It is so easy to develop tunnel vision in the business of college football coaching… and in college football writing as well.
First, about coaching: It is so easy — and very understandable — for coaches to process situations through the lens of, “Let’s do what we can to keep playing, to continue to give ourselves a chance.” Coaches tell their players all the time to focus on the next play; to keep fighting for 60 minutes; to persevere and prevail in the fourth quarter — anything which speaks to the need to persist as competitors.
Filtered through that context, it’s natural that a coach would make a decision which keeps his team alive but doesn’t maximize his chances of winning. This is a habit we see in coaches all the time, and it often doesn’t matter whether the coach in question is a Hall of Famer or an average practitioner of the craft. This tendency is pervasive in the coaching fraternity, because there are certain aspects of coaching which are inherent to the nature of the work. Teaching players to persevere is as central to the motivational art as it gets. One should not be surprised when coaches make gameday decisions which feed into (and flow from) such a mentality.
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For writers, it’s just as easy to develop tunnel vision. Criticizing a coach comes naturally and instinctively when watching a game on television. Removing all other contextual details from the picture, it’s supremely simple to identify Situation X and point out why Coach Y should have performed Action Z instead of Action Q. This narrow focus on mistakes can lead to the equally easy inclination to simply rip the coach from a lofty height and look down on how poorly that coach performed.
On some occasions, that approach isn’t terribly unreasonable. When Ron Zook was coaching Illinois into the ground in the years following his Rose Bowl appearance in January of 2008, there wasn’t much of a need for nuance. One coaching gaffe after another neatly wrote a simple script. Tunnel vision didn’t obscure or interfere with larger aspects of Illinois’ situation.
However, there are certainly occasions in which tunnel vision — when devoted to coaching criticism — comes across as extremely insensitive and unfair to the coach in question. Such is the case with Bill Snyder of Kansas State after his team’s excruciating 52-45 loss to TCU on Saturday night.
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Yes, Snyder made an important error, one which played a rather large role in TCU’s escape from the Little Apple, otherwise known as Manhattan, Kansas. However, one ought to marvel at the job Snyder has done this season and make sure to prominently include such a comment in a larger evaluation of his work.
It’s true that Kansas State — after winning 49 straight games with a halftime lead — is now 0-2 in the past two weeks under such a circumstance. It’s also true that the Wildcats won’t sniff the Big 12 title, now that they’ve already absorbed a couple of conference losses. However, results and performance don’t always match, and Kansas State offers a perfect example.
Snyder has had to go five-deep at the quarterback position this season. The man who led the offense on Saturday against TCU, Joe Hubener, began the season as a backup. Moreover, he had to be removed for a period of time from KSU’s Oct. 3 game at Oklahoma State due to concerns about a possible concussion. Hubener passed the proper concussion protocols and was able to return to the field. Nevertheless, he was still one of the team’s backup signal callers before the number one quarterback, Jesse Ertz, was knocked out for the season with an injury in the team’s opening game on Labor Day weekend.
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Just stop for a moment and realize how often college offenses deteriorate when their starting quarterback gets hurt. Virginia Tech is struggling without Michael Brewer — maybe not hemorrhaging, but it’s reasonable to claim that a noticeable drop-off exists. South Carolina’s injury-depleted quarterback situation has become a disaster. Indiana (again) is dealing with injuries to its quarterback, Nate Sudfeld. Oregon could probably use a healthy Vernon Adams right now. The list goes on and on and on.
The wheels fall off many college offenses when the one really good quarterback on the roster is hurt.
For Kansas State, the wheels just keep rolling smoothly.
The Wildcats, with this makeshift situation under center, have scored a total of 79 points in their last two games. It’s true that Hubener threw a crucial pick-six early in the second half to fuel TCU’s comeback from an 18-point deficit, but even if you subtract those seven points from KSU’s offensive total, the Wildcats still hung 38 on an opponent with multiple pieces missing from what was supposed to be their ideal 11-man offensive unit.
Snyder, even in defeat, continues to be a wizard, and to ignore or downplay that fact — just because of TUNNEL VISION COACHING CRITICISM! MUST DESTROY COACHES IN PRINT! — would be unfair.
Having given Snyder his due, let’s now show why he cost his team with his own bit of “let’s stay alive” tunnel vision against TCU.
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The game reset: With just under two minutes remaining and Kansas State facing fourth and two at the TCU 21, the Wildcats trailed the Horned Frogs, 45-42. They had only one timeout left.
It’s very easy for Snyder or any other coach to say, “Hey! I kicked a tying field goal on fourth down. I’d never be able to live with myself if I never did give my kicker a chance to tie the game.” That’s a fair response, but removed from context, it comes across as a limited way of addressing a larger situation.
One theme I continuously harp on in these game-management analyses is that the nature of the game in question has to influence a coach’s decision in an important moment.
Let’s say this game was 17-14 and not 45-42. Let’s say for the sake of argument that Kansas State’s defense had handcuffed Trevone Boykin and Josh Doctson throughout this contest. Under those (adjusted) circumstances, yes, kicking the field goal would make 10 million times more sense and be almost impossible to knock.
In a 45-42 game, however, with Boykin and Doctson playing out of their minds and having nearly 1:45 in which to operate, the idea of doing anything other than going for that first down was absurd. This is easily understandable.
With a great offense on the other side of the field, Kansas State didn’t necessarily have to score a touchdown. A field goal would indeed send the game into overtime, after all. However, getting that first down just inside the TCU 20 would have been immensely valuable because it would have enabled Kansas State to drain clock and exhaust TCU’s supply of timeouts. Perhaps the Wildcats wouldn’t have gained a first down on their next series of downs. That’s okay — they would have used more time and forced the Horned Frogs’ offense to operate under a lot more constraints. Giving the ball back to Boykin in a tied game (presuming the kick was made, which it was) with nearly two minutes to go did not maximize KSU’s chances of winning.
Sure, the Wildcats were no longer losing… but only temporarily. The ability to at least drain the clock was thrown out the window. The ability to drain clock and score a go-ahead touchdown with under 30 seconds left (thereby forcing TCU to have to score a touchdown to win, in a 49-45 game) was also permanently abandoned by Snyder.
It’s all because an incredible coach — one of the five best I will ever see in college football — fell victim to that familiar trap of valuing the decision which “keeps you alive” more than the decision which maximizes your chances of winning.
Bill Snyder remains extremely sharp and effective, just after turning 76 years old last week. Steve Spurrier seems to have run out of answers at age 70, but Snyder just keeps going strong. He’s a most unusual specimen in the coaching business. He deserves no end of praise.
Yet, even he made a critical error on Saturday, reminding us that none of us are perfect… and tunnel vision isn’t always a helpful thing to own.
