Something I had never seen in a football game tonight in the CCU/Liberty bowl game.
Liberty has ball in a tie game with little time left and deep in Coastal territory. Coastal had no timeouts, and was trying to let Liberty score instead of letting Liberty run down the clock and kick a winning field goal.
Liberty, on the contrary, was trying not to score. They attempted two handoffs to the running back who sort of stutter steps behind the line and then falls down. He pulled this off once because Coastal was trying not to defend. It was weird.
Second carry the running back somehow gets pulled into the melee and fumbles on the goal line. I couldn't tell if he just got sucked inside, but it looked like Coastal was trying to drag him into the end zone. CCU recovers. Overtime and Liberty ends up winning anyway on a FG in OT.
The weirdness of watching a running back not attempting to score, a defense trying to let him score, and then the offense actually getting in a situation to fumble the ball is just one of the strangest sequences I've seen. That's one of those instances when a coach overthinks the situation, in my opinion.
Coastal Carolina
