Monday Morning Tail Slap: Two the Hard Way
Oregon State and its tendency to get weird on the road
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My apologies for not getting this published while it was still morning on the west coast. I’ve been blitzed by a mid-autumn cold harder than Shedeur Sanders got bit by the Oregon State pass rush on Saturday night. At any rate, I’m happy to be here, writing, on the mend, and happy you’re here, dear reader. Let’s go ahead and dive into what’s been on my mind since the final seconds of OSU’s 26-19 victory against the Buffs in Colorado melted off the clock.
Oregon State is 7-2, ranked No. 12 in the AP Poll, on pace for a handful of school records in a bevy of different categories, and has two massive matchups at home over the next two weeks against Stanford and Washington respectively before heading to Autzen Stadium the day after Thanksgiving to close the curtain on The Civil War as we know it. The season has risen to a fevered pitch. If the Beavs win out they can crash the UW-UO rematch that greater college football keeps talking about! It would be a juicy and intoxicating development for Oregon State to force a rematch between the duo of Pacific Northwest mutineers wait until next year.
It’s been awhile since Beaver Nation has been in such territory. And it’s doing things it hasn’t done in awhile as well, like, nitpicking road wins.
Make no mistake, I am by no means making the argument that Saturday’s 26-19 win against Colorado was a complete team win. It wasn’t and Jonathan Smith knows, as does anyone who has watched this team, that the Beavers need to be better in all phases if they want to earn an invite to a party bigger than the Holiday Bowl.
Many will make the case that a 1-1 road trip with a one-possession loss at Arizona and a one-possession win at Colorado is a failure. That’s fine. The fourth quarter performances in each game both left plenty to be desired. The Beavs were able to hold on despite the crawl to the finish line against the Buffs, but not against Arizona and the Zona Zoo, the much stronger team of the two opponents and one of the best stories in college football this year.
Smith’s decision-making on the road and how it may or may not differ from his approach in games played at Reser Stadium is bearing the brunt of the elevated scrutiny. It’s part of what you sign up for when you accept a role as head coach of any team and I don’t think Smith himself would push back too hard on any of the criticism for some of the more seemingly head-scratching decisions we’ve seen. I want to spend some time and space thinking about one of those decisions from Saturday night he’s getting heat for. I want to look at why it didn’t work, but also the argument in favor of making the decision.
The Decision
The decision to go for a two-point conversion with a 20-3 lead and 3:55 to go in the third quarter.
What Happened
Tanner Miller’s snap went over the head of DJ Uiagalelei. Colorado’s Kyndrich Breedlove scooped up the ball and returned it the distance for a two-point-reversion and giving Colorado points for the first time since their field goal halfway through the second quarter.
The Previous Play
Uigalelei plows into the endzone on 1st-and-goal from the one-yard-line. Giving the Beavs a 20-3 lead and the all-important three-possession difference. Atticus Sappington bangs in the extra-point attempt to make 21-3. A penalty on Colorado gives Smith the option to take the point off the board, and go for two from the one-and-a-half-yard-line as opposed to the three-yard-line. He accepts the penalty, one point comes off the board and the offense goes back out on the field.
Smith cited the analytics chart in his postgame press conference. The analysis is sound. Half the yardage for double the points. Why not? With the strength of Oregon State’s offensive line, and Uiagalelei’s ability in short yardage situations, the odds are the Beavs waltz right into the endzone and make it 22-3 instead of 21-3.
I’m a fan of going for two in general. Had Colorado committed a penalty on the extra point attempt following Aidan Chiles’s 23-yard TD scamper in the first quarter, I would be all-in on putting the offense back out on the field and try to make the game 8-0 instead of 7-0. I’m fine with allowing analytics to drive many decisions, especially early in the game.
Even the best offenses ever only get so many opportunities to score in a given game. Not even The Greatest Show on Turf had the advantage of unlimited possessions. When there’s a limit imposed on the number of scoring plays you have a chance to call, it makes sense to try and maximize those opportunities, especially when a penalty gives you the chance at doubling the points on half of the yardage to gain.
I’m fine with all those analytics, but I think something the discourse is missing is accounting for the situation in which an analytics-based call is made. The score at the time of the game was 20-3, but more importantly than the point total, are the three total possessions worth of points stood between Oregon State and a miracle comeback for CU on its homecoming weekend. The successful extra point would have kept it a three-possession game, and a hypothetical successful two-point attempt would push it a point further, but would still be a three-possession difference. To me, the increase in win-probability isn’t enough to risk going for a 19-point lead at the expense of a perfectly fine 18-point lead.
Speaking of the metric of ‘win probability,’ it didn’t shock me to see OSU’s win probability decrease when they turned their 11-point lead into a 15-point lead when the score stood at 20-5 once the sequence was over. It didn’t decrease a lot, but the Beavs still put more points between them and their opponent and the data from mathematicians much smarter than I determined OSU had less of a chance of winning when the dust settled. It only decreased from a 97.6% chance to a 97.2% chance of earning the victory, but even a decrease so miniscule points to the direction that possessions should be valued over points in such a situation.
Another point I’m yet to see anyone discuss on this decision specifically is Oregon State’s center on the play was Tanner Miller and not Jake Levengood. Now, Miller is a massive part of why this unit is so dominant. He’s been a phenomenal right guard all season and played well in a difficult spot in place of Levengood, who is a fantastic center.
Miller proved more than capable at the position on a great night for the offensive line. Neither Smith or offensive coordinator Brian Lindgren showed anything to suggest that they approached the play-calling differently without their star center in the lineup, but I also don’t think one can dismiss a bad snap blowing up a play the way it did, when it came from a lineman not playing their natural position. Yes, there were several shotgun snaps in the game and that was the only one that went awry, but again, this decision was made on an untimed down to go up 22-3 instead of 21-3 with fewer than 20 minutes of game-time remaining.
Momentum shifted in that moment. Oregon State’s defense did shut down Colorado and force another three-and-out on the ensuing possession, so the team responded well and clearly had the quality to withstand the late surge from the Buffaloes.
Ultimately, this comes down to using analytics to help make informed decisions. Smith and company have done an excellent job of this since he took over in 2018 and it’s only natural for the decisions that don’t go well to stick out. This is the epitome of monday-morning-quarterbacking (or monday morning tail slapping). If the snap on the play is still bad, but Uiagalelei managed to pounce on it I don’t think anyone would be talking about it.
Most of if not all of this scrutiny is stemming from road games, and OSU fans will be happy to see the Beavs return to Reser for the final two games of the season. We’ll see if Smith makes any decisions to poke the proverbial bear in the fanbase, but I’m thinking for this coming Saturday at least we’ll see a return to normal.
A normal that consists of being the No. 12 ranked team in the nation and a three-touchdown home favorite with championship hopes still very much in play on the second weekend of November. Fans retain the right to scrutinize whatever they wish, but even if Smith calls ‘The Annexation of Puerto Rico’ this week and you need to fume about it, at least take a second and remember to thank him for this new normal.
The loss of situational awareness is what is most alarming. LOTS of high risk calls are a good, or at least fair, idea under some time/score/opponent/conditions, and necessary under others, but are (or should be) a non-starter under different circumstances. The allure of potential gain needs to be balanced against the question of what could go wrong.