I can't ever get my thoughts on Kiffin straight. I feel like he didn't manage Coker very well at all in the first half when it was readily apparent that his head was swimming a bit. I'm not sure what it was Coker was pressing, wasn't seeing the picture after the snap, or the pressure simply rattled him. At either rate, Coker needed some easy stuff to get him back in the flow and he just wasn't getting any help from the playcalls. Sure, he was patting the ball maybe a click or two too long but that is exactly why you simplify things for him.
Now, Kiffin erased all that by going for exactly what I thought was necessary for Coker to succeed in the second half. Most of the big plays in the passing game in second half were basically "gotcha" plays. Coker made a few plays off normal stuff such as a completion to Stewart down the sideline and a rollout crossing pattern to Mullaney. But we simply wouldn't have won this game without stuff that you keep in your back pocket just for a specific kind of look. Heck, apparently Howard's last catch was practically drawn up in the dirt at halftime.
Kiffin earned his keep in this playoff. He doesn't play it by the books and sometimes I think he kinda overloads the players with too much new stuff week-to-week...but it paid dividends in this playoff after failing miserably last year in the Sugar Bowl.
