Dear Sobiesk

[Political Hack]

thank you. That's been lost in all of this. If he can convert there, he can convert anywhere.

[Dawgface]

Yes. Congrats to him and I now feel we have a solid kicking game.

[ckDOG]

thank you. That's been lost in all of this. If he can convert there, he can convert anywhere.

+1. Obviously weren't tough kicks, but situationally they were. The confidence level has no doubt switched to the right direction. Kicking is mental. This helps. Well done, Sobiesk. Our late collapse proves how important your job is to our success.

[thf24]

The key thing to me is that he kicked the first one from the right hash and it was right down the middle, after having issues getting his leg through the ball against USM and UAB. That means he's/they've gotten his head straight. I always thought he'd be a solid kicker for us in the DePasquale mold given some time, and I think he's there if he stays consistent with Saturday night's performance.

[FlabLoser]

Sobes was critical to the LSU win.

4th & goal late in the game, I wanted Sobes to kick instead of going for it.

[DudyDawg]

His kicks werent terribly hard, but they were all right down the middle. He even had to rekick one and didnt even flinch. That was more impressive to me than anything. I now have no fear of needing a 30 yarder late in a game.

[Dawg496]

I thought Bell and Sobiesk both did very well. Kickoffs, punts and FGs were exactly how we needed them most of the night.

[maroonmania]

Sobes was critical to the LSU win.

4th & goal late in the game, I wanted Sobes to kick instead of going for it.

It was really dumb not to kick the FG if we weren't going to run Dak on the 4th and 1. I love Nick but he is not currently running the ball at the level that Dak and JRob are.

[RougeDawg]

I thought Bell and Sobiesk both did very well. Kickoffs, punts and FGs were exactly how we needed them most of the night.

To our group in the stands, the concensus was that Dan let the both of them just play Sat, and didn't try to over coach them. He wasnt tryin to tell them things during the game and let them play, and it relaxed them.

[Reason2succeed]

He must have watched the K-State/Auburn game.

[Dawg496]

To our group in the stands, the concensus was that Dan let the both of them just play Sat, and didn't try to over coach them. He wasnt tryin to tell them things during the game and let them play, and it relaxed them.

Whatever it was, let's keep it going. I was impressed with our STs for the first time since 2010. Graham's return after LSU's very first drive got us to midfield and was huge in setting the tone early.

Bell flipped the field just about every time although he still outkicks the coverage sometimes. The very last drive LSU had, his punt ran off 7 seconds off the clock, which as we saw was invaluable.

Sobiesk's kicks speak for themselves -- we won by 5, he had 2 FGs.

[DownwardDawg]

Sobes was critical to the LSU win.

4th & goal late in the game, I wanted Sobes to kick instead of going for it.

Me too. I didn't understand that. get 3 more points and let Bell kick it to the back of the endzone again.

[MetEdDawg]

Me too. I didn't understand that. get 3 more points and let Bell kick it to the back of the endzone again.

It was a field position move. There were what 5 mintues left? Dan weighed scoring 3 points against leaving them 97 yards to travel to score with 5 mintues left in the game and they were down 18. The move made sense to me. Lot more things could go wrong on a FG attempt at your opponents 3 yard line to only get 3 points and it still be a three possession game.

You run it there 100% of the time under that scenario. Make them drive the length of the field to get points so they run clock from a deeper spot on the field. You also have almost zero chance of a botched snap/hold or a blocked kick that could result in a TD the other way on one play. You take clock chewing and driving the length of the field over the 3 points and not increasing the number of possessions in which they have to score to come back.

[Political Hack]

It was a field position move. There were what 5 mintues left? Dan weighed scoring 3 points against leaving them 97 yards to travel to score with 5 mintues left in the game and they were down 18. The move made sense to me. Lot more things could go wrong on a FG attempt at your opponents 3 yard line to only get 3 points and it still be a three possession game.

You run it there 100% of the time under that scenario. Make them drive the length of the field to get points so they run clock from a deeper spot on the field. You also have almost zero chance of a botched snap/hold or a blocked kick that could result in a TD the other way on one play. You take clock chewing and driving the length of the field over the 3 points and not increasing the number of possessions in which they have to score to come back.

agree. hard to argue the decision either way IMO. It worked.

If it would've put us up by 9, that's different.

[MetEdDawg]

agree. hard to argue the decision either way IMO. It worked.

If it would've put us up by 9, that's different.

