NCAA Proposes Rule Changes -- Targeting and Defensive Substitution

[JTennant 290]

come on man.

your cant lead with a very loose boxing analogy as a bridge to say NCAA is ruining college athletics as a whole.

 

i dont expect this to be a huge change.

as i said before, the 40'second playclock i believe starts almost immediately after the previous play ends so even no-huddle teams arent always getting the snap off with 38 seconds on the clock.

 

You're right that it won't affect very many plays, so why even create the rule and enforce it?

 

My analogy was equally as crazy stupid as this f*cking rule.

[ObieKnobbe 47]

Bingo! He cried about this exact thing before last season.

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/bielema-saban-supported-slow-rule-proposal-22508104

[ObieKnobbe 47]

http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/bielema-saban-supported-slow-rule-proposal-22508104

 

 

How does that slime ball Saban get away with this crap! He is proposing rules to give his style of play the advantage and they APPROVE it?! Ridiculous

[Pregame 291]

Tommy Rees was FLOORED to find out you can snap the ball before the play clock hits single digits. His whole world has been turned upside down.

[UnifiedIrish 0]

I get that the issue is player safety and players who are gassed MAY be more prone to injury but there is no scientific evidence that supports this theory at all. In this article, which will be posted below this post, even the NCAA admits that teams rarely snap the ball before :30 anyway. And when teams who are on the receiving end of up-tempo offenses have players who fall down causing speculation of (FAKE) injuries which will skew any real data that MAY be collected. Even the National Coordinator of Officiating said that there is NO (HARD) data which supports the NCAA (Nick Saban) claim that this style offense causes more injuries.

 

This rule is proposed so that teams who can't keep up with the faster tempo teams can break the momentum and slow the game back down. Which is bogus. There are always going to be advantages and disadvantages in sports and faster tempo offenses are no different. Anyone ever heard of a TIME OUT? That is the easiest way to break momentum. Or just like we've seen in other games, a player goes down in order to force the game to slow down.

 

So let a team sub, if they can, before the ball is snapped. There is no need to change the rule and give the team a "Delay of game" penalty because they found a weakness in the other team and want to exploit it. That is similar to Saban saying it is unfair to kids who have never seen snow to go play in the cold because it is a disadvantage. What the hell are they going to do if drafted by Green Bay or the Patriots or Buffalo? Or have to play games in that weather once in the NFL?

 

Until there is concrete evidence that up-tempo offenses, no fakers, cause MORE injuries the rule should be disallowed. As of now, it is all just speculation.

[UnifiedIrish 0]

By Jon Solomon | jsolomon@al.com

Email the author | Follow on Twitter

on February 13, 2014 at 5:13 PM

 

Count University of Arizona head athletic trainer Randy Cohen among the skeptics about the NCAA Football Rules Committee's proposal to slow down hurry-up offenses in the name of safety.

"If you want to do it for a competitive advantage, then come out and say you're doing it for a competitive advantage," said Cohen, who chairs the college committee of the National Athletic Trainers' Association. "Don't say it's a safety issue because right now we don't have any data about this. None."

The idea to make offenses wait 10 seconds before snapping the ball has caused widespread backlash by many up-tempo coaches. They claim it's a ploy to let defenses strategically substitute and slow down creative and productive offenses such as Auburn's. Alabama's Nick Saban and Arkansas' Bret Bielema, both defensive-minded coaches, participated in committee discussions about the proposal but did not have a vote, according to USA Today Sports.

So what does science say about hurry-up offenses? And are there truly medical benefits from this proposed rule? The answers appear to be speculative.

There could be health advantages to making offenses wait, according to several medical personnel and researchers in the sports world who were interviewed for this article. But some of them are scratching their heads over the NCAA proposal just like some coaches.

Yes, they say, fewer plays would lead to less chance of injury. But some question whether the number of plays would be reduced enough to have an impact, especially since the NCAA said "research indicated that teams with fast-paced, no-huddle offenses rarely snap the ball with 30 seconds or more on the play clock."

Yes, some medical officials and researchers say, fatigue can lead to poor technique and put players at greater risk for injuries, including concussions. But some point out players can leave a game now simply by falling down on the field -- lately in games against up-tempo teams this causes accusations of fake injuries -- and medical personnel and researchers question if there's data showing tempo causes more injuries.

Rogers Redding, the national coordinator of officiating, told CBSSports.com there wasn't much "hard data" to consider for the substitution rule, which must still be approved on March 6 by the Playing Rules Oversight Panel.

"What you don't want is that tired defensive player who is a liability in the game and you can't get him off the field," Louisiana-Monroe coach Todd Berry, a rules committee member, told CBSSports.com. "He's gonna get injured. That's what's driving this thing."

Because this is an off year in the NCAA football rules cycle, any new playing rule passed would have to be related to safety.

