9.20.2026 – play that breaks your heart

play that breaks your heart
guys played 59 minutes
59 seconds

Adapted from the article, NC State postgame comments after Vanderbilt loss leave more questions than answers by Jadyn Watson-Fisher in the Raleigh News and Observer (September 19, 2026 11:46 PM) where Ms. Watson-Fisher quotes NC State Head Coach Dave Doeren saying:

It’s a shame it came down to that play where that should never happen; a play that breaks your heart. I was proud of how our guys played for 59 minutes and 59 seconds.”

But there was no explanation for not snapping the ball into the stands or setting up plays to throw down field. No one knows if taking a knee was an option or if there were discussions about simply running around the back of the end zone. There was no clarity on what message Bailey received before the final play.

“It really, really hurts when you lose a game like that where the guys went all in and did a lot of good,” Doeren said.

I want to focus on that last line, “I was proud of how our guys played for 59 minutes and 59 seconds.”

For NC State, they played their game for 59 minutes and 59 seconds.

Two weeks ago, Michigan played their game for 60 minutes and 1 second.

It is baseball that is said to be a game of inches (even though a few years ago the folks in charge of baseball added three inches to the size of base to get rid of the band-bang play, not realizing they only moved the bang 3 inches further away from the bang) and it is good to remember that, baseball, there is no clock.

So it is in football, that it is a game of seconds.

Time.

Clock management.

Charles Taylor raises his ugly head and with that stop watch in his right hand, and calls for the d handled shovel shoveler to get a little more coal out of each movement.

Football is the American Game and we are the only country in the world to call football, soccer.

The columnist George Will once wrote that “Football combines two of the worst things in American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings.”

Now I will add, that it’s not whether you win or lose, or how you play the game, but how did you watch that clock that matters.

To update Mr. Will, Football combines three of the worst things in American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings while watching the clock run down.”

Truly the American way.

I should, in all transparency, since pointing out that Michigan won on an extra second two weeks that according to USA Today, Before those stunning final seconds in Nashville, teams leading with the ball in the final 10 seconds were 1,046-1 over the past 20 seasons. The only loss during that time was Michigan’s 2015 defeat against Michigan State in the legendary “trouble with the snap” game, but who wants to remember that?

So maybe you will ask, how do defeat the clock in football mentallity?

I point out to you the famous football movie, Remember the Titans and the game where it is revealed that the fix is in against the Titans to lose.

The Defensive Coach destroys the conspiracy with threats of going public … then he turns to the head coach and says …

Run it up Herman … LEAVE NO DOUBT!

Seems my whole life of watching Michigan football, coaches and teams have conspired to play a game they won’t lose instead playing a game to come out and win.

Instead of playing a game where they Run it Up!

Instead of playing a game where they LEAVE NO DOUBT.

Sure you don’t have to play that way.

So long as you are happy to leave the game … in the hand of a clock.