I feel so badly for Sylvester Croom tonight. Not because he doesn't deserve the criticism for one particular play call he made in tonight's game against Auburn (he does), but because I love him as a coach and as a person, and because he came possibly within one decision of being a complete mastermind once again for Mississippi State.
I've never been a huge fan of Croom's conservative offense. But I've respected it. It never seemed to make much sense to me to run up the middle three downs and then punt it, over and over, with occasional sprinkles of some bad passes of a quarterback off his rhythm. But somehow tonight, as a truly spectacular maroon defense began to hold its own, toe-to-toe with the #9 ranked Auburn Tigers, the genius of Sylvester Croom began to emerge.
Mississippi State's offense looked anemic. They just couldn't move the ball down the field, let alone score. But alternatively, as Auburn's touchdown-scoring tidal wave broke and broke on the rocks of State's defense, time and time again, Croom's game plan became perfectly clear: State didn't have to score on every one of their dozen or so drives. As long as their defense was playing the way it was, they'd only have to score on one of them. The running game was just wearing the Tigers down.
And according to that game plan, State was solid for more than 56 minutes of the game. Somehow, against an SEC doormat team that lost to Louisiana Tech, Auburn's top ten offense couldn't sniff the end zone long enough to get more than one lousy field goal. State just wanted to be in the game in the 4th quarter. And they did everything they had to to get Auburn exactly where they wanted them.
But somehow, inexplicably, with more than 3 and a half minutes left in the game, Croom chose to try for a 4th and 15 conversion from State's own 48 yard line. Why he didn't trust the rock solid defense one more time, especially when State couldn't make a 4th and 1 conversion earlier in the game, and didn't convert on 3rd down all game, we'll never know. But we went for it and didn't make it, giving Auburn the ball in excellent field position. What's worse, Croom completely abandoned his game plan.
True enough, Auburn fumbled 3 plays later and State recovered. Had the same result occurred after a 4th down punt, we would have arguably been in easy field goal range and had a pretty good chance to win the game, even with a pulseless offense. But we lost, an embarrassing 3-2.
Did Sylvester Croom singlehandedly lose the game against Auburn? Of course not. He kept us in it, and the players had chances upon chances to snatch up the victory. Would our defense have definitely won the game for us if he'd have chosen to punt? We'll never know. But I do know that if Coach Croom had stuck to his guns and carried out the game plan, trusted our defense, and saved a 4th down conversion attempt for a later drive, when we knew we wouldn't have gotten it back again, no one in that stadium would have thought about blaming him.
To see Coach come that close to genius and botch it on one play is tough to swallow. We'll get 'em next time.
I've never been a huge fan of Croom's conservative offense. But I've respected it. It never seemed to make much sense to me to run up the middle three downs and then punt it, over and over, with occasional sprinkles of some bad passes of a quarterback off his rhythm. But somehow tonight, as a truly spectacular maroon defense began to hold its own, toe-to-toe with the #9 ranked Auburn Tigers, the genius of Sylvester Croom began to emerge.
Mississippi State's offense looked anemic. They just couldn't move the ball down the field, let alone score. But alternatively, as Auburn's touchdown-scoring tidal wave broke and broke on the rocks of State's defense, time and time again, Croom's game plan became perfectly clear: State didn't have to score on every one of their dozen or so drives. As long as their defense was playing the way it was, they'd only have to score on one of them. The running game was just wearing the Tigers down.
And according to that game plan, State was solid for more than 56 minutes of the game. Somehow, against an SEC doormat team that lost to Louisiana Tech, Auburn's top ten offense couldn't sniff the end zone long enough to get more than one lousy field goal. State just wanted to be in the game in the 4th quarter. And they did everything they had to to get Auburn exactly where they wanted them.
But somehow, inexplicably, with more than 3 and a half minutes left in the game, Croom chose to try for a 4th and 15 conversion from State's own 48 yard line. Why he didn't trust the rock solid defense one more time, especially when State couldn't make a 4th and 1 conversion earlier in the game, and didn't convert on 3rd down all game, we'll never know. But we went for it and didn't make it, giving Auburn the ball in excellent field position. What's worse, Croom completely abandoned his game plan.
True enough, Auburn fumbled 3 plays later and State recovered. Had the same result occurred after a 4th down punt, we would have arguably been in easy field goal range and had a pretty good chance to win the game, even with a pulseless offense. But we lost, an embarrassing 3-2.
Did Sylvester Croom singlehandedly lose the game against Auburn? Of course not. He kept us in it, and the players had chances upon chances to snatch up the victory. Would our defense have definitely won the game for us if he'd have chosen to punt? We'll never know. But I do know that if Coach Croom had stuck to his guns and carried out the game plan, trusted our defense, and saved a 4th down conversion attempt for a later drive, when we knew we wouldn't have gotten it back again, no one in that stadium would have thought about blaming him.
To see Coach come that close to genius and botch it on one play is tough to swallow. We'll get 'em next time.
