Teams will still need to have their players set for one second and avoid false starts, which I think is harder to do when you're rushing about.
Additional thought on defending the HUNH...
- Thread starter TIDE-HSV
- Start date
They are not two separate issues. Our corners were forced to play man due to the inability to make pre-snap adjusments. Or we caught in the wrong zone coverage. Its six of one of half dozen of the other. The bottom line is, what the HUNH is doing is not illegal. I think we sound like a bunch of whiners asking the refs to save us from the terrible HUNH. Imagine how absurd it would sound if the situation was reversed and our defense was so suffocating that offensive teams said it should be illegal for our defenssive coordinator to communicate changes from the sideline to the defense. That he should have to be in the booth and we could only signal the original play and our defensive players had to make all of the changes. Ridiculous right?
No one is claiming that the offense is illegal..... However, IMO it is no different than sucker punching someone in a fight while they are taking off their jacket to fight you. If you want to fight someone, let them get ready to fight. Again, I'm not asking the officals to save "us" from the HUNH. I simply think that this style of offense is putrid to watch. It seems to me it is admitting that your team can't stand toe to toe with another and just line up and play, therefore, you have to resort to this stuff. As someone mentioned above, it is like watching peewee football.....complete gimmick. Also, I would be fine with the example you gave of our defensive players having to make the calls instead of the coaches....just give them time to do it.
Go back to the IB. They ran the huddle-up-and-hurry stuff to start the game.
Oklahoma did it, too. That to me is more difficult to defend than what Oregon runs.
Oklahoma did it, too. That to me is more difficult to defend than what Oregon runs.
Agreed. What Oregon runs is a legit scheme. I have no problem with schemes. Run any offensive scheme you want to best utilize your personel.
The quick-snap, hurry-up is what I hate. It's a total gimmick, not a scheme....
I haven't watched the sugar bowl again, but i dare say that a 1/3 of the time ou ran the "huddle and hurry"...they were not set a full second before the ball was snapped.
Aw shucks! Its a BCS bowl game, some around here say you gotta let silly stuff like rules and such go, Unless heaven forbid someone actually lays the wood to someone then you better throw his @$$ out of the game. This is football you know! Hell if the game keeps going like it is, we will need to put a third digit on the scoreboard and forget running a defense on the field just spot the ball and see who can score the fastest that way nobody gets hit and nobody gets hurt.
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I know they ran it a good number of times. It's more difficult for a defense than a team just going straight no huddle and lining up then looking at the sideline.
On the HUNH I'll just add this...
Saban hinted at the real problem this presents in the post-BCSNCG show, where he talked about how the HU with a quick snap virtually eliminates a defense's ability to stem and give multiple looks pre-snap. You just don't have time to do it, because you have to scramble like hell just to get lined up properly, and the ball gets snapped immediately. For all that has been discussed over the years about how the multiple looks from Saban's 3-4 defense gives opposing offenses a hard time, an offense basically eliminates that concern entirely with the HU and the quick snap. In hindsight, it's really a surprise that OC's didn't seize on this a lot sooner than they did, although now it has essentially become the status quo.
That notwithstanding, though, we really haven't had a major issue stopping the HUNH itself, as opposed to just stopping good passing games. If you look at how we played against the two of the three biggest SEC proponents of the HUNH -- Auburn and Ole Miss -- we actually fared relatively well, despite a few major discipline-based breakdowns in the Iron Bowl. The bigger issue we had was that any time we played a team with an above-average pass game, we were just eaten alive. That's really the issue we had against A&M. We did well enough, relatively speaking, against the hurry-up, but Manziel rained bombs on us all day through the air like a video game trailer.
I posted this on the recruiting board yesterday, but will reiterate here in this forum. Against the three best passing teams we faced all season -- A&M, LSU, and Oklahoma -- we gave up a combined 76-106 for 1053 yards, 10 touchdowns, and 3 interceptions. That's a 71.6% completion percentage, 13.8 yards per completion, 9.9 yards per attempt, all with a better than 3-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio. That's not quite 2001-type bad in terms of pass defense, but it's dangerously close, and that's more of a personnel and scheme issue than anything else. As long as we have a non-existent pass rush mixed together with bad cornerback play -- not to mention safeties routinely isolated on wide receivers due to the lack of quality CB depth -- we are going to get lit up by quality passing games, and those teams will convert third-and-long like most teams convert third-and-two.
My point here is that I think we will be fine in time against the HUNH itself, even though that obviously does cause some substitution and pre-snap alignment issues. That non-existent pass rush and bad CB play, though, we are really going to have to go back to the drawing board on our own end. It may very well be time for a pretty big revamp defensively in terms of personnel types and recruiting strategy.
Saban hinted at the real problem this presents in the post-BCSNCG show, where he talked about how the HU with a quick snap virtually eliminates a defense's ability to stem and give multiple looks pre-snap. You just don't have time to do it, because you have to scramble like hell just to get lined up properly, and the ball gets snapped immediately. For all that has been discussed over the years about how the multiple looks from Saban's 3-4 defense gives opposing offenses a hard time, an offense basically eliminates that concern entirely with the HU and the quick snap. In hindsight, it's really a surprise that OC's didn't seize on this a lot sooner than they did, although now it has essentially become the status quo.
