In the comments to my previous post about the WVU/Mississippi State game, Irishladdy wrote:

I will admit the game on saturday from the 2nd quarter on was extremely boring. Our offense was ultra-conservative because we didn’t want to run the score up.

As I’ve mentioned, I don’t feel like I’m particularly qualified to write about sports, but I’m going to paraphrase that. “After we got a decent lead, our players stopped trying so hard.”

I’ve never understood the aversion to “running the score up.” I don’t think that a team that has a comfortable lead should be attempting onside kicks and such just so they can keep the other team’s offense from ever touching the ball, but there’s nothing unsportsmanlike about winning by a large margin if that margin comes simply from allowing your players to do their best on the field.

Irishladdy points out that we brought in our backup quarterback, Jarrod Brown, and I think we brought in another backup even later in the game. I want to be clear here that I’m not against allowing some of our other players the chance to get some game time if we feel comfortable doing so. However, I am against putting any of our players on the field if they are not going to be doing the best that they can do. It is disrespectful to the other team, and it is lousy sportsmanship.