Iam4utalways
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I know you guys just finished up, but it is a fascinating question to me.
I personally don't think games ever (well, practically never, I'm not one to rule out fluke results) revolve on a single play. On the other hand, all 120-180 plays in a game are not equally important to its result.
In any game whose final score is within 8 points, one can usually find anywhere from a handful, up to a couple of dozen plays that could reasonably and realistically gone a different way, and that all by themselves could have flipped the game's outcome if they had.
In last year's Oklahoma game, I counted 14 key plays like that. All 14 could realistically have played out differently, with a different call by a coach, or better execution by a player or group of players. And if any one, just one, of those 14 plays had gone differently, the Vols would've won the game in regulation.
I'ver never dissected the Michigan-Michigan State game, but I suspect you could find more than one play (the final play) like that. I would bet there were at least a few. So yep, it's perfectly fine to point at the final play and say it was the game-changer. But I'll bet there were other game-changers just like it, only none of them quite to flamboyant or positioned right at the 60th minute.
It's a fun element of the game, looking for those key plays.
And your conversation was very interesting to me; thanks for it!
Your post made me think this:
1st maxim: The team that makes the fewest mistakes will win.
A competative game, it's on the money.
Jump higher Vols.
