The Truth

[thf24]

Great post. I'm very excited about Bear. He's out there contributing more than 2/3 of the receivers on the team and he doesn't even know how to play that well. He's going to be a star next year when he fully knows what's going on. On top of that, he can block any DB in the country and loves doing it. He's going to be a very special player for us.

[blacklistedbully]

Yes, the field goal was a momentum killer, but what I'm preaching is don't get bogged down with that being the reason we lost. Our offense was forced to score on every possession because of mismatch that LSU held with their skill position players. Bell needs to be replaced, but him missing that field goal wasn't the reason we lost. It just hurried the inevitable.

Did I say we lost because Bell missed the FG? Nope. What I said was there was a palpable shift in momentum at that point. And momentum shifts are absolutely key determining factors in outcomes. It is widely accepted that games can & do turn on 1 or 2 plays. Before the miss by Bell we were staying with them score-for-score. When we failed to match them that time, you could sense the air coming out of the sails.

It's as if we knew they were gonna get another score to take it to a 2-score lead, and that we wouldn't be able to overcome that. Assholes tightened and it all went downhill from there.

Obviously the 3 points Bell cost us wasn't the difference in the final score, and there were plenty of other costly mistakes, but to me, momentum was the biggest factor, given they went on to score 31 unanswered points. If I were a player who had to watch a head-case kicker botch yet another field goal, when he has helped cost us games in the past, it would be hard to not feel extremely frustrated, perhaps thinking, "Son of a bitch, here we go again!".

[HoopsDawg]

On 3rd and 6 before Bell missed the FG, I would have loved for Mullen to be thinking this is 2 down territory. Maybe use Dak's mobility to either run for a first down or set up a 4th short. Bell isn't going to make a 40+ yard FG from the left hash in that spot very often.