The Ol' Ball Coach Always Covers for the Alumni

The Oregon Ducks helped me avert a disastrous Saturday and kept the damage to a manageable extent.  I was 2-4 going into that game, but Oregon covering and the game going over put me at 4-4 today.  Unfortunately, I lost both of my two unit plays as LSU failed to cover and Penn State failed to win altogether.  Naturally, I forgot to bet Michigan State this morning before leaving for the tailgate party and they covered.  The most disappointing thing is LSU failing to cover when they were ahead 28-7 in the fourth quarter, giving up a late touchdown to only win by 12.  Of course, I can't really complain too much since they scored one of their touchdowns on a fake field goal in the 1st half.

The more interesting thing is the end-game strategy of Steve Spurrier.  It's been a constant joke over the years that "Steve Spurrier always covers for the alumni."  When he was at Florida, this was somewhat difficult as those powerful Gator teams were always a substantial favorite.  This has been the funniest explanation of why he liked to run the score up.

BUT......today, he made a questionable decision in the 4th quarter to kick a field goal instead of going for the touchdown.  South Carolina had Fourth-and-goal at the LSU 6 with 7:48 left in the game trailing LSU by the score of 28-7.  Clearly, the only choice in this situation is to go for the end zone.  Being down by 21, there is no combination of 3 scores that includes a field goal that will make up the 21 point deficit.  Sure, a touchdown in this situation against the LSU defense is unlikely, but kicking the field goal makes winning next to impossible.  Anyway, Spurrier chooses to kick the field goal to make it an 18 point game.

Interestingly enough, the spread on the game had moved to LSU -18 last night.  Choosing to trail by 18 so they could at least push against the spread instead of the more likely 21 point deficit had he gone for the touchdown is the only explanation I can come up with for this decision.  Even Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson were openly questioning the strategy.  I'm sure they both knew what the number was in this game and simply did not want to open that can of worms.

I wonder if any writers will bring this up this week, especially in light of the fact that South Carolina was able to later score a touchdown (but missed the 2-point conversion) to make the final score 28-16.  Had they scored a touchdown earlier, then they could have kicked the extra point and only trailed by 7 points with 1:48 left in the game.  Certainly still a huge underdog to tie the game, but at least they would have still been alive. 

As it was, the final touchdown meant nothing to anyone other than gamblers.