Today, on his weekly radio show, for instance, Hill said the delay-of-game penalty in the fourth quarter Saturday at Cincinnati didn't really hurt the team. I've heard Hill say some interesting things, some odd things, but that one nearly made me drive into downtown building. Really!? Didn't hurt? To recap, the Bulldogs were trailing 28-20 and had fourth-and-2 at the Cincinnati 32 yard line with 45 seconds left in the game. They had just completed a pass in bounds and called time-out. And then, somehow, they came out of the time-out and got a delay-of-game penalty. Now facing fourth-and-7, they threw a pass to Chastin West, who was absolutely smacked as he caught it and could not hold on. Game over.

So back to Hill on the radio. First off, he implied that the referees started the clock too early. He said that he has been shocked to see his team get a delay of game in overtime (Wisconsin) and now after a time-out, and that it wouldn't happen again because he wouldn't keep the team on the sideline so long and he would be ready for any future referee shadiness. (His implication, in my words.) He also mentioned how his team was the least penalized team in the Western Athletic Conference, yet it sure does get a lot of penalties when it plays at Wisconsin and Cincinnati. Some coaches talk about making no excuses. Some coaches make excuses. Hill is one of the few who does both. He says he's not making excuses, but he throws a few out there anyway, just so you have some options.

As for the penalty itself, though, Hill said it didn't really have an effect, implying the Bulldogs were going to run the same play whether it had been fourth-and-2 or fourth-and-7. Can that be true? Really? I mean, let's assume for a second that the Bulldogs really do call the same play on fourth-and-2 as they do on fourth-and-7. It's possible considering the time situation. The difference is, though, the defense now KNOWS you aren't going to run the ball. So the Bearcats can drop back their linebackers, and if I'm remembering correctly it was a linebacker that blasted West milli-seconds after the ball got there. Could he have made the catch? Sure, but it would have been remarkable, especially considering the ball was high, leaving him exposed to big hits.

I don't know why Hill doesn't just say, "Yeah, it was a huge deal. I can't believe we got a delay of game right there. It's inexcusable." Fans get frustrated about that stuff, I think, because they aren't sure whether their coach is in denial or they're being treated as gullible.

All that to get to this point: I really liked the gameplan at Cincinnati. It was about the only choice, really. The weakness of the Fresno State football team is the defensive secondary and there was just no way they were going to be able to stop the Bearcats offense, so Hill let Ryan Mathews* grind out the game. Here are the final time-of-possession stats: Fresno State 43:42, Cincinnati 16:18. It's pretty remarkable. I'm not sure I've ever seen a losing team hold on to the ball for that long, or maybe I've never seen a team score so quickly when it had the ball. Either way, remarkable. And Hill was right. Cincinnati was going to score quickly and often. The Bulldogs secondary is just vulnerable, especially with Lorne Bell still out. A.J. Jefferson is obviously one of the fastest men in college football, but is still having trouble covering. Zak Hill missed a tackle on the first touchdown. There are problems back there.

*More on Mathews in another "Ryan Mathews for Heisman" blog this week, but for now, wow, what an impressive physical performance. He carried 38 times, most of them right up the middle. Unreal. All I kept thinking was, "This is how Ryan Mathews got injured." But he didn't. Whew. How sore must he have been Sunday morning?

I liked the plan, though. A lot of people reach level 85 on the PFS about play-calling, especially when he runs up the middle so much, but this was the game to do it. This was the one to grind it out as long as possible. Of course there are other ways to control a game. Short passes. Screens. Maybe, I don't know, a pitch to the outside now and then. When it comes to running the ball, he just seems to take pride in the other team knowing exactly what's coming, and beating them anyway.

Sometimes I think the strategy backfires because it puts the Bulldogs in a lot of close games, especially when they're trying to grind out leads. And when you're in close games, you have to perform down the stretch and play pretty much mistake-free. It's a narrow window. That's just something Fresno State hasn't done well, and it came down to a couple mistakes, Colburn's interception being a huge one. More on Colburn later, but just wanted to point out that it worked. Sort of. The Bulldogs were in the game at the end. They didn't win, but at least they had a chance against a Top 10 team.