Bryan Harsin Loses the Bet, But Wins the Game

 

Bryan Harsin Gambled and Got Paid with a ‘W’

harsin after troy college football calls and plays

By J. Frank Parnell

Once in a while, a college football fan is treated to a “What the hell?” moment during a game. LSU’s Les Miles certainly has produced more than his share. Bobby Petrino is known to slip in a weird call now and then. Now that I think about it, Arkansas State’s Frankie Jackson produced one at the end of the Red Wolves’ 41-34 win over Troy Thursday night.

With about a minute to play, Jackson picked off Corey Robinson’s pass at the 6-yard line. Inexplicably, he began to return the interception. Troy was out of time outs and all ASU had to do was snap the ball a couple of times; game over. Yet Jackson was running around the field with the ball dangling under one arm. I’m sure the ASU coaching staff was screaming, “Get down!”

I know I was and I didn’t have a dog in that hunt. A recovered fumble would have given the Trojans a shot at tying the game with a touchdown or perhaps a win if they’d scored and gone for 2 points.

Speaking of going for 2, ASU coach Bryan Harsin surprised Liberty Bank Stadium’s 26,000 fans by doing just that after the Wolves’ second TD in the first quarter, but he didn’t surprise the Trojans. I looked away for a moment, expecting to return to a 14-0 score on the TV screen. Nope, 13-0.

Here’s how Harsin explained it during his postgame press conference.

“The thinking there was we had the look that we believed was correct, and it was correct. They played it well; we just didn’t get it. What that is is an opportunity to come out and put more points on the board. That’s the job we need to do offensively is to try to score points. If we can take advantage of that at times in the game and put the pressure back on them and make it a 2-point in their mind. I know on the flip side from an offense, once you have a 2-point happen to you, you’re always in that 2-point mode. You’re always thinking about it; what’s our 2-point play gonna be?

“We don’t need it, necessarily, right then and there. Those are things that coach (Kent) Riddle and myself, and that’s my decision on that, is to come out there and try to be aggressive at times. Fortunately, we evened that up with some pressure. Our field goal team knew we were gonna do that. They know that at some point in the game if we don’t get this 2-point conversion, guess what guys, we better do something because we better even it back up. That’s exactly what happened tonight. We got a little bit of pressure and caused a guy to miss. We try to take those calculated risks. It didn’t work.”

The miss he referred to was by Troy kicker Will Scott. The Trojans had a chance to take a 35-34 lead with 12:18 left in the game but Scott sailed a PAT attempt wide.

Of course, had the Wolves kicked an extra point in the first quarter, they would have led, 35-34, early in the fourth quarter. It’s just one man’s opinion, but it’s hard to figure why a coach would go for 2 leading 13-0 in the first quarter. The percentages are certainly against it.

This stream-of-consciousness review of Thursday’s barnburner of a game isn’t intended as a knock against Harsin’s decision; I just found it odd. And I’d like to thank him for making me wonder because I dug up some unexpected facts about the 2-point conversion.

An NCAA rule change brought the 2-pointer to college football in 1958. There were two main reasons: it gave trailing teams a better chance to catch up and it cut down on the number of tie games.

But here’s the odd fact. In 1958, teams chose the 2-point conversion 51.4 percent of the time after a touchdown. They were successful on 44.7 percent of those attempts. That’s the only year since the 2-pointer started that it was used more that the 1-point kick. One of the reasons teams went back to kicking was a bigger target. The width of goal posts stretched from 18 and a half feet to 23 feet, 4 inches in 1959.

As you might imagine, kicking has taken over since then. During 2000-09, teams kicked 94.5 percent of the time after touchdowns; they made 95.2 percent of those kicks. They went for 2 points 5.5 percent of the time with a 41.1 percent success rate.

We know coach Bryan Harsin says stats are for losers.

But that doesn’t change the fact the 2-pointer’s a wild card that’s usually played late in the game. If I were a coach, I’d be very sure of my hand if I planned to use it in the first quarter.

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