Just look at the aTm game. We're driving up 24-3. If Robert Foster doesn't fumble the ball and we drive down and score 7. I highly doubt that game gets to 27-19. I think one play can be a gateway to other plays happening that never would have happened. It's why in a lot of games that have a sudden shift in direction, you hear post game comments like "The turning point of this game was..." and they point to one maybe two plays.
I agree about the aTm game - agree completely.
And FWIW, I don't think its necessarily the case in all games. There's a comment above about all the 3-and-outs in the NC game - and there were a LOT! If memory serves we were 2/15 on 3rd down in that game and both of the successful conversions came in the FIRST QUARTER...... couldn't complete a pass beyond the LOS to save our lives......
But think of all the MANY, Many games were one play or just a handful of plays seemed to totally change momentum, and eventually change the apparent outcome.
2010 - we were absolute ROUTING the booger-eaters - they couldn't BUY a first down (they bought a QB, but couldn't buy a first down). Mark Ingram is running loose headed for a TD that would have given us an Insurmountable lead. (I think we were up something like 24-0 at the time?) The ball is stripped from behind, and from that point forward we never again score a TD Or even mount a sustained drive!! aubarn roar$ back from the aby$$. Game Over.
2011 - we are going toe-to-toe with the Consensus #1 team in America, LSU - a Juggernaut that's already beaten the eventual champions of TWO other major conferences. We can't buy a FG or a TD. And Coach Mac (bless his heart) is running gadget plays EVERY @#$% TIME we get near the Red-Zone. He calls a halfback pass and our TE and a corndog DB both go up for the ball and both land on the ground, both holding the ball. Once on the ground the DB alertly wrestles the ball away from our TE, and the refs help out by wrongly calling it an Interception. Had the ref's not blown the call, we have the ball inside the 5 yard line (if memory serves) and even if we can't punch it in, its a chip shot FG that we almost certainly make and win the game. One Play. We eventually lose in OT when we miss our FIFTH FG attempt of the night.....
2012 - We show up at B-D sleep walking and still in a daze from the emotional last minute win at LSu the week prior. aTm comes out guns blazing and our dazed defense has no answers..... At first. Key play #1 - Johnny Sleazeball fields a snap that ricochets off his helmet, then tosses an unlikely TD to a wide open TE to take a 20-0? lead. Key Play #2 - AJ McCarron suffers a concussion on a hard hit on a QB Keeper at the 3 yard line, but the coaches don't realize it, and he stays in the game. The next play, which might have been the go-ahead TD with very little time left - he throws an INT. Game Over.
2014 - Drake's gruesome leg injury at Ole Mess. Our guys never seemed to get totally back on track after that.
2015. Deja vu from 2012. In a Mazeil-worthy stroke of luck, Old Mess scores a TD on an improbably pass that bounces off their QB, then off an OM WR, then into the hands of another OM receiver running in full stride. But we are still mounting a furious comeback - until we throw an Interception. Game Over.