Tired players can lose technique

Some members of the NCAA Playing Rule Oversight Panel did not know the proposal was coming. The same was true of some members of different NCAA groups involved with safety issues.

Thomas Talavage, a Purdue University biomedical engineer professor who studies brain trauma, is a member of the NCAA Concussion Task Force. He was blindsided by the 10-second runoff proposal until told by a reporter.

"This did not even come up at our task force meeting two weeks ago," Talavage said. "That's why I say I don't think their motivation behind this is necessarily the head."

University of Georgia team physician Dr. Kimberly Walpert, a member of the NCAA Competitive Safeguards Committee, said the the rule proposal was not discussed at the last committee meeting. Walpert said the rule makes sense but stressed she doesn't know the reason behind it.

"I think it will keep our games safer and keep football part of our national culture," she said. "It certainly makes sense that the delays (before snapping the ball) allow you to ground yourself a little better both mentally and physically before the contact occurs. I'm sure that's got to be an advantage to the player."

There is widespread agreement that fatigued players can cause breakdowns in technique. Those mistakes can make a player more susceptible to lunging with his head or being out of position and sustain a high-impact hit to the head.

But Dr. Jeffrey Dugas, Troy University's team physician and a sports medicine surgeon at the Andrews Sports Medicine and Orthopedic Center in Birmingham, said an injured athlete already has an opportunity to leave the game by going to the ground. Making offenses wait 10 seconds for a possible injury substitution assumes the player will even take himself out, Dugas said.

"That's a stretch," he said. "I find it hard to believe they're really hanging this rule on injury prevention. There's no question a hurry-up offense is going to fatigue a defense. If this is all being hung on fatiguing a defense and injury risk goes up, that's fine if there's data that supports the case."

Talavage said the rule proposal might produce more of a slight reduction in orthopedic injuries than head injuries.

"However, we have to keep in mind the hits they take in the game may only represent less than 50 percent of the total number of hits they take on a given week," Talavage said. "A bigger benefit may be schools cutting down contact practices to twice a week."

NCAA chief medical officer Brian Hainline said earlier this week that he hopes to have unified hitting restrictions for football practices next season.

Correlations between up-tempo offenses and injuries are speculative at this point, said Steven Broglio, director of the University of Michigan's NeuroSport Research Laboratory.

Last year, Broglio published a study examining head injuries based on the types of offenses run by two high school teams. He found that 50 percent more head impacts occurred with a traditional run-first team than a spread, pass-first offense. But the higher-impact hits occurred in games with the pass-heavy team due to players being in more space to receive high-velocity hits.

"The only thing I can think of is (the NCAA rule proposal) will decrease the number of plays per game so you're decreasing the number of head impacts," Broglio said. "That's a maybe. That's not for sure. From a fan perspective, this doesn't make sense. From a safety standpoint, I don't know if there's any data to back it up."

As offensive records continue to fall and more teams go up-tempo, the truth is the numbers of plays per game for the entire sport hasn't changed much in 40 years. FBS teams averaged 71.8 plays per game in 2013, compared to 70.5 in 1973. The public debate over tempo so far has been shaped more by competitive balance than safety.

'It's the boy who cried wolf'

No football rule change today can be made in a vacuum, and this proposal is no different. There is now greater understanding of the longterm health risks associated with concussions. The NCAA has been criticized for not doing enough for player safety, a charge the NCAA has denied.

At least 71 current and former college athletes are suing the NCAA over concussion management. Northwestern football players are trying to form a union that would let college athletes collectively bargain with schools over issues such as injury protections.

National College Players Association executive director Ramogi Huma, who is leading the union efforts and pushing for NCAA concussion reform, supports the premise of the proposal to slow down offenses.

"If they slowed down the game a bit, there would be less snaps overall, which we know would reduce contact and reduce the risk of traumatic brain injury," said Huma, a former UCLA football player. "I would also say the committee would be negligent in its responsibilities if it doesn't consider reducing contact in practices, which is cited as the most effective way to reduce traumatic brain injury."

Even if it's true that the rules committee's intention for the 10-second runoff is due to competitive purposes, "you have to prioritize player safety," Huma said. "These coaches are paid enough to adapt and fully capable to comply with a rule like that and still be effective coaches."

Larimore, a three-year starting middle linebacker at UCLA and team defensive MVP in 2011, doesn't need data for him to believe offenses must slow down. He attributes a shoulder injury as a sophomore to a teammate accidentally tackling him while out of position due to fatigue against a hurry-up offense.

In another instance, Larimore said one concussion he sustained could have been due to UCLA's first installation of its no-huddle offense at practice. A safety broke technique by ducking his head to tackle a receiver and instead hit Larimore in the chin.

