OK. Had a decent night's sleep, so let me attack this one more time. For some reason beyond belief, I was still semi-watching (listening to Robert my favorite voice from the Hawaii network for 13 years since my covers days with razor and the gang) and Dick Tomey, while working on numbers for next week (doing just some basic prelim work chatting a friend on the skypie). I obviously saw every play of the first half because of having to put out the halftime number. When they got up 42-3, it was a combination of things that led to the comeback. Hawaii's starting QB was injured and the kid they were playing was lost. The other kid comes in off the bench and immediately starts a rally against the Fresno backups. It was like a snowball rolling downhill at that point, and it never stopped until the game got to 42-37, Hawaii's defense gave them the ball back TWICE with a chance to win the game. Admittedly, the second time was inside their 15 with no timeouts and less than 2 minutes. It was always gonna be tough at that point.
The thing that made it most amazing is that the biggest comeback in NCAA history was by Mich St at NW, i think it was 35-3 or 38-3 and Mich St rallied to win in 2006 on the road, but I think they were a small favorite. Hawaii was an EIGHTEEN POINT DOG and came from 42-3 to 42-37. To the naked eye, it certainly appeared shady. But in reality, it was just one team getting momentum and the other one not really knowing how to handle it once things started turning pear-shaped. Hawaii really just ran out of time. I really believe with fresh sets of down and no time limit, they would have scored on the last drive.
That said, you guys all know me as one who certainly buys into any theories about shaving going on in these college games. I'm usually near the front of the line when sniffing out shady shit. And Fresno certainly should raise eyebrows this year with some of their 2nd half efforts despite winning every game. But I really believe that last night's game was on the level. Done with it for now, but look forward to hearing from hawaiiguy or anyone else who bothered to watch this mess to see if they share in my thoughts, or even better yet disagree and/or caught something that I might have missed while going through box scores...
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