That notwithstanding, though, we really haven't had a major issue stopping the HUNH itself, as opposed to just stopping good passing games. If you look at how we played against the two of the three biggest SEC proponents of the HUNH -- Auburn and Ole Miss -- we actually fared relatively well, despite a few major discipline-based breakdowns in the Iron Bowl. The bigger issue we had was that any time we played a team with an above-average pass game, we were just eaten alive. That's really the issue we had against A&M. We did well enough, relatively speaking, against the hurry-up, but Manziel rained bombs on us all day through the air like a video game trailer.
I posted this on the recruiting board yesterday, but will reiterate here in this forum. Against the three best passing teams we faced all season -- A&M, LSU, and Oklahoma -- we gave up a combined 76-106 for 1053 yards, 10 touchdowns, and 3 interceptions. That's a 71.6% completion percentage, 13.8 yards per completion, 9.9 yards per attempt, all with a better than 3-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio. That's not quite 2001-type bad in terms of pass defense, but it's dangerously close, and that's more of a personnel and scheme issue than anything else. As long as we have a non-existent pass rush mixed together with bad cornerback play -- not to mention safeties routinely isolated on wide receivers due to the lack of quality CB depth -- we are going to get lit up by quality passing games, and those teams will convert third-and-long like most teams convert third-and-two.
My point here is that I think we will be fine in time against the HUNH itself, even though that obviously does cause some substitution and pre-snap alignment issues. That non-existent pass rush and bad CB play, though, we are really going to have to go back to the drawing board on our own end. It may very well be time for a pretty big revamp defensively in terms of personnel types and recruiting strategy.
As for the offense itself I have no problem with it. Like Earle said it is really not the offense itself. The problem I have is the manipulation of the rules and integrity of the game. If you watched the game last night, the SEC championship and our game with Auburn, (these are really the only three I paid close attention to this year) what you see is not only pressure on the defense, but pressure on the officials. They are continually rushing to put the ball in play and regularly out of position which results in missed calls and generally poor officiating. I cannot find in the rules where the officials are under some obligation to rush the ball into play. I have not looked, but does anyone know of a rule that forbids a player from faking an injury? If not I think I would have a D lineman fake an ankle or cramp every other play.
There were several times the official who spots the ball took time to allow his officials to get in place and Gus went nuts on the sidelines. Herby pointed it out twice that I can remember.
Yes, putting pressure of the refs is a big problem with HUNH. That is one rule change that needs to be looked at.
Although I agree with what you say, I just don't think it is likely to happen, what with all the NCAA types wanting to see more Offense.....
Only way they will likely address it is, if it were to become somewhat of a proven safety issue... JMO!
No rules per se need to be added but the refs need to instructed in the offseason that they are not to cater to one type offense with regard to speed of setting the ball and marking ready for play. There needs to be a consistent pace and that pace kept when both teams are on offense. But rushing so fast to the point where they are not in position to properly officiate the game hurts the integrity of the game.
I agree, This solves the problem. Don't give in to the coach screaming from the sideline or the QB "spotting" the ball and racing to the line of scrimmage. Simply call the game according to the rules with a normal and consistent pace. If the officials can't do their job the integrity of the game is lost. There are many plays when teams start the ultra fast pace where the officials are in no position to do their job and further they get winded and can't hustle to be in position as the play develops. I have a couple of personal friend who referee in the SEC and both have mentioned and one very clearly admitted that several plays into a drive this is a problem. I think they need to be in shape, but this is detrimental to the game. I am all for using the rules to your advantage, (see tear away jerseys etc...) but using the inability to properly officiate a game is detrimental to the integrity of the sport. Trust me, I have no problem with stealing signs in baseball or football, playing defense as aggressively as officials will allow in basketball or whatever. That is simply part of the game. That is why you disguise and change signs or shield your signal caller with a towel, part of the game, but impeding the ability of officials to do their job shouldn't happen.
This tells me one of two things. Either Bama's offense is better than FSU's or Auburn's defense is better than anyone wants to say. Prior to the Iron Bowl, I looked at the stats of both teams and how they fared by comparing their opponent's output against its average. Auburn did much better than I expected. That defense had holes, but it was better than we expected.
Why not have the tackler stay on top of the ball carrier for as long as possible. Make the ball carrier struggle to get up, and maybe even try to kick his way out, which might lead to a unnecessary roughness penalty.
As I have said before, a small part of this offseason should be devoted to reviewing game film from games where we faced HUNH and compiling a tape of all of the missed calls to send to the SEC office. I am sure that there will be plenty of instances where illegal motion, illegal formations, illegal substitutions, ineligible receivers downfield, etc. will have been missed due to the pace of the game. This will force the conference to take a hard look at the officiating and hopefully come up with some sort of solution. Likewise, I'd like to start seeing unsportsmanlike conduct penalties called on coaches and/or players that verbally abuse officials in an effort to speed them up.
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