"There's an argument that if we didn't have the up-tempo offense he might not have been as fatigued and maybe kept his head up and saw me," Larimore said. "Football is a very dangerous sport as it is, but the reason athletes can play it is there's so much technique that goes into safety. When you're fatigued, your form goes right away. It's a totally different game now with up-tempo offenses."

Cohen, the Arizona head athletic trainer and a leader of the National Athletic Trainers' Association, agreed that tired players can theoretically result in more injuries. But he argued, for example, that knee injuries occur more in traditional offenses due to longer engagements at the line of scrimmage than in up-tempo offenses, when passes are generally thrown quickly.

"If you're running up-tempo offense, is that a higher risk or lower risk versus lining up two tight ends and a fullback for smashmouth football?" Cohen said. "I'd say our team gets beat up more when we play Stanford and smashmouth football than when we play Oregon and tempo."

Cohen said he fully supports changing rules to protect players, but needs to see the evidence first that shows tempo impacts injuries.

"It's the boy who cried wolf," Cohen said. "If you keep crying wolf about safety, safety, safety, yet it isn't about safety, when you really want to implement something for safety, it won't get done and that will be a tragedy."

[ztexz 0]

Three ways to get around all of these supposed issues without changing the rules:

 

1) If you don't like that your opponent runs a hurry-up offense, then you need to run a a very slow offense and make sure you have a high conversion rate on 3rd Downs. It's no different from how some basketball coaches -- ahem, Mike Brey -- use a "burn offense" instead of getting into an up-and-down the court.

 

If your defenders are gassed because they aren't getting enough time on the sidelines due to your inept offense, I have no sympathy for you.

 

2) Adjust your defensive scheme so that you're playing lines, like in hockey. Know that after every so many plays, or after converted third downs, or whatever, you are going to sub out your players. Have your subs ready to go, and as soon as the play ends, get moving.

 

3) Make a play. It's really that simple. Make a play -- get a TFL, deflect a pass, sack the QB, stuff the run, whatever. Make a play and throw the offense off its rhythm.

[UnifiedIrish 0]

To aid the NCAA in it's pursuit of player safety, the following changes also need to be made:

 

1) There will be NO blitzing

 

2) A defense is never allowed to to bring more players than an offense has to block

 

3) You are not allowed to hit the QB

 

All answers are provided by Mike Leach along with the following statement:

 

"It's a reaction to the success of Auburn and Texas A&M, clearly, so rather than innovate a defensively and respond defensively...and rather than adopt out teams it's like we're going to invent a rule. But in order to invent a rule you have to have a reason to invent a rule, so then they're are going to try and hide behind player safety in order to do it."

 

Here is the full article if anyone want to read it.

http://www.bloguin.com/crystalballrun/2014-articles/february/mike-leach-swings-his-sword-on-defensive-substitution-rule-proposal.html

 

But why stop there, I mean if this is all about player safety then we need to address it at the source which is, contact. So lets just play some flag football? Or will running and jumping be excluded due to somebody straining something next?

[superchargers 0]

If NCAA is truly worried about player safety, they should change the rules so that any player needing medical attention on the field should have to stay off the field for the remainder of the current drive, not just one play.

 

This will stop the players "injuries" to slow down the up tempo offenses with bogus injuries.

[ztexz 0]

If NCAA is truly worried about player safety, they should change the rules so that any player needing medical attention on the field should have to stay off the field for the remainder of the current drive, not just one play.

 

Not a bad idea, actually. Maybe not an entire drive, but for at least 3-4 plays?

[Parseghians theorem 0]

Not a bad idea, actually. Maybe not an entire drive, but for at least 3-4 plays?

 

starting QB gets knocked down, medical crew comes out, he has to miss final drive of game or final 3-4 plays?

[ztexz 0]

starting QB gets knocked down' date=' medical crew comes out, he has to miss final drive of game or final 3-4 plays?[/quote']

 

Sure. Except there's an exception for QBs with the initials "E.G."

 

But, yeah, I see your point

[ND3 0]

http://cfbmatrix.com/speed-may-kill-but-slow-gets-you-hurt/

 

This is not a scientific study at all and there are loads of assumptions used here for the data provided. It doesn't even attempt to take everything into account, but it useful for discussion.

 

It provides data that shows that teams that ran a slower-paced offense actually lost more starts than those that ran a high-paced offense. The "Starts lost per play" statistic is worthless, though.

[Rockets Revenge 0]

If NCAA is truly worried about player safety, they should change the rules so that any player needing medical attention on the field should have to stay off the field for the remainder of the current drive, not just one play.

 

Agreed!!

