I understand where you're coming from. You're playing the percentages. You're also suggesting what would be more acceptable to the fans. It's a legit disagreement. For me personally, I felt the team had found a rhythm in those closing minutes and needed to ride that wave to victory. Could a screen play have failed? Sure. Anything can fail. But the percentages are pretty high when you're behind the line of scrimmage. Hopefully what you suggest about the future is correct and we will never again see him be so timid once he has "his guys" on the roster.
One last thing. Many people have mentioned injuries and such (not saying you have, just a generalization). This time of year EVERY team is dealing with depletion issues. Heck, the Hackeyes have Bacon Hill with a QBR of 96.3 ... Purdy has a QBR of 108.7.
In regards to injuries, you're right.
Though, I think with a new/young teams, what do your backups look like? Ferentz has had what? 30 years to build a roster so his backups are generally going to be more seasoned guys and have been in the same system all these years. Rhule’s backups are in a new system and young.
Now, our backups are good enough to win games so to me, the future is bright!
Everything else you said I get and don't necessarily disagree, except for how fans would have found acceptable. Truly, unless we would have won, many would've picked apart the coaches. But that's what fans do, people need to stop pretending otherwise.
