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Excellent write-up but have two disagreements: 1) I am prolly the only one who was ok with declining the penalty. Yes, 3rd & 28 is nice, but with Strong "throw[ing] the ball all over the field" it was highly likely they pick up 10+ on that 3rd down, making it 4th and say 15 or 4th and 10, and a much shorter FG attempt. 2) Not sold on Strong. Still believe that Slovis has a better shot at Sunday work. Finally, Cal's D was fortunate that Nevada had ~7 dropped passes, or the score would not have been close.

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What's actually sad was that Wilcox did not trust the defense and instead relied on Nevada to miss FG.

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I was 50/50 on the penalty but I probably would have taken it. If Nevada throws an incompletion, we get a sack or they complete a short pass (5-7 yards) or throws a pick then they don’t get any points.

Chances of converting a 3rd and 28 are slim.

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Yes, but with Carson Strong and those receivers if they do it was game over.

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Making that field goal ended the game.

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yes, converting a 3rd and 28 is extremely low but that is not the expected outcome which is/was: can Strong complete a 10+ yard pass against soft coverage, and those odds are pretty good. Thus, instead of 4th and 18, it would have likely resulted in 4th and less than 18, for a shorter FG attempt. (Not to mention a possible bad PI call..)

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