Campus Connection: Huddle Up
October 17, 2014 01:11 AM | General
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| This is the closest you will get to seeing the Mountaineers huddle up on the football field. |
| Charleston Daily Mail photo |
I happened to catch a little bit of the Pitt-Virginia Tech football game last night on ESPN and it was almost as if I was transported back in time to, say, 1985.
There were timeouts, off-tackle runs, I-formations, featured backs, shovel passes, Tony Dorsett highlights, and, yes, huddles - the things we Generation X-ers can really relate to.
Incidentally, back in my day the easiest way to compliment a bad quarterback was by saying he threw a nice shovel pass, which is sort of like telling your wife that her new haircut makes her face look slimmer. But I digress.
Yes, huddles … we saw plenty of those last night and to me the huddle was one of the great innovations in football along with artificial grass (the only grass Tug McGraw said he ever avoided), team entrance videos and the Ickey Shuffle.
Whenever things are going bad at work what do you say to your co-workers, or, when the kids can’t get along out in the backyard?
HUDDLE UP!
It’s in the huddle where you really learn about yourself, and those around you.
I had a pretty good idea the high school team that I played on was bad, but it was only when we got a 15-yard penalty for our huddle etiquette that I realized just how bad we really were.
Our running back and offensive guard got into an argument over how poorly we were playing (bad blocking? bad running? or both?) and the referee got so sick and tired of listening to them complain that he threw a flag … ON US!
When our coach asked for an explanation the ref said he couldn’t take it anymore, especially the profanity. Turns out he was a Sunday school teacher, too.
“Now Tony I can understand,” our coach said. “But Ricky? Hell, he can’t even speak English!”
Another time, one of our guys got knocked so senseless on an isolation play (remember those?) that he got up, walked back to the WRONG huddle, put his arms around the guys from the other team and asked, “What’s the play fellas?”
Tack on 15 more.
I bring up the huddle because the other day associate head coach Tom Bradley was reminiscing about it the way some of my old buddies talk about their favorite hunting dogs. Bradley’s guys used to huddle quite a bit playing for some old Joe up at Penn State.
“When you started coaching the first thing you taught them was how to huddle,” Bradley laughed. “There is no huddle anymore (except in last night’s time warp). We used to have a defensive huddle, ‘Ready. Break!’ What? The kids are like what are you talking about?”
The bigger point is this: the game of football has changed so much and the two teams playing on Saturday afternoon at Milan Puskar Stadium are a perfect example of where the game is headed.
No huddles, naturally, along with a frenetic, fast-paced, high-octane, stay-in-the-passing-lane, yellow-light-means-go style of play that is throwing our reference points completely out of whack.
Use a timeout late in the game with the clock winding down and let the other team catch their breath, sub, and get their guys organized?
Not gonna happen.
One minute to go, the ball is on your own 20, you possess all three timeouts and you need 45 yards to get into field goal range. What do you do?
Run the ball and donate those timeouts to Goodwill.
Fourth and three at the 42, the box is stacked, with man coverage on the outside and a single-high safety to watch both outside receivers?
Look the safety off and chuck it deep to the other side.
Third and 10 at your own 31, the box is light with extra DBs in the game?
Run the zone play off tackle for a 69-yard touchdown.
“It’s a numbers game and if there aren’t enough people in the box it doesn’t matter,” said Bradley. “They keep you off balance and that’s the beauty of that offensive system.
“What are you going to do?” he added.
Keep in mind, this is coming from a guy who’s been in the business for nearly 35 years.
More and more teams are playing this way because coaches and players these days are becoming so adept at thinking fast on their feet.
However, nobody in college football right now plays faster than Baylor. The Bears lead the country in a bunch of stats but the one that really gets your attention is the 94 plays per game they are running. Think about that. That’s 94 times your defense has to properly get lined up to try and stop Bryce Petty, K.D. Cannon, Jay Lee, Corey Coleman and Antwan Goodley. Don’t forget those running backs Shock Linwood and Johnny Jefferson, too.
Ten years ago, if you ran 75 plays it was considered hogging the ball.
“I don’t know how they do it but sometimes when they go tempo they are running three and four plays in a row without looking to the sidelines,” said West Virginia defensive coordinator Tony Gibson. “I don’t know if they script those four plays and say we’re running it no matter what and they just go do it because nobody looks for a signal and they don’t sub.”
It’s almost as if they don’t care what play they are calling - just get another play off as fast as possible and confuse the defense; get them out of position and put all those great athletes in one-on-one matchups.
Whatever they are doing it's a great concept.
We saw what happens when guys don’t get lined up properly and Baylor goes turbo: 63 points and 782 yards two years ago in Morgantown and 73 points and 872 yards last year.
Guess how many plays Baylor ran in last year’s beat-down in Waco?
Ninety-four is the winning answer.
“You can’t get discouraged about yards,” said safeties coach Joe DeForest. “(Defensive football) is about red zone, getting off the field on third down, and the score at the end of the game.”
Or, having an offense that goes fast, too. This year West Virginia is much better in so many areas, but the one place where the Mountaineers have made the biggest improvement is in the number of plays they are getting off each game. If you look closely at the stat sheet, you will notice that WVU is not too far off Baylor’s rapid-fire pace at 88.2 plays per game.
Maryland’s Randy Edsall bitterly complained about it earlier this year following his team's loss to those AK-47-toting Mountaineers. He’s one of the huddlers.
The guys coaching in the Big 12 are not.
“This is my 14th year in this league and I haven’t had a happy Saturday because it’s all nerve-racking,” said DeForest. “When you coach the two most exposed positions on the field – special teams and the backend – you’re not comfortable on Saturday. You just hold your breath and hope your kids do what we’ve practiced during the week.”
Which is no-huddle, of course :)
Enjoy your weekend!
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