Friday Night Lights Final Game

Friday night was the last game of the season. Here are some quick facts for you:

Facts about the First String Running Back :
-Fumbled at the 2 yard line giving the opposing team 2 yards to go to get their first touchdown.
-Fumbled a 2nd time in the 4th quarter
-Dropped 3 passes that hit his hands
-Missed a key block on a passing play that caused a sack

Facts about the third string Running Back:
-Brought in for the first time on offense in the third quarter when it was 3rd and 17. Caught a pass and took it 15 yards
-Took 1 handoff for 36 yard touchdown run
-Took 1 kickoff return for 86 yard touchdown run
-Touched the ball 3 times and scored twice

OK, so this may seem a little winy, but you know who Cal is. That's right! He is the 3rd string running back. He was perfect when he was in there. He looked great. He played in the game exactly 5 plays. He got the ball on 3 of them (2 were kickoffs where the opponents squib kicked to keep him from getting the ball) and scored twice. I mean, come the EFF on!

Cal had a fumble in 4 of the first 5 games. Again, I can argue that at least 2 were not his fault, but let us not and move on. When he fumbled, his coach immediately pulled him out of the game and benched him. He dropped a pass one time that hit his hands and the coach didn't put him back in that game, chewed him out in the game and then again during game films.

OK, I have no problem pushing your kids hard. But, I do not agree that being so hard on them that none of them respect you, will get more out of them. Many kids quit this year, and many are talking of not playing next year. Some are even trying to transfer already to other schools to finish out their high school careers under a different head coach. If you are treating some kids like they can do no wrong, and then punishing others for minor incidents, you will lose their respect. This coach just pushed the kids way too hard and then played obvious favorites. And this lost most or all of the kids' respect.

One of the coach's "favorites" was over 10 minutes late to a 6am meeting and started the game that night as usual. The very next week (this last game), Cal was 3 minutes late and he was benched during the first half. He asked me "how is that fair?". "It is not", I told him. But you have to deal with it.

One other weird thing has happened this year. His stats have been wrong sometimes. Never in his favor though. Sometimes, I would have him on more receiving yards than his team reported. Or worse, I would have him with more carries and yards, but it seemed that they credited his stats to the starting running back. Well, now I have proof. At least proof that the stats they turn in aren't accurate. You can click here to try to figure out what is wrong about the stats, or I will summarize.

In this last game, Cal had a 36 yard touchdown run. But for the boxscore stats, the stats person turned in "1 carry for 6 yards". He was only in for 2 offensive plays. Once they threw him the ball and he ran for 15 yards (misreported as 10yards), and the other play was a touchdown. At the top of the stats, they show each touchdown and how it was scored. The top of the stats say he scored a 36 yard TD run. But below that, it says he had 1 carry for 6 yards. Not possible people. Not possible. So I feel validated that they screwed up the stats all year. And, I know the starting running back DID NOT have the total yards that they reported.

So lets look at some Annual numbers (from those very skewed stats we just talked about). I can't really count the total yards because I don't think they are accurate. But the number of touchdowns are 100% correct. And the number of carries/rushes/returns are close.
Cal 35 touches – 5 touchdowns
1st string back: 85 touches – 3 touchdowns

2nd string back: 69 touches - 2 touchdowns

Who would you think is a playmaker? Wouldn't you want to work with your playmaker on how to better carry the ball , or better know the schemes or better something so he can continue scoring you touchdowns more often than the other players on the team. ** I will say there was one player with more touchdowns than Cal . He was the "badass" WR who catches almost everything thrown at him. He had 9 touchdowns on 27 receptions.

But my point is that the 3rd string running back had the 2nd most TD's on the team. Doesn't that elicit a little more consideration??? And if they accurately reported the stats, I believe he would have had the best Yards Per Carry for a running back on the team. Oh wait, you want to argue that he had 2 of his touchdowns on kickoff returns. He still had 3 TD's on 32 touches as a running back. Way ahead of the average for the others.

I'm just saying, you are killing a kids scholarship opportunities when you are benching him because he broke his leg last year in the first game and then you went 2-8. Cal was starting Offense, Deffense, and all special teams at Varsity as a sophomore under this same head coach. This year he was 3rd string running back and played on some of the special teams. Did his talent really drop that low from sophomore to junior year?

This is pure drama. Friday Night Lights at it's best. I fully expect more next year.

At least he got this:

After seeing Tony Romo sign that huge contract after he hasn't even played a full season as a starter made me start thinking. You need so many things to fall in to place to really make it to that spot that Tony Romo is at. Think of how many kids had more talent than Tony Romo but never made the grades to continue football, got involved in drugs, got a girlfriend pregnant, or just had poor coaches so quit or never got exposed to a college opportunity. Makes you want to appreciate everything you have.

I see I got tagged. I will get that going later this week. Also, I played in a charity poker tourney on Saturday and have a decent post about that coming as well.

Stay patient...