re: Can someone please justify why Orgeron kicked the FG against ND?

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I don't take what coaches are conditioned to do as evidence that it's the right thing to do.

What Orgeron did was by the book, the traditional method of coaching. I'm saying many coaches haven't caught up to what the numbers have been saying for years now, that the book is wrong. The rate at which teams go for it on 4th and short is ridiculously low, something like 20%, when the odds of converting that is around 65%. That's insane that teams aren't already going for it at that down and distance at a 50% clip, minimum. The fact that the distance of the play in question was inches makes the decision even more egregious.

That's not basing a decision on sound evidence. It's assigning an inordinate amount of weight to the negative outcome, which will happen sometimes. But you cannot coach to avoid negative outcomes or you won't ever win anything of significance.

But to be fair to Orgeron, there's value in going by the book. That's what old people(his bosses) find comfort in. Explaining a loss in which you did things by the book like most other coaches in the past have done is much easier to do than losing when you decided to buck convention.

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