Conservative play calling-2nd Half

Was the play calling really that conservative in the second half? I admit, while watching the game it definitely felt that way, but after further review, I don't think this is accurate. There were only 2 play calls where I would say we were a little too conservative, and one of those was justifiable.

In the second half...

We had 12 first down plays.
- 1 of those was the final play kneel down.
- 2 of them were on our last drive that started with 4+ minutes left and it would have been extremely dumb not to run the ball.

So, we had 9 first down plays where a run and pass play were viable.
We threw on 4 of those first downs (45%).

This is pretty good balance on first down, especially when you're up 4 scores and trying to run clock.

We only had 1 set of downs where we went run, run pass. But, this pass (ended in a sack) was on a 3rd and 2, so it was not a case where we were in an obvious passing down.

The two plays that I thought were overly conservative was the first 3rd down of the second half and the 3rd down run with a little under 7 minutes left (our first drive after their second touchdown).

The first of these plays was setup by down and distance.
- We gained 9 yards on 1st down, so we had a 2nd and 1 and 3rd and 2.
- After losing a yard on the 2nd down play, I would have liked to see us do something different on 3rd down.

The play after Miami's second touchdown drive was pretty awful.
- We gained 7 yards on a first down pass, one yard on 2nd down and then lost 3 on 3rd down.
- This was a very predictable and uninspired play call.

All in all, I think Ensminger called a really good game and the "conservative" criticism is a unfair.