1) Approximately 4:20 left in the game, and we finally stop Ole Miss and they are going to be forced to take a field goal, which will put them up 8 points. We should have called a timeout in order to not let 35 seconds wind off the clock. We did not.
2) After driving down the field, we score a touchdown to pull within 2 with 1:17 left. Needing a 2-pt conversion to possibly force overtime, we throw a fade route. Bailed out by pass interference, we throw a fade route AGAIN. Incomplete. I never like fade routes on plays that you have to convert such as 4th and goal or a 2-pointer, because they seem to be, at best, about a 1 out of 3 conversion rate. It’s too high risk. Raise your hand out there if you have ever seen a team run a fade route on a 2-pt conversion when they HAD to have it OR on a 4th and 1 play in the middle of the field. Yeah, me neither.
3) Nevertheless, we were bailed out of those two bad coaching moves by our players converting an onsides kick! Yes!
4) We move the ball to the opponent’s 32 yard line with over a minute left. Now, I will say that I agree with continuing to be aggressive here. I mentioned earlier this year that college coaches too often overestimate the abilities of their kickers and settle for long field goals. I think that we should have been trying to move the ball to set up a FG of less than 40 yards. BUT: This is a big deal here. Our kicker had made one from 50 earlier in the day, and we HAD to have the FG in order to win, so we should have done nothing to lose field position. While not optimal, the position we were in right there was at least possible that we could win. However, after an incompletion on first down, our quarterback takes a sack! A SACK that moves us out of FG range! First, he’s gotta to know better. Second, our coaches have to know that he’s been susceptible to deep drop sacks all season and call something quick. Dangit. Timeout.
5) The very next play was a swing pass that loss 7 yards. How in the world do we call that?
6) But here is where the biggest error of the day comes in. Our player was tacked with 26 seconds remaining on the clock. And it was now 4th and 26. We failed to get the timeout called for 17 seconds, finally doing so with 9 seconds left. Holy schnikies. How in the world can you allow that much time to slip away? That is truly inexcusable. HOWEVER, if we had correctly executed 1) above, there would have been 1:01 left on the clock when he got tackled (and no timeouts) but we still would have had plenty of time to get to the line and run the Hail Mary play that worked with that play starting at no less than 20 seconds or so left.
7) We run the Hail Mary. Complete it to the 6 and there is 1 second left. This is not really an issue, because I am sure that this almost never happens, but you cannot attempt to spike the ball with 1 second left. And I don’t even think the play was officially run. But still, you have to know that at least 1 second runs off when the ball is spiked, so the ONLY choice there is do I try to run the FG team on, or try to run an offensive play?

Any one of these goes the other way and we at worst have overtime, at best win the game.