The Campaign Against Our kind of Offense Continues

[The Six]

I'm buying in to the conspiracy theory that there is a concerted effort by "certain" people in this league and their media blow buddies to change rules against innovators like CGM. Now they are getting "experts" to back up this desire. This feels an awful lot like the science used to back up Al Gore's stuff.

Per the Twitters:

@slmandel: Do Saban and Bielema have a legit concern with hurry-up offenses and player safety? Concussion experts say: Yes. http://t.co/2xvI0jQhuG

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-football/news/20130711/hurry-up-offense-safety-concerns/

Nick Saban and Bret Bielema are stubborn, curmudgeonly traditionalists. Or they're just wusses. Those were the typical reactions to comments made by Alabama's coach last fall and Arkansas' coach last month, in which they suggested that college football's increasingly ubiquitous hurry-up offenses are becoming a health hazard for players.
Both coaches said they're concerned for athlete safety because of the inability to make defensive substitutions for extended periods of time when facing breakneck offenses, such as the ones run by Oregon and Texas A&M. "There's times where you can't get a defensive substitution in for eight, 10, 12-play drives," said Bielema, who proposed a 15-second "substitution period" following first downs. "That has an effect on safety of that student-athlete, especially the bigger defensive linemen, that is really real."
Fans and proponents of those styles of offense weren't buying it. They chalked up Saban and Bielema's remarks to typical whining. Saban probably didn't help his cause by asking rhetorically: "Is this what we want football to be?"
But what if Saban and Bielema are right? Given the increased awareness surrounding the long-term health of football players, shouldn't people at least look into the possible injury risks of no-huddle offenses?
The experts have an answer: Yes, very much so.
"We don't have quantifiable data to support Bret's claim, but conceptually, it makes sense and lines up with what we observed," said Thomas Talavage, a Purdue University biomedical engineering professor who, along with colleague Eric Nauman, spent two years studying brain trauma among players on an Indiana high school team.
"I think it is a very legitimate concern to the extent that there truly is an added fatigue factor," said Dr. Randall Benson, a professor of neurology at Wayne State University who testified before Congress about traumatic brain injuries in football. "When guys are fatigued they tend to use poorer technique, which can lead to having one's head in the wrong place, putting them at risk for concussions and subconcussive hits."
At the most basic level, a team with an up-tempo offense runs more plays over the course of a game than one with a more traditional scheme, thus creating more opportunities for injuries. Louisiana Tech, then coached by early hurry-up adopters Sonny Dykes and Tony Franklin (both now at Cal), ran 87.8 plays per game last season, compared with 64.1 by Alabama and 66.1 by Bielema's Wisconsin team, respectively. That discrepancy is troubling to researchers like Talavage and Nauman, whose findings show that the cumulative effect of hits from practices and games on players -- particularly those most prone to contact, such as offensive and defensive linemen -- can be dangerous.
"For us the main thing is, 10 percent of kids will get concussions, but 50 percent will show changes in the way their brain behaves that is almost equivalent," said Nauman. "I'm not worried just about the defense, I'm worried about the linemen on both sides that might take 70 hits in a game. We're looking at somewhere between 60 to 90 hits to the head per week is all you want to take."
Researchers have consistently found that it's not just the number of hits that contribute to brain trauma, but the magnitude of those hits. That's why all those who were interviewed for this story stressed the risk that comes with fatigue-induced breakdowns in technique. A player who does exactly what he's been taught by his coaches -- blocking with hands, form-tackling -- should minimize the number of high-impact hits he sustains to the head.
However, linebackers and defensive backs worn down from chasing receivers all over the field are more inclined to lunge with their head. Exhausted linemen may default to a head-on bull rush rather than using their hands. "We would anticipate these issues become more problematic the more fatigued you are," said Talavage.
"Guys will do whatever they have to do to prevent touchdowns and will hit what they can how they can," said Benson, who added that the pass-heavy nature of many hurