Sunday Morning Quarterback: What did you think of IU's clock management in the final minute?

Every Sunday during the football season, BtownBanners.com will have a regular feature we’ll call Sunday Morning Quarterback. It’s a chance to look back at some interesting decisions or play calls from the game the day before and second guess them as most football fans ultimately do.

We should always remember that the actual decisions are made in real time without the benefit of being able to go back and forth and discuss potential options.

We’ve had a good message board discussion today regarding clock management in the final minute of Saturday’s 48-47 Indiana victory over Southern Illinois. We know the way Kevin Wilson and his staff chose to let it play out in real time on Saturday. I wonder, however, if after he has had time to digest the situation if he would do it the same way? I think I’ll have to ask him that question at Monday’s weekly IU Football Press Conference.

Here’s the situation:

With the score tied at 41 and a little over a minute to play in regulation Saturday, Indiana was faced with a second-and-10 situation at its own 28 yard line.

Nate Sudfeld threw a deep ball that was caught by Ricky Jones and the redshirt junior wide receiver took the ball down to the 1 where IU would have first and goal at the 1. Indiana chose to use a timeout with 1:01 to play and talk things over.

It should be pointed out that Indiana’s defense had done little in the way of stopping Southern Illinois all day. The previous two SIU possessions, however, had ended when IU’s Nick Mangieri had sacked SIU quarterback Mark Iannotti and the Salukis were forced to punt and the previous drive where things had stalled when the QB fumbled on third down and SIU was forced to make a 46 yard field goal.

So what should have Indiana done in this situation?
A. Run the ball up the middle, try to score quick, take a seven point lead and let your defense attempt to stop Southern Illinois from likely going 75 yards after it gets the ball back.
B. Take a knee a couple of times, let the ball go back somewhere between the 3-5 yard line, force SIU to call all of its timeouts, then run the ball and try to score a TD on third down. If that doesn’t work, kick a field goal on fourth down and leave just seconds on the clock.
C. Take a knee a couple of times, attempt the field goal on third down just in case you have a bad exchange and give yourself a backup plan.
D. Pass it like the Seahawks did in the Super Bowl.

Wilson chose to run the ball up the middle with Jordan Howard, SIU basically let him walk into the end zone, and the junior tailback scored a touchdown with 58 seconds to play to put IU up 48-41 with 58 seconds to play.

Of course, we know what happened next. SIU needed just five plays to march down the field aided by a questionable pass interference penalty on IU near midfield. The Salukis scored a touchdown with 18 seconds to play and went for the two-point conversion play and the win. The two-point conversion attempt failed when the receiver couldn’t hang on to the ball at the goal line (Myself, I think I would have let the quarterback run it instead of throw it any way but …).

And so Indiana hung on for a 48-47 victory and a 1-0 start to the 2015 season.

NOTE: If Southern Illinois had converted the two-point play and taken a 49-48 lead, you could make the argument that the Salukis had scored too quickly, too, as my guess is that Griffin Oakes still would have had a long field goal try for the win. It’s just the way the game had been going. You figured whatever team had the ball last was going to win.

So what do you think Indiana should have done in that situation?

There seem to be several Sunday Morning Quarterbacks (one in particular who is the founder of this site) who believe you should take a knee, run the clock down to the closing seconds and kick a field goal for the win. His point, and it’s well taken, is that you should have never allowed that IU defense on the field Saturday (sans some of its better players) to have the game in its collective hands. There are too many things that could go wrong with that group on the field.

Myself, I think the path that was chosen was the correct one. Here’s why:
1. You score the touchdown, put yourself up by seven points, and you have to figure that the worst that is going to happen is you’re headed to overtime. The Southern Illinois coach said he had planned to go for two from the time he got the ball back but I still wonder if that was the right call. Myself, I think he short-changed his kids a little bit there. Kick the extra point and take your chances in overtime. It’s not like you’re worried that IU is going to stop you and maybe your defense can force a field goal or something.
2. If you take a knee twice and the ball goes back to the 5 yard line, then what’s your play call if you go for a touchdown before at the very least attempting a field goal on fourth down? Do you throw the ball or give it to Howard or Redding? If you throw it you take the chance of it getting picked and a couple of passes almost got picked late in that game.
3. If you settle for a field goal a lot of bad things can happen. You have a first year long snapper for instance so you have to hope that the exchanges are good. When IU went for the field goal from 22 yards out that put it ahead 41-38, it appeared as if Oakes’ field goal was partially blocked. At the very least it was low and ugly. If IU was kicking from the 5, it would have been another 22 yard field goal attempt.
4. What if on third or fourth down, you had a holding penalty and all of sudden that chip shot field goal is from 35 yards out or more?

I just think a lot of things could go wrong and my point on the message board thread today was that if you think people are second-guessing Wilson and the Hoosiers today, imagine what it would have been like had Indiana gone this route and somehow got beat? That’s how coaches get fired.

And we have all seen IU lose games like this one in the past.

I still don’t have a problem doing it the way that Wilson and company did it.

My guess is that many of you will disagree. So go ahead and have at it. I’ll try to respond to as many of your posts as I can.