The consensus of what I have read is that ISU taking a knee on their possession with 1:31 left would leave us with some time after a punt. In the worst case for them (if they are careless about it) they have to snap the ball on 4th down with about 8-10 seconds left. That is if the QB takes the snap and immediately takes a knee running only a second or two off the clock, then snapping the ball with a second or two on the snap clock on 3rd and 4th down (we take our last TO after 1st down before their snap on 2nd). Rhoads said in his post-game comments that the reason they ran a play is that they wanted to run some time to avoid having to snap the ball on 4th down with those few seconds remaining.
But if they are smart there is no reason they can't fill the backfield, let the QB retreat behind the backs who are protecting him and wait a couple of seconds to take a knee before he takes any chance of being hit. You should be able to safely take at least 4 seconds off the clock. If they do that first down runs the clock down to 1:27 and we immediately call our last TO. Second down runs it down to 1:23. The 40 second clock runs to 0;43. Since they aren't concerned about the yardage they can take a delay of game to make sure all 40 seconds are used. Now 3rd down runs it down to 0:39. Game over without them having to even snap the ball on 4th down.
But if they are smart there is no reason they can't fill the backfield, let the QB retreat behind the backs who are protecting him and wait a couple of seconds to take a knee before he takes any chance of being hit. You should be able to safely take at least 4 seconds off the clock. If they do that first down runs the clock down to 1:27 and we immediately call our last TO. Second down runs it down to 1:23. The 40 second clock runs to 0;43. Since they aren't concerned about the yardage they can take a delay of game to make sure all 40 seconds are used. Now 3rd down runs it down to 0:39. Game over without them having to even snap the ball on 4th down.
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