3 Worst Things We Saw In The G5 In Week 6

Time to look at the annoyingly bad things from the G5 this week. I hope by now people understand the point of this isn't schadenfreude, but an exercise in

© Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports

Time to look at the annoyingly bad things from the G5 this week.

I hope by now people understand the point of this isn't schadenfreude, but an exercise in understanding the little things that make up the difference between success and failure and wins and losses in this sport we all devote our entire weekends to. If you got that out of it so far, I genuinely appreciate it. 

Without further ado, here's what stood out.

Army's Illegal Forward Pass

The absolute irony...

Up four points in the fourth quarter, Bryson Daily attempted a pitch to one of his running backs that appeared to go for a 50-yard touchdown.

A play that had it stood, could have iced a win for the Black Knights. Instead, it was reviewed, and deemed an illegal forward pass, which led to a loss of down and a loss of five yards. 

Bryson Daily already had the first down when he attempted the pitch. If he had simply gone down, Army could have continued the drive and, in a perfect world, left BC without enough time to stage a complete comeback. 

Instead, it led to a fourth-and-four scenario, where Army attempted a punt that went off of the side of Cooper Allan's foot and only travelled 14 yards. Boston College quarterback Thomas Castellanos orchestrated a scoring drive that ended in his fourth rushing touchdown of the day and the game-winning score. 

This Punt Coverage By Old Dominion

Catch @tymims23 if you can 😲

...you won't pic.twitter.com/Yd715Chzps

— Southern Miss Football (@SouthernMissFB) October 7, 2023

This formation was interesting seeing it on the broadcast. It's not uncommon for teams to keep three players back to protect the punter. What was odd was, seemingly, Old Dominion keeping two gunners on one side of their formation. Southern Miss capitalized on that and Ty Mims found a running lane almost immediately. Fortunately for the Monarchs, they rebounded in subsequent quarters for a 17-13 win, but this play was a head scratcher. 

Sam Houston State's Fourth Quarter

Game-clinching PBU by Kobe Singleton! 🚫@LibertyFootball | @CBSSportsNet pic.twitter.com/8Tfb5cYPxB

— Conference USA (@ConferenceUSA) October 6, 2023

To state the obvious, Liberty is a good team right now. It's not surprising that they won.  What's got to be frustrating here for Sam Houston State, who Liberty beat this week, is the amount of chances they had to pull off the upset, specifically late in the third quarter and throughout the fourth quarter. 

The Bearkats scored with about four and a half minutes remaining in the third quarter to shorten Liberty's lead. They missed the two-point conversion, putting them in a position where a field goal was an unacceptable end result for a drive. 

On Liberty's ensuing possession, the Flames missed a field goal. Sam Houston got the ball back, drove 20 yards in six plays, and punted. Then, Liberty missed another field goal. Sam Houston followed that with a three-and-out, followed by the same type of drive for Liberty. The Bearkats then got one more chance where they drove 96 yards in 15 plays, but still couldn't punch it in and turned it over on downs.

That's three different chances to win their first game of the year that the Bearkats couldn't capitalize on.