Tuesday, January 01, 2019

James Franklin made the correct call to kick a field goal instead of going for the touchdown trailing by six with four minutes left on 4th and 7 from the Kentucky 15. He had three timeouts and four minutes left, enough time to stop Kentucky, get the ball back and score. The problem was PSU's defense didn't stop Kentucky. But PSU's kicking game was shit today. He was banking on getting two field goals in 4 minutes when his kicker was 0-2 in the preceding 56 minutes. That is not smart banking. Again, he took the ball out of his best player, Trace McSorley's, hand and put it on the foot of not his best player. But it's 4th and 7, man. Fourth and 7 from the 15! Let's say McSorley gets the first down. You get no points for crossing the 8-yard line! McSorley's got to do it again and the clock's going tick, tick, tick. And what if McSorley doesn't do it, or doesn't do it again? And Franklin got one!  He got one of the two field goals he needed to get in 4 minutes. He would have had to have gotten again about as close with seconds to play as he was with 4 minutes to play. That would have been tough and it is cutting it awfully close and it would have resulted in a tie and overtime, not a clean win, but if McSorley had scored the TD, Kentucky would have gotten the ball back with ~3 minutes left. PSU's defense couldn't stop "Benny Snell" after PSU got 3 points. If Kentucky had needed a TD I bet Benny Snell would have been highly motivated to get them that. So, I still think Franklin made the right call.