According to what standard? Hindsight? Maybe game management is really hard in the moment.
What did Harbaugh and other coaches do wrong
- Thread starter uihawk82
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According to what standard? Hindsight? Maybe game management is really hard in the moment.
ThunderHawk
Well-Known Member
When you get down to a certain number of finite seconds, you can finesse them off the clock by running plays which take longer to develop and finish, especially if you have no intention of passing the ball. If Meatchicken is snapping the ball on 4th down with 2 seconds left instead of ten, they can run a play on 4th down (i.e. have Riddick snap the ball and run backwards and count to two and kneel down or run outside the pocket and heave it into the stands) instead of punting, which is fraught with much more risk.
Regardless, we all had a good laugh.
Sigh.....
How do you come up with 10 seconds? They hiked the ball after 6 seconds came off the clock. You can't count the time the play takes as wasted time, as that is running an actual play trying to gain actual yards.
Spiking the ball take 1 or 2 seconds, they used 6 seconds to call a play and hike the ball, so that is "wasting" 4 or 5 seconds according to you.
Forward to the 1:15 mark of the YouTube video of the game. You will also hear Brian Greeseball saying they should have clocked the ball. Since that douchnozzle was wrong about absolutely everything he said, I am very comfortable saying it was 100% right to run a play.
I'm not sure saying 10 seconds or so deserves a sigh if it was actually only 6 seconds. I have usually rewatched the game by now but I haven't with this game yet so I'm only going off what I remember from the first time. Probably a bad idea for me to comment on it since I wasn't certain. 6 seconds feels like an eternity when you're watching live though so please take back your sigh and cut me some slack.
If it would have actually been 10 seconds though, would you still think it was the right play? I have a bad feeling they're set on their ways and there will come a time that it's 100% obvious that they need to spike it but they won't. Like if there was only enough time to run 2 plays anyway so you don't need to save the down.
By the standard of other coaches. Some are better at x's and o's, some are better at player development, and some are better at game management. When someone says Rhodes sucks at player development, they don't mean compared to the average Joe (ok maybe a bad example) they mean he sucks compared to other people in his line of work. You say their job is really hard, and I agree, but some coaches are good at it anyway. The one's who are bad and always make noticeable mistakes are going to get called out for sucking. You just have to remember that the term "suck" is relative.
because a fieldgoal beats you (and a safety ties it). Would you trust someone to take a snap and run around for 10 full seconds? That doesn't sound like a lot, but it's an eternity with the ball in your hands and if you get run down for a big loss before time runs out you've just given the other team a chance to beat you.
The right play IMO, would be to just run another offensive play. That would leave 5-6 seconds left on the clock but i'd take my chances with my defense on the field if I'm Michigan.
AdamHawk
Well-Known Member
Without getting into hypotheticals, the fact is they didn't spike the ball, ran 3 plays and attempted a short field goal on 4th down. Could they have taken a shot to the end zone had they spiked the ball? Maybe. Would they have gotten as close as they did before attempting a FG had they spiked the ball? Maybe not. There is no way to really know what would've happened. I personally don't have a problem with the way he played it.
deanvogs
Well-Known Member
I would agree with you if it took from 25 seconds to 15 seconds to HIKE the ball, that is too long. It took from 25 second to 19 seconds to hike the ball though, so I am ok with that. If you spike the ball you are going to go from 25 second to 23 seconds in all likelihood (you have to be set for 1 second or it's a false start). So basically the question becomes is do you trade the 4 to 5 seconds of time for a wasted down, and give the opponent time to reset it's defense?
I can see the merits of both personally, so I'm fine with whatever they decide. I feel that way, because the staff looks consistent, so that to me means they have made the strategic decision in the off season. In other words they aren't just flying by the seat of the pants, or making bad in game decisions, they are following a strategy that has been made, so I'm not going to kill them over it. If they consistently clocked it, that is ok as well.
Now if they try to do this with 10 sec. or less I would be pizzed. I would also assume there is a certain amount of time left that the strategy then changes from running a play, to automatically clocking the ball.
kicker22
Well-Known Member
I should have worded that better. I wasn't necessarily talking the final play, but the other 3 downs leading up to it. I'd think losing large chunks of yardage multiple plays in a row would do enough of a job of killing the clock that you wouldn't need to worry about having the remaining 10 seconds left on the clock.
no, because they would have had to kick on 4th down.
In that situation I don't even think it was 50/50. As long as you get the play in fast and only lose a few seconds, it's better to not lose the down with that exact field position and time left. I really thought more time ran off than that when I watched it live.
AdamHawk
Well-Known Member
I was referring to the time argument. Since they didn't spike the ball, they attempted a quick-out pass. If they spiked the ball, maybe they call something up to take a shot on 2nd. There's just no way to say definitively what they would have done.
shonblatt
Well-Known Member
I don't think I've ever seen someone run backwards to kill time except on the final play of the game with only a couple seconds to kill. Doing so on multiple plays in a row puts the ball closer to your own endzone and just increases the odds of something bad happening.
When you can't fully kill the clock, the percentage play is to just push forward towards a game-winning first down, kill as much clock as possible, and then punt on 4th down if you don't make the 1st.
Clearly in this case, Michigan lost that gamble with the terribly executed punt, but they still made the correct call by the percentages.
Didn't the ball actually go towards Mitchell running an option route in the middle of the field (perhaps I misremember)? The had some options other than the sideline due to still having a timeout in the bag.
Good point. For what it is worth, Harbaugh has generally been thought of, at least at the pro level, as one of those coaches who is really good at it.
I agree that the ones who are good at it really make the ones who are bad at it stand out. But I also think the ones who are good at it are few and far between because it is such a challenging task. My main issue is when terms like "stupid" get thrown around, implying that these issues are so simple that any idiot should be able to pull them off. As a general rule, if observing a profession where people fail regularly and publicly (athletes, coaches, officials, politics), the conclusion that makes the most sense is probably that what they are trying to do is hard, not that everyone in that profession is stupider than the you.
AdamHawk
Well-Known Member
It might have gone to Mitchell. It was out towards the right flat though, not over the middle. Either way, it was incomplete and stopped the clock.
How about not waiting for that moment to come and then react to it but rather plan a strategy ahead of time,
This is sort of what I was getting at but once you slide down the 40 second play clock starts. The 40 second play clock has nothing to do with how long it takes to spot the ball for the next play.
But yes you are correct Kicker22, three plays like that running a QB/rb run to take up a little more time so you end the game after 3rd down.
Basically if you take over the ball with 1:30 or 90 seconds left and your opponent has one time out you can burn up 80 of the 90 seconds just using the 2 40 second play clocks and taking a delay of game penalty. That leaves you 1st, 2nd, and 3rd down runs to chew up 10 seconds which you could by going up the middle. In this case there was I cant totally remember but about 1:42 or 1:50 seconds left so you know there is going to be about 10 or so seconds left if you just run up the middle. Run those sweeps to the wide side of the field, cover up the ball, practice it in August, Win the game.
It is just like basketball coaches going over every end game situation.
Yeah, maybe stupidity is a little strong but still ways to avoid this at times.
I understood what you were talking about.
they didn't attempt a quick out pass, in fact the throw ended up being a checkdown in the middle of the field which thankfully was dropped.
