Worst playcalls

For Nebraska? The 1999 CU game. CU had come back from 27-3 to tie the score, but just fumbled at our 16 with 1:49 to go. They have just one time out, so we can bang the line and bleed the clock and Josh Brown can kick a FG with 30 seconds or less to go. But NO, Solich calls an option, and the Crouch pitch to Alexander is fumbled and CU recovers. Not only do we blow the chance as a winning field goal, but CU drives down the length of the field...and MISSES their FG! We win in OT, but that was just a godawful call and I was screaming as soon as I saw it even before the fumble.

For any college game, I'll go with Barry Alvarez at Wisconsin, all he has to do is let his QB fall on the ball 3 times and time will run out, but he calls a hand-off play. It's fumbled, and Wisconsin loses. I don't remember the year nor the opponent, but it was back in the mid/late 90s. It wasn't long after that Giants fumble against the Eagles in the same situation in the NFL, that cost that coach his job.

Honorable mention: everytime Callahan would bring in a back who only ran one play, and always called it. Like Lucky his freshman year around end. He never looked ahead and thought to bring in Lucky a play early and run a counter or pass. When Lucky came in you knew what the play was.

 
I don't remember the bad calls... I just remember blacking out and waking up standing over one of my unconscious friends on the floor....

 
I'll add to the Visor Boy comment, specifically Spurrier continuing to keep no backs in even as McBride poured the heat on. The clincher was the should-have-been safety followed by the no-doubt-about-it safety. Weurffel was pretty good getting away quick passes, but not that quickly, and he didn't have the arm strength to zip it either, so we got some picks off of that setup too.

 
for some reason i just remembered what could possibly by the worst series of calls in the history of football.

Let me set the scene. Where im from, HS football teams have to win their district in order to make state. So we are in district play. Tough game. Senior year. Our openent is down by 4 and driving. Reach our redzone. get inside the 10. Then we stop them on 4 straight plays to take possesion.

There are 21 seconds left and they have all 3 TO's.

first play - kneel down, other team calls TO

second play - kneel down, other team calls TO

third play - kneel down, other team calls TO

So here we are. 4 and 15. Ball on the 1/2 yard line. 12 seconds left in the game. As if it wasn't bad enough not trying to move the ball, but now our coach tells us to snap the ball, pass block and run around and throw the ball as far as you can to run out the clock. We tell out coach, "coach, take the safety and kick off." (side note our kicker was all state quality and kicked in college, and he could routinely put it in the endzone)

Nope. Instead he yells at us to shut up and listen to him. He then tells us to do as we are told. So we do. Ball lands, Turn over on downs. 2 secs left. Dive play, other team wins.

OH yeah, its homecoming. And did I mention is was my senior year.

What a jacka$$...

 
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fro daddy said:
for some reason i just remembered what could possibly by the worst series of calls in the history of football.

Let me set the scene. Where im from, HS football teams have to win their district in order to make state. So we are in district play. Tough game. Senior year. Our openent is down by 4 and driving. Reach our redzone. get inside the 10. Then we stop them on 4 straight plays to take possesion.

There are 21 seconds left and they have all 3 TO's.

first play - kneel down, other team calls TO

second play - kneel down, other team calls TO

third play - kneel down, other team calls TO

So here we are. 4 and 15. Ball on the 1/2 yard line. 12 seconds left in the game. As if it wasn't bad enough not trying to move the ball, but now our coach tells us to snap the ball, pass block and run around and throw the ball as far as you can to run out the clock. We tell out coach, "coach, take the safety and kick off." (side note our kicker was all state quality and kicked in college, and he could routinely put it in the endzone)

Nope. Instead he yells at us to shut up and listen to him. He then tells us to do as we are told. So we do. Ball lands, Turn over on downs. 2 secs left. Dive play, other team wins.

OH yeah, its homecoming. And did I mention is was my senior year.

What a jacka$$...
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WOW...did that dude get fired for being stupid or what? He should and if I were you guys...I would have just taken the safety anyways. Fro daddy wins this one with that story in my opinion. I don't even have any words to say how sorry I am that you guys had to go through something like that.

 
rawhide-jr said:
I don't remember the bad calls... I just remember blacking out and waking up standing over one of my unconscious friends on the floor....
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That's kind of how I spent most of the 2nd half of the TT game that wound up 70-10, or whatever the score was. I wasn't even drinking to dull the pain and embarrassment of it, I simply drank too much because we had company over who were heavy drinkers and I couldn't keep up. I didn't even see the score until my pulse returned. <_< Had to do a triple-take and make sure my eyes were really focusing right.

So, to tie that in with this topic, I will do a pickem for any play called in that game.

A close second pickem would be for the 2003 Missouri game, but moreso for the execution. Sloppy. Jamal Lord running out of bounds for a sack still haunts me to this day. That alone did not lose the game, but just all around bad execution that day.

Lastly, I will say any play from the playbook where there's a 95% chance it's a pass play on 3rd and 1.

 
fro daddy said:
for some reason i just remembered what could possibly by the worst series of calls in the history of football.

Let me set the scene. Where im from, HS football teams have to win their district in order to make state. So we are in district play. Tough game. Senior year. Our openent is down by 4 and driving. Reach our redzone. get inside the 10. Then we stop them on 4 straight plays to take possesion.

