die hard Duck fan, I have to first agree with Mike’s comment about running up the score being somewhat relative, since they actually usually rest their starters pretty damn early. Nonetheless, I think it’s a silly comment for Allioti to have made. That a team might want to have only lost by 20 points and not 30 (or 40, when it comes to Oregon) seems pretty damn defensible.

    It is also the only time I have ever seen a team be criticized by anyone for running up the stats/score when that team was being embarrassed in a lopsided loss. All I could think when I first read about this this morning was, “This is the kind of press release Ted Cruz would have released if he were coaching football.”Report

  6. Michael Drew says:

    It seems like a dumb and/or condescending comment regardless, but I need more context/tone to determine if it was actually meant as criticism, or if it might have just been an expression of surprise. But even then, surprise that they’d try to win?; surprise that they thought they could maybe come back?; surprise that even if they knew they couldn’t, they wouldn’t keep the first team in and try until the bitter end? None of that makes any sense and any of it would be an insult. I agree he owes an apology; I’m just not sure it was meant as criticism. Perhaps in the the coaching profession, any expression of surprise at another coach’s decisions is automatically understood as criticism. Even if that’s the case, I’m guessing it still wasn’t meant that way in this instance. What reason would Aliotti have to publicly criticize a coach he just trounced?Report

    • Kazzy in reply to Michael Drew says:

      @michael-drew

      Did you read the article? The language he chose seems pretty clearly critical.

      “”That’s total (B.S.) that he threw the ball at the end of the game like he did,” Aliotti said, referring to Leach after the game. “And you can print that and you can send it to him, and he can comment, too. I think it’s low class and it’s (B.S.) to throw the ball when the game is completely over against our kids that are basically our scout team.””

      To his credit, he has issued an apology.Report

  7. Will Truman says:

    This is my favorite take on the whole thing so far. My favorite line:

    Nick Aliotti thinks salmon are stupid, what with their swimming upstream. Don’t they know about bears, and how currents work. Dumbass fish.

    Report

  8. Mike Schilling says:

    That was a first-rate apology. No equivocation, no self-justification, just “I effed up, big time.”Report