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Moral victories vs winning

SBG

Administrator
Club Member
Junta Member
On smart football.com they have an interesting theory about football.

Teams like USC or tOSU can keep it conservative and based on talent can win more than lose. This has a backlash though.

Most teams they play them, especially teams that have "no shot," will go with a very aggressive gameplay in an effort to win. IMO, that's why you see a lot of upsets in college ball with a big underdog beats a superior team.

The downside is that they might get blown out versus keeping it "close."

Now on to our buffs. Next year is going to be another tough year for us. If you were the head coach and thinking about the future what would you do: be aggressive against Oregon and USC and other teams that have more talent or try to keep it "close?"

I'm not a fan of moral victories, but if we continue to keep getting blown out it has to hurt recruiting. However, if we never try to win we will never beat USC as 41 point underdogs ala Stanford and get JE a signature win unless our D just creates a ton of turnovers.
 
I don't buy the idea that there is a decision to lose and keep it close or to gamble and win/lose big.
 
sackman said:
WTF is a "moral victory"?
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It's some bull**** where if you were a 30 pt dog and lose by a td, but had a "chance" to win and because of that one dropped pass or missed tackle you lost. Never mind the fact that it would have altered the plays after.

To me it doesn't matter. But here's the thing. If you keep it close against the best in the pac12 you are more likely to keep your job than if you lose by 45 to them. "We are making progress and keeping the games competitive." you still lost though.
 
buffs04 said:
I don't buy the idea that there is a decision to lose and keep it close or to gamble and win/lose big.
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So you can't run every play and shorten the game versus opening up the passing game? Sure, I buy that.
 
For examples of moral victories thoughout the hawk years: that loss to Bama in the Indy bowl where they took their foot off the gas after they went up 28 or 27 and we "nearly" came back. Being up at UT in they year they went to the mnc and we might have won if not for Cody's pick 6.

We had so many lol-worthy moral victories it's disgusting.
 
Here's the thing about keeping it close (I don't like the term "moral victory" but call it what you will): it can help build a team's confidence so that they can, with a little more effort, focus or whatever, pull out the actual win the next time. If I'm close to reaching a goal, I'll put in the extra effort to reach it. But if I think I'm light years away (that's a distance, not a measure of time, you know) from the goal, I'm more likely to give up.

So getting blown out can have a very demoralizing effect on the team. This is where I think Embo and his staff really earned their stripes this year: despite back-to-back-to-back blow outs, they get the team up to beat U of A. Then another blow out. Then a win on the road.

Next year, if they can keep it close in those games that were otherwise blowouts, they can see the next victory is in sight.
 
NMBuff said:
For examples of moral victories thoughout the hawk years: that loss to Bama in the Indy bowl where they took their foot off the gas after they went up 28 or 27 and we "nearly" came back. Being up at UT in they year they went to the mnc and we might have won if not for Cody's pick 6.

We had so many lol-worthy moral victories it's disgusting.
Click to expand...

And MT State, if it wasn't our first game we might have won it!!
 
Brown runs a very aggressive D. I like that. The downside is that our DBs coudn't really cover anyone this year. USC played playground football and Barkley just aired it out all day. He knew Woods would catch it. If we go with a zone D and don't blitz that USC loss looks closer than it became. No doubt we still lose, possibly by 21+, but not as bad as it was and no way he throws 6 TDs. They would have had some rushing TDs :lol: Instead JE comes out to punch it in their throats. No way we could get into a shootout against that USC D though. I did like how he wanted to win, but seeing 42-17 is the only thing most people see.

Here on the site we go into full meltdown mode if we lose by more than 10. This year we lost by a lot more than 10 for all of our losses, except Wazzu and Cal. And even those we went nuclear because they were last second losses.

A lot of our losses could be attributed to a front 7 that couldn't get a pass rush and a secondary that was just awful. Every running QB we played looked like RGIII out there as well. No doubt our D was just bad. I don't see what we could have done to keep games closer. This post isn't about this year though.