There are 21 seconds left and they have all 3 TO's.

first play - kneel down, other team calls TO

second play - kneel down, other team calls TO

third play - kneel down, other team calls TO

So here we are. 4 and 15. Ball on the 1/2 yard line. 12 seconds left in the game. As if it wasn't bad enough not trying to move the ball, but now our coach tells us to snap the ball, pass block and run around and throw the ball as far as you can to run out the clock. We tell out coach, "coach, take the safety and kick off." (side note our kicker was all state quality and kicked in college, and he could routinely put it in the endzone)

Nope. Instead he yells at us to shut up and listen to him. He then tells us to do as we are told. So we do. Ball lands, Turn over on downs. 2 secs left. Dive play, other team wins.

OH yeah, its homecoming. And did I mention is was my senior year.

What a jacka$$...
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Ouch, Fro, just OUCH! I think this is the winning answer for worst play call.

 
Any play that Frank called that required J-Rock to submarine or torpedo or whatever you want to call that throwing motion of his was a questionable play call.

Bo gets a boner for the fake FG vs CU, that definitely changed the mo of that game.

He who shall not be named gets the boner award for calling the quick slant routes anytime we were sitting at third and 3-7 yards. Everytime, I believe a Sooner sat all over that play as well last tie they were up here and it proved to be a huge turning point of that game.

Though it will never give him a pass, the call vs. Texas when Nunn fumbles was actually a good call, and broke away of his butt-tight, play to not get beat mentality. Play was executed perfectly, however Featherstone couldn't hold on to the pill.

 
Lots of bad memories in this thread.

Not Husker related, but the year after I graduated high school, I went back to my home town to watch a football playoff game. Very good game, my school came from behind in the second half and tied it up with a about 2-3 minutes to play. After teams exchanged punts, the opposing team had the ball on about their own 20 yard line, couldn't have been much more than 10 seconds left in the game. All they needed to do was to take a knee and send the game into overtime. But their coach calls a screen pass to the left and it gets picked off by the DE and returned for a TD. End of game. Worst play call I've ever personally witnessed.

Now that I think about it... it looked exactly like the first play of the Oklahoma game last year.

There. Brought it full circle and tied it into the Huskers...

 
fro daddy said:
for some reason i just remembered what could possibly by the worst series of calls in the history of football.

Let me set the scene. Where im from, HS football teams have to win their district in order to make state. So we are in district play. Tough game. Senior year. Our openent is down by 4 and driving. Reach our redzone. get inside the 10. Then we stop them on 4 straight plays to take possesion.

There are 21 seconds left and they have all 3 TO's.

first play - kneel down, other team calls TO

second play - kneel down, other team calls TO

third play - kneel down, other team calls TO

So here we are. 4 and 15. Ball on the 1/2 yard line. 12 seconds left in the game. As if it wasn't bad enough not trying to move the ball, but now our coach tells us to snap the ball, pass block and run around and throw the ball as far as you can to run out the clock. We tell out coach, "coach, take the safety and kick off." (side note our kicker was all state quality and kicked in college, and he could routinely put it in the endzone)

Nope. Instead he yells at us to shut up and listen to him. He then tells us to do as we are told. So we do. Ball lands, Turn over on downs. 2 secs left. Dive play, other team wins.

OH yeah, its homecoming. And did I mention is was my senior year.

What a jacka$$...
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Winner!

Hey Fro, didn't Pinkel call some bone-head plays his first couple of years? I remember our family used to say a coach "Pinkeled", was it against ISU or Troy maybe, I don't recall exactly. I am not trying to start anything. He has gotten better last several years (better players or better calls - don't matter)

 
'huKSer'Hey Fro, didn't Pinkel call some bone-head plays his first couple of years? I remember our family used to say a coach "Pinkeled", was it against ISU or Troy maybe, I don't recall exactly. I am not trying to start anything. He has gotten better last several years (better players or better calls - don't matter)
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Yeah he had his fair share. But I think it was one of those things where he called plays that would have worked fine if you had the players, but we didnt. His play calling style has been pretty much the same since day one. You know, bubble screens are great with Justin Gage, Will Franklin & Jeremy Maclin. Not so much with Darrius Outlaw, Sean Coffey and Brad Ekerukwu. His biggest down fall was giving up leads. He lets off the gas way to much and to early. The past two years its hasnt really mattered but when you are pretty even in talent you cant do that until the games in the bag.

"HuskerGBR"WOW...did that dude get fired for being stupid or what? He should and if I were you guys...I would have just taken the safety anyways. Fro daddy wins this one with that story in my opinion. I don't even have any words to say how sorry I am that you guys had to go through something like that.
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He did end up leaving (forced out) 4 years later. He was somewhat untouchable for a while. If I remember correctly my HS had won like 10 games in the previous 5 years before him. He won 3 his first year, 6 his second, then my Soph year we barely lost in State Semi's to the #1 team and defending St. Champ on their field. He was winning almost as many games in 1 season as we used to win in 5 years. He WAS the coach from Varsity Blues. LOL

Best part of the story was a good friend of mine (teammate and fellow SR) was in yearbook. He was in charge of the sports storys. Our football story for the year had a giant headline "TAKE THE SAFETY" :laughpound

 
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