Don't underestimate the effect of the Army game at Yankee Stadium in 2014 on HCBD's thinking. With a chance to tie in the last minute at Army's six yard line, UConn's Chandler Whitmer threw a pick six.
Things like that stick with a coach. And you can be sure he will never run the ball on second and goal with no time outs and 17 seconds left again. Third and goal...maybe.
Whatever happened to the axiom that you put the last play behind you? They tell QBs when they throw INTs to put it behind them and move on. Same for DBs who get beat for TDs, and RBs that fumble. Why shouldn't that rule be equally applicable to coaches?
If coaches are going to recall every single play call they've ever made that went wrong, how will they ever be able to confidently put together and implement a game plan? They'll keep recalling negative plays, and sooner or later practically every conceivable play goes wrong. If you're storing these negative plays in your memory bank all along, pretty soon you'll be paralyzed with fear no matter what plays are being called, because you're going to remember when they went wrong.
I don't see how any coach can successfully call plays with that kind of stuff going on in their head.
Diaco needs to learn to trust his players. Shirreffs should have been trusted to get the play off in time, and if he had been we either score on that play or we at least had one and maybe two more plays left to score. Shirreffs is a seasoned veteran who's proven he can be depended on to manage the game. If you don't trust your players, it's tantamount to saying you don't trust your own coaching staff and yourself as head coach, because you don't think your players are adequately prepared to perform and execute their plays. If they're not up to the task, whose fault is that?
