The last drive of reg was a disaster? Really??
I know we both know football and clock management very well. And with a normal cohesive offense we would have done it differently. But I have to disagree with you on this and say that clock management was probably used the best in this situation.
You have to look at your personnel on the field (3rd string QB starting his first game on the road, at night in Wisconsin, game on the line), your situation (you started around your own 20 yard line and you have to get a FG or the game is over) and your history of bad things happening in the red zone throughout the year.
Look back at what's happened this year. Within the redzone, multiple Husker QB's have thrown interceptions in the endzone and cost us games. HH threw a pick against MSU that was called back a few weeks ago. Or how about a bad snap? We've seen plenty of those this year. How about a bad exchange in the RZ that we saw between HH and EJ? We fumbled. And we even tried running out the clock with the lead (run the damn ball!) and Grant fumbled against Minnesota. We have had plenty of past failures and turnovers for whatever reasons with different QB's and RBs throughout the year, that running the clock down in this case wasn't the worse thing in the world.
And, after being stuffed on drives all throughout the second half, we get the ball with our 4-minute drill using sparing reps from Chubba, and impressively move the ball 60 yards with the game on the line. That was amazing. But at the same time, you don't want to be too aggressive and shoot yourself in the foot with a fumble or interception. We needed to be in range for a FG and by golly, we got there.
While I agree with your POV of using the clock more efficiently and getting in a few more plays, I also didn't trust a running play or passing play because of this team, this year, their history and in this situation.