 

Additionally, since fatigue can lead to poor technique and put players at greater risk for injuries, including concussions the NCAA should recommend eliminating the 4th quarter. This will have a multitude of benefits:

 

• Shorten the game
  
• Won't require fans undivided attention for as long therefore boosting ratings by allowing more fans to watch an entire game
  
• Allow fast tempo teams to still run a fast tempo since the total number of plays they can run will be reduced
  
• Reduce the risk of defensive fatigue and therefore injuries
  
• Continue the full-fledged "Pussification of America" movement!!!
  

 

:llama: :rockon:

[Rockets Revenge 0]

starting QB gets knocked down' date=' medical crew comes out, he has to miss final drive of game or final 3-4 plays?[/quote']

 

So a decision needs to be made: is the NCAA truly worried about player safety or not? They can't pick and choose when they are worried about it and when they aren't. I think we all know the real answer.

[Parseghians theorem 0]

So a decision needs to be made: is the NCAA truly worried about player safety or not? They can't pick and choose when they are worried about it and when they aren't. I think we all know the real answer.

 

they are worried about player safety.

just because they don't make a player sit out for three or four plays or the rest of the drive doesn't mean they aren't.

 

the one thing about this proposed rule is that defenses will still have to scramble to get guys on the field and get set. I don't believe the offense will have to wait. as soon as they see 29, they will snap it.

[echo88 74]

This all smells of Nick Saban.

 

Ding ding ding! We have a winner.

 

Not sure if this was posted yet, but here ya go...

 

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/10453325/nick-saban-bret-bielema-backed-committee-proposal-slow-rule

[GeorgiaIrishFanChuck 0]

You can win a lot of games with tricky, hurry-up-offense and tempo.

But you likely aren't going to win national titles.

 

this guy did some nice research on tempo.

http://www.footballstudyhall.com/2013/4/24/4263582/tempo

 

most of Florida State's snaps in the BCS game were under :20 on the play block.

 

at some point in the season you need to play defense, control the line of scrimmage and the clock. playing fast doesn't mean winning.

 

and there are very few snaps that happen 30 or more seconds on the play clock. I believe the 40 second clock starts when the previous play ends.

this is just giving the defense a chance to substitute. and trying to level the playing field of teams going no-huddle and leaving defenses out to dry. because in those scenarios, a defense could only sub if the offense did I think.

 

You are just wrong. Saban wouldn't be making a special trip to the rules committee if this rule had no impact. It doesn't matter how often the offense actually does snap the ball within 10 seconds. It is the threat of a quick snap that keeps the defense from being able to make substitutions. What Saban wants is 10 seconds to setup his defense based on situation without the offense being able to catch him off guard. This is a rule that absolutely is based on taking away any advantage a hurry up offense may have.

 

It is totally a gutless move. And the NCAA is the worst organization on the planet to let one style of coaches set the rules to their advantage. They are worse than Saban.

[Parseghians theorem 0]

You are just wrong. Saban wouldn't be making a special trip to the rules committee if this rule had no impact. It doesn't matter how often the offense actually does snap the ball within 10 seconds. It is the threat of a quick snap that keeps the defense from being able to make substitutions. What Saban wants is 10 seconds to setup his defense based on situation without the offense being able to catch him off guard. This is a rule that absolutely is based on taking away any advantage a hurry up offense may have.

 

It is totally a gutless move. And the NCAA is the worst organization on the planet to let one style of coaches set the rules to their advantage. They are worse than Saban.

 

i didnt even talk about saban in the thing you quoted.

he is supporting the rule change but i dont know why.

bama didnt lose because of tempo. they lost because of mistakes on the field (and five turnovers vs oklahoma).

 

even when offenses go as fast as they can, snapping the ball at 29 seconds is an ambitious accomplishment.

so even if defenses can substitute they better damn well be ready to go because at 29 seconds they will get a penalty if the ball is snapped with too many men on the field.

[UnifiedIrish 0]

i didnt even talk about saban in the thing you quoted.

he is supporting the rule change but i dont know why.

bama didnt lose because of tempo. they lost because of mistakes on the field (and five turnovers vs oklahoma).

 

even when offenses go as fast as they can, snapping the ball at 29 seconds is an ambitious accomplishment.

so even if defenses can substitute they better damn well be ready to go because at 29 seconds they will get a penalty if the ball is snapped with too many men on the field.

 

So essentially you agree that the rule is legitimate and there is no hidden agenda behind the rule other than player safety? If that is the case then I have a map to the Lost City of Atlantis I'm willing to sell you.

 

There have been no credible studies to support the allegations set forth that would warrant this rule. The uptempo offenses give an advantage to the teams capable of running them and then teams claim it is player safety because there players are gassed. That is BS. It's because they have lost an advantage and because they cannot substitute and are in jeopardy of having the momentum swing to the other team. This rule would allow the defense to break that momentum and keep the the game in their favor. That is the real purpose of the new rule plain and simple.