Louisiana D-II Select State Finals: Archbishop Shaw vs. St. Charles Catholic

Shaw and St. Charles both compete in the same district, and Shaw beat St. Charles 24-0 in the tenth game of the regular season. Both teams reached the state finals 5 weeks later.

St. Charles scored first in Friday's state championship game, and led 7-0 at the end of the first quarter. Both teams scored once in the second quarter to make it 14-7 at the half. Shaw came back out in the 3rd quarter and scored two un-answered touchdowns to make it 21-14 Shaw heading into the fourth quarter.

St. Charles was stopped on their first offensive possession of the In the fourth quarter, and then they turned around and held Shaw to a field goal attempt on the following possession, and Shaw's kicker missed the 33 yard attempt wide left.

After getting the ball back, St. Charles had a pass intercepted, giving Shaw the ball back on their own 31 yard line with about half of the quarter remaining. St. Charles forced Shaw three-and-out and took over the ball on their own 18 yard line following the punt. After slowly marching 82 yards down the field and scoring with 0:35 left in the game, St. Charles opted to go for the PAT to tie, but the PAT missed wide left after defensive pressure hurried the kick. That made the score 21-20 Shaw with 0:35 left in the game, with Shaw re-taking possession of the ball and St. Charles with 2 remaining timeouts.

St. Charles tried an onside kick, but Shaw covered the kick and had it 1st and 10 on the St. Charles 47 yard line. Shaw went into victory formation, with the QB kneeling the ball on their own 49 yard line after the snap. Immediately following the play Shaw's center went running towards his sideline, and assuming that the game was over and his team had won the center threw his helmet up into the air just seconds before St. Charles' coach asked the side judge to use his timeout with 0:24 left on the clock.

The officials huddled for two full minutes after the timeout was called and determined that St. Charles would retain their second timeout since it was called after the player threw his helmet in the air, thus earning an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty after the play and stopping the clock. Shaw then lined up for 2nd and 29 on their own 34 yard line, again in shotgun victory formation. The QB knelt the next snap on the Shaw 28 yard line and St. Charles immediately burnt the first of their two timeouts to stop the clock at 0:22 and Shaw holding the ball 3rd and 35 on their own 28. In a third-straight shotgun victory formation, Shaw's QB knelt the ball on their own 22 yard line, with St. Charles immediately calling their second and final timeout, making it 4th and 40 for Shaw on their own 22 yard line and 0:20 left in the game.

Shaw lined up to punt on 4th and 40, with the punter standing at their own 10 yard line. The punter's kick was absolutely shanked, veering hard left and out of bounds at Shaw's 32 yard line where St. Charles took over 1st and 10 with 0:13 remaining in the game. St. Charles ran a quick pass play to the right sideline, stopping the clock with 0:10 remaining and giving themselves a shot at a 44 yard field goal from the right hash to win the game. The kicker, whose career-long field goal was 42 yards, had just missed a PAT kick to tie the game only a few minutes earlier.

Shaw used their final timeout to try to ice the kicker, but the St. Charles field goal kick was good (with PLENTY of leg left behind the ball) putting St. Charles ahead 23-21 and giving them the championship win.

 

 

Definitely gotta feel kind of bad for the center on Shaw's team.

But also, for Shaw's coach...especially after your first victory formation snap plus the penalty and the realization that the other team still has 2 timeouts...why are you lining your quarterback up in shotgun when you're in victory formation? Shaw literally surrendered a total of 16 yards just because of how deep their QB was behind the line when he knelt the ball, and 12 of those yards were on the plays after the penalty.

If they were lining their QB under center for victory formation, even just for 2nd and 3rd down, and even if everything else went down in the exact same way for every one of those plays following the penalty on 1st down, then that would have had St. Charles 12 yards further back with the ball. 12 yards further back would either put St. Charles having to attempt at 56 yard field goal (14 yards beyond the kicker's career-long) with 10 seconds left in the game, or else trying to risk a second quick pass-and-out-of-bounds to get the ball closer to reasonable field goal range, or just trying to throw up an all-out Hail Mary attempt.

My first thought when I saw this last night was "Why are you in shotgun for the victory snap?". I wasn't thinking about yards given up, it was to me more of an opportunity for a bad snap. But then you see the other team still had to kick a 42 yard FG to win, bad coaching for sure. The kid tossing his helmet stinks but the coach lost them this game more than anything.

2 hours ago, Colonels_Wear_Blue said:

Definitely gotta feel kind of bad for the center on Shaw's team.

But also, for Shaw's coach...especially after your first victory formation snap plus the penalty and the realization that the other team still has 2 timeouts...why are you lining your quarterback up in shotgun when you're in victory formation? Shaw literally surrendered a total of 16 yards just because of how deep their QB was behind the line when he knelt the ball, and 12 of those yards were on the plays after the penalty.

If they were lining their QB under center for victory formation, even just for 2nd and 3rd down, and even if everything else went down in the exact same way for every one of those plays following the penalty on 1st down, then that would have had St. Charles 12 yards further back with the ball. 12 yards further back would either put St. Charles having to attempt at 56 yard field goal (14 yards beyond the kicker's career-long) with 10 seconds left in the game, or else trying to risk a second quick pass-and-out-of-bounds to get the ball closer to reasonable field goal range, or just trying to throw up an all-out Hail Mary attempt.

I guess if your QB never lines up under center, maybe I can see why you would just stay in shotgun for victory formation. But that's really something you should practice. I can't imagine as a coach being not able to line up with my QB under center. Still, knowing the time out situation, you've gotta run plays instead of just kneeling, even if it's just QB power or handing it to your most sure handed player. Field position and time are your enemies, and if you can't kill the time because the other team as time outs, you've gotta at least try to improve your field position. But the way so many things went wrong all at once, maybe it just wasn't meant to be for Shaw. Literally everything that could have went wrong did, although they pretty much were the victim of their own mistakes.