Last November, I was at work, so I saw the game in spurts. I had never seen the entire game, start to finish. Having been watching our late season games from last year (MSU, LSU, UGA, and Notre Darn), I had a buddy who had an HD copy of it on DVD mail it to me. What follows is my assessment.
1) We really did not play all that bad. I guess I was emotionally involved with the game at the time, but we really did not play as bad as it sounded. AJ was a tad off on the first series, a three and out. We should have had them a time or two on the first drive, the key play being when Mosely bit and started to his left and the middle of the field was open for Johnny to run.
2) We played lights out defense for most of the rest of the game. Remember them being in a 3rd and 31 on their own goal line?
3) This game was a lot like the 2011 LSU regular season game - every single little thing went against us. There were at least two questionable spots in the second half, we blew a timeout when we only had ten men on the field (which turned out to be huge), and our wideouts were splitting the coverage deep. Remember, AJ hit three bombs in the fourth quarter - a 51-yarder to Cooper on the right, a 57-yard TD to Cooper, and the bomb to Bell that gave us first and goal where we failed.
4) Ryan Swope should have been flagged TWICE for being a POS. Brad Wing got flagged for less and lost a TD last year for LSU. Not only that, but that would have been huge because on the first play where he jumped up doing his John Cena impression, we got hit fifteen yards for a helmet-to-helmet. Also - there should have been a flag on aTm for a helmet-to-helmet on Lacy. Ritter's crew conveniently missed that one. My Gawd, even Gary Danielson was pointing this out. And their receivers did a good job holding onto the ball when they got hit. Each bounce pretty much went their way.
5) On the play calling at the end - it was not as bad under review as I initially thought. We still should have scored but ho hum.
6) I may be alone here, but I'm getting a little sick of the aTm claims to Coach Bryant (with the notable exception of Coach Stallings). They made a big deal of 27 Aggies coming over for the game with Bryant ties. So what? I love how they latch onto him and while he did coach there, he coached longer (and was more successful) at Kentucky - and you don't see the Wildcats claiming Bryant to that ridiculous extent. It gets a little old. (I also note that Verne, while mentioning all the "ties" between the two teams, conveniently did not mention a certain Rope Holding Liar.