Bingo. There's the difference. If it increases your opponents # of possessions to come back on you, you think about it. You for sure kick the FG if it's the difference between a 1 possession and 2 possession game. But at that point it was a 3 possession game and kicking a FG would not have changed that. Plus if you happen to convert the 4th and 1 it's basically game over.

[Percho]

You take the, "supposedly," points every time.

[basedog]

I agree Percho, you take the points every time late in a game when you are up!

[MetEdDawg]

I agree Percho, you take the points every time late in a game when you are up!

That doesn't make good football sense. 10 seconds left in the game and you are up 4 on your opponent's 5 yard line. You kick a FG or run a play on 4th down? You run a play there and NEVER kick a FG.

It's all situational and in our situation against LSU, getting from 18 to 21 with the potential risks a FG holds at that point in the game doesn't make sense. It's easy to say get the points in hind sight, but the percent chances of what happened to us happening again (or happening at all for that matter) are so astronomically high I can't think straight.

Back up QB comes in with 5 minutes left from his own 3 yard line down 18. Scores a TD very quickly, we get the ball back and our center snaps the ball over our QB's head, LSU recovers. Their back up QB scores another quick TD, they kick an onside kick, we recover, we run 3 times and punt. They hit two deep passes for 35 yards total and have a chance at a hail mary to win which we intercept. I mean come on.

[Bully13]

Just do it with the right players next time. Shit still kinda pisses me off.

[CadaverDawg]

And how about Dan having Bell kick it through the end zone every time? That was brilliant, and I was worried we wouldn't do it. It looks like Dan took the mentality of being less "cute" into LSU, and instead we limited their chances of scoring on ST by kicki it through the endzone, and took a physical approach to the offense instead of a passive, conservative, "play not to lose", approach.

Mullen got an A+ for the first 55 minutes of that game. We're just going to erase the last five minutes and hope like hell that he was as scared as we were, and will never pull that shit again.

[TimberBeast]

It was a field position move. There were what 5 mintues left? Dan weighed scoring 3 points against leaving them 97 yards to travel to score with 5 mintues left in the game and they were down 18. The move made sense to me. Lot more things could go wrong on a FG attempt at your opponents 3 yard line to only get 3 points and it still be a three possession game.

You run it there 100% of the time under that scenario. Make them drive the length of the field to get points so they run clock from a deeper spot on the field. You also have almost zero chance of a botched snap/hold or a blocked kick that could result in a TD the other way on one play. You take clock chewing and driving the length of the field over the 3 points and not increasing the number of possessions in which they have to score to come back.

It only makes sense if you are going to actually use our real offense to try to get the first down, and you can't talk about going for it in that situation to make LSU use clock on the next drive if you aren't even running the damn clock down to at least 2 seconds when you snap the ball to run clock yourself. Dan has clock management issues and because of that he should have kicked the field goal. The decision wasn't bad itself, but everything else around it was stupid.

[MadisonDawg]

He must have watched the K-State/Auburn game.

How'd you know?

[dawgoneyall]

Wrong

[MetEdDawg]

It only makes sense if you are going to actually use our real offense to try to get the first down, and you can't talk about going for it in that situation to make LSU use clock on the next drive if you aren't even running the damn clock down to at least 2 seconds when you snap the ball to run clock yourself. Dan has clock management issues and because of that he should have kicked the field goal. The decision wasn't bad itself, but everything else around it was stupid.

That assumes that the only goal was to get a 1st down. It wasn't. At that point he didn't care about a first down. It would have pretty much iced the game but it wasn't essential to us winning the game. We were up by 18. The field position was way more important than get 3 lousy points then.

Let's say we kick the field goal and go up 21 and the EXACT same set of circumstances happens in terms of scoring. LSU would have had an extra 20-30 seconds on the clock because they ran two more plays after we turned it over on downs to get them past the 25 yard line, which is where they would have started with the football after the kickoff. So add 20-30 seconds to the end of the game and then think about how stupid the decision was.

This isn't even a discussion if we win by 14 or 21 but many have their logical football side skewed because we almost gave the lead away. There are too many risks with a FG to try and get a lousy 3 points up 18 in the 4th with 5 minutes left when it won't even change the number of possessions for them to come back on you to win.

This argument makes zero sense to be honest. I can see the argument to put the first team in and try and get the first down. But you want Dan, who by your thinking has clock management issues, to say to himself "I have clock management issues maybe I should kick a FG." Is that a joke?

[basedog]

I'm not talking about 10 seconds in the game up by 4, Mullen had a bunch of the second team in the game and with 3 straight up the middle plays and no score you get the points with the time that was left on the clock!

Might no make good sense to you but it does to me!