It seems like JE wants to win and he wants to win now. Not in 3 years from now. Now. We played a ton of man coverage with DBs that couldn't play press. We ran a lot of blitzes because our front 4 couldn't get a sack. Our offense was conservative, but Richardson was out for a lot of the year and he was really the only burner out there and Tyler wasn't able to put the team on this back; he did play better and relatively turnover free, but wasn't Luck. Clemmons was fast, but didn't develop into a very strong WR until later in the year.

With Woods and Richardson and our incoming WRs it'll be interesting to see how we develop our offense. We want a pro-set, but we lack the TEs needed to do so very well. We lost our best back last year and how good the OL is going to be is still up in the air. I'm glad we are getting a FB though because that's going to be crucial going forward. Hopefully we also get Brown as we need a big back as well.

I hate seeing beatings or even 1 pt losses. IMO, if JE goes out next year and we lose big again to teams like UO and USC--almost a certainty with our question marks and their returning talent--and JE is still getting into the ears and homes of bluechips we are going to be heading for greener pastures. JE said it best when he said that when you are in someone's top-2 then you have a chance. This year it seems like we are top-2 in a few recruits minds. The more we lose with this staff though, the fewer bluechips are going to be listening. Colorado isn't a state that produces a lot of blue chips so we don't have the home state or city school going for us. The window will close for this staff. Zook did well at Illinois for a while and he was always considered a good recruiter.
 
I reject the premise.

You don't go into any game expecting to get beat. The coaches should put together the gameplan that they feel gives us the best chance at victory. If I ever hear that the gameplan was to make sure that the final score didn't embarrass us on ESPN, I want them fired.
 
Buffnik said:
I reject the premise.

You don't go into any game expecting to get beat. The coaches should put together the gameplan that they feel gives us the best chance at victory. If I ever hear that the gameplan was to make sure that the final score didn't embarrass us on ESPN, I want them fired.
Click to expand...
Exactly, moral victories are what losers use to justify not winning.
 
NMBuff said:
Brown runs a very aggressive D. I like that. The downside is that our DBs coudn't really cover anyone this year. USC played playground football and Barkley just aired it out all day. He knew Woods would catch it. If we go with a zone D and don't blitz that USC loss looks closer than it became. No doubt we still lose, possibly by 21+, but not as bad as it was and no way he throws 6 TDs. They would have had some rushing TDs :lol: Instead JE comes out to punch it in their throats. No way we could get into a shootout against that USC D though. I did like how he wanted to win, but seeing 42-17 is the only thing most people see.

Here on the site we go into full meltdown mode if we lose by more than 10. This year we lost by a lot more than 10 for all of our losses, except Wazzu and Cal. And even those we went nuclear because they were last second losses.

A lot of our losses could be attributed to a front 7 that couldn't get a pass rush and a secondary that was just awful. Every running QB we played looked like RGIII out there as well. No doubt our D was just bad. I don't see what we could have done to keep games closer. This post isn't about this year though.

It seems like JE wants to win and he wants to win now. Not in 3 years from now. Now. We played a ton of man coverage with DBs that couldn't play press. We ran a lot of blitzes because our front 4 couldn't get a sack. Our offense was conservative, but Richardson was out for a lot of the year and he was really the only burner out there and Tyler wasn't able to put the team on this back; he did play better and relatively turnover free, but wasn't Luck. Clemmons was fast, but didn't develop into a very strong WR until later in the year.

With Woods and Richardson and our incoming WRs it'll be interesting to see how we develop our offense. We want a pro-set, but we lack the TEs needed to do so very well. We lost our best back last year and how good the OL is going to be is still up in the air. I'm glad we are getting a FB though because that's going to be crucial going forward. Hopefully we also get Brown as we need a big back as well.

I hate seeing beatings or even 1 pt losses. IMO, if JE goes out next year and we lose big again to teams like UO and USC--almost a certainty with our question marks and their returning talent--and JE is still getting into the ears and homes of bluechips we are going to be heading for greener pastures. JE said it best when he said that when you are in someone's top-2 then you have a chance. This year it seems like we are top-2 in a few recruits minds. The more we lose with this staff though, the fewer bluechips are going to be listening. Colorado isn't a state that produces a lot of blue chips so we don't have the home state or city school going for us. The window will close for this staff. Zook did well at Illinois for a while and he was always considered a good recruiter.[/QUOTE

? Don't **** with me.
Click to expand...
 
Buffnik said:
I reject the premise.

You don't go into any game expecting to get beat. The coaches should put together the gameplan that they feel gives us the best chance at victory. If I ever hear that the gameplan was to make sure that the final score didn't embarrass us on ESPN, I want them fired.
Click to expand...

The premise was more about the UTs and tOSU's of the world. Not so much about teams like CU. I'm trying to spin it the other way, from a lesser team against an elite team. Perhaps it doesn't quite work the other way.

Teams at the bottom, like where CU is at right now, will always play harder against those teams. Elite teams don't come out most games and try and put up 50 points in the first half, but the reality is that most of them could against most of the teams in their conference. High risk/high reward because you could throw picks or go 3 and out and play a miserable field position game. Oregon is a team that will try and put you out very quickly. Most elite teams aren't like that at all. Most elite teams rely on ST and good D to create turnovers and/or have good field position. Every now and then they get beat by a "WTF?" type of team (when we beat OU), but it's rare. For every 10 games they win, they'll drop 1.

The Vest played every game conseratively. Look at Saban at Bama. These teams don't need to put 50 points on offense. If you are one of the elites you can play by a different set of rules. USC didn't have to throw 6 TDs to beat us. They did though and that's rare among teams with elite talent across all positions, not teams with "only" an elite QB like Stanford. The original premise was that upsets shouldn't happen because coaches at the elite schools can be conservative and it'll work most of the time, but it might not be optimal. Most other schools couldn't handle a full on assault by these teams, whether you are an offense oriented or defense oriented team doesn't matter.
 
Mentally tough teams will stick together through the ups and downs of a game and will let all three units decide the outcome equally. You don't need to be flawless on offense to win, or even to pull off an upset. You need to be strong in all three phases and you need to WANT to win more.

I don't believe in moral victories, but I believe in confidence-builing games, as history has shown that specfic losses have been the catalyst for good things to happen [e.g. you may lose a game, but A) either you know you can hang with a team that you didn't think you could before, or B) you get so pissed off from a loss that you go on a tear]. The probelm with CU in the last 5-6 years is that I can't remember a loss that was ever turned into a positive - more likely, they tended to reinforce a fragile mindset.

For example, I don't see us winning in Eugene next season, but I think it's important that we at least hang close with them (unlike in 45-2 this season) and build some road confidence. Next thing you know, we're pulling off huge upsets on the road. I don't think CU is so bad that we need to be taking major chances to win games against far superior opponents. I'd rather punt and play defense than take stupid chances that could end the game early.
 
I got great confidence that we will have plenty of chances for moral victories while our defense is being led by Greg Brown.
 
JimmyBuff said:
I got great confidence that we will have plenty of chances for moral victories while our defense is being led by Greg Brown.
Click to expand...

I thought you were a Brown fanboy. Weird. I guess you've never brought this up before.
 
NMBuff said:
On smart football.com they have an interesting theory about football.

Teams like USC or tOSU can keep it conservative and based on talent can win more than lose. This has a backlash though.

Most teams they play them, especially teams that have "no shot," will go with a very aggressive gameplay in an effort to win. IMO, that's why you see a lot of upsets in college ball with a big underdog beats a superior team.

The downside is that they might get blown out versus keeping it "close."

Now on to our buffs. Next year is going to be another tough year for us. If you were the head coach and thinking about the future what would you do: be aggressive against Oregon and USC and other teams that have more talent or try to keep it "close?"

I'm not a fan of moral victories, but if we continue to keep getting blown out it has to hurt recruiting. However, if we never try to win we will never beat USC as 41 point underdogs ala Stanford and get JE a signature win unless our D just creates a ton of turnovers.
Click to expand...

I do not see teams like USC or Ohio State playing conservative - the usually play very aggressively because they have the talent. You usually see these teams get upset because of turnovers.
 
As has already been said,"you play to win the game" anything less from a player or coach gtfo.You should hate losing by 1 as much as losing by 100 no matter how good or who the opponent is.
 
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