The last time I can remember losing a gut wrenching game, moments after giving up a 4th and 17 was 2003 against Rix and the noles. I’ll say the same thing I said then. All the other factors are irrelevant. Fumble calls in ‘03, injuries/youth last night. The simple reality is the QB is 5-7 yards from the los, and they need 17. Bring the house on a LB or S blitz and take your chances that you get burned, because your blitzers should be at the QB well before the WRs are at the line to gain. A little simplistic, sure, and there are check downs that could burn you. But even then you have 10+ yards to get them down before it’s been surrendered. Either way, the QB is throwing under duress and earlier than he’d like. Mathematically you have to play those odds and we didn’t. We went the complete opposite of SMDMM and were terrified in our approach. Sadly, in both cases we had a very likable head coach that players loved but appeared in over his head. Zook made it roughly 7 more games from that point and really never recovered. We’ll see if Napier follows suit.