Whoever said “Great minds think alike” was just coming up with a quote.

If Coastal Carolina cannot figure out how to score a go-ahead touchdown on the final play and need to “practice” it in a game out of reach, the Chanticleers aren’t as great as many say.

Oh, they looked good in the second half against Lamar. Going on the road to score 35 unanswered points after trailing 14-3 says a lot about a team.

So does scoring deep in the red zone with time running down and a 17-point lead. With the first string still on the field, no less.

“… We’ve got a lot of inexperience playing for us now,” Chants coach Joe Moglia said. “I wanted our guys to feel they can score if they need to score in those type of situations. That is mostly the reason for that.”

So, it was worth risking injury to an All-America running back in De’Angelo Henderson and a first-time starting quarterback, who only got the nod after a redshirt had not fully recovered from injury?

“That,” by the way, was a 2-yard dive by Henderson into the end zone with 9 seconds left. That ended a drive from Coastal’s own 45 with 4:06 left.

The series consisted of a 29-yard pass from Josh Stilley to Bruce Mapp and six Henderson carries from the Lamar 16. At some point in that string of carries, Moglia could have called off the dogs and put in the third string.

But he’s quite the risk taker, given his experience on Wall Street. He risked using more inexperience for future games by even calling those running plays in that scenario.

If the mop-up guys score, they score. Nobody will whine about a third string scoring late in a ballgame, except maybe the Lamar coaching staff.

Asking an All-American to make six carries in the Lamar territory with the game out of reach only warranted the cat calls, none of which came from Cardinals coach Ray Woodard.

“Late in a game, when you’ve got a game won, and you’ve got the ball, that’s your decision and you make it,” Woodard said Monday, reiterating his initial postgame thoughts. “You tell your OC [offensive coordinator], let’s stick it to them one more time, and you get into that spill of ‘We’re there to score every time,’ and ‘We’re going to play 60 minutes’ and yakety yak-yak-yak. Or, you show some class and take a knee.”

As colorful as “yakety yak-yak-yak” seems, Woodard addressed the matter both times artfully with a sense of calm.

Give him more credit for even addressing the matter.

Five years ago, I witnessed a 48-10 defeat for a team I covered on the road. The mop-up guys were not in on the play.

The losing coach was asked about the play and responded “No comment. Just, no comment.” The winning coach said: “Yeah, I already heard that comment. I’d like to move on to the next question.”

It might have helped if I hadn’t waited until the teleconference to address the matter.

I.C. Murrell can be reached at 409-721-2435 or ic.murrell@panews.com. On Twitter: @ICMurrellPANews