Longshore to start
(Written by kencraw)
Yes, it’s official. Longshore is going to start the Emerald Bowl.
Most people thought when Tedford openned back up the QB position for the Emerald bowl it was just a ploy to either keep Miami on their toes or to keep Riley motivated to push hard. Well Tedford outdid himself in the surprise category yesterday by announcing that Longshore would start.
Make sure to vote in the poll. Is this the right choice?
December 26th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
I like the move. Neither Riley or Longshore have played good enough this year to merit starting, but we have to start one of them. This way, Longshore gets to play in his final game, and Riley can’t presume that he’s “the man” going into next year. If he doesn’t make radical improvements by the Spring, then its time to go with Mansion, Sweeney or Bridgeford. This might be just the motivation that Riley needs.
December 29th, 2008 at 9:00 am
The logic that its Longshore’s final game should have played no role in the decision. If Longshore wasn’t the right man for the job (and indeed, his performance showed that he was not) he shouldn’t have started regardless of whether it was his last game. Should we have started 2nd string lineman or DBs because they were seniors? Of course not. The best legacy to leave in your final game is a “W” – – and sometimes that means you stepping aside for the good of team.
And to risk a bowl game for “motiviation” is ridiculous – we nearly lost because of Longshore’s terrible play – and for what? To *possibly* get Riley to step up his game…the end product of which is what? Another bowl game. in the meantime we would have embarassed ourselves on antional tv and scared off recruits.
December 29th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Can’t say I disagree southbay, with one possible caveat and a merely theoretical one at that. When a coach really can’t decide based on the meaningful criteria like past performance, practice performance, game-plan and injury status because it’s just too close to call, sometimes they have to go to lesser criteria like ‘fan-favorite’ or something emotional/team spirit oriented to help make the decision.
We really don’t know how injured Riley is because Tedford keeps that sort of info very close to his chest. It may have been that starting Riley would have been like playing Longshore in the 2nd half of the 2007 ASU game with how bad his gimpy calf is. So it could be ‘sending the senior out right’ had nothing to do with it.
But I think we can all agree that if Riley was healthy, at least in retrospect, he was the right person to start. Overall we’re lacking enough data to know what really drove the decision.
None of that changes that ‘sending the senior out right’ should be at the bottom of the decision making criteria if at all.
December 29th, 2008 at 10:36 am
I disagree, South Bay. Motivation was the secondary aspect of my argument. The primary argument is that neither guy was very good this year.
Riley has not played good enough to merit starting, but neither has Longshore. But Tedford had to pick one of them. If you look at USC and Arizona (where they both played), they both played poorly. They were (more or less) equally terrible. Riley didn’t even play that well against Washington or Stanford. Defense and Jahvid dominated both those teams.
With both QB’s being equally lousy, Tedford had to make a decision. The end goal is not the Emerald Bowl… its the Rose Bowl. If sitting on the bench in San Francisco (while an equally bad QB plays) motivates Riley to beat out Mansion and Sweeney and take us to Pasadena next year, the good job JT.
The Armed Forces Bowl was a long time ago. Riley needs to work on fundamentals, watch a ton of film, and work harder in practice. If he does this, great! I think he is talented enough to get us to the Rose Bowl next year if he applies himself. If he doesn’t, then he is not much better than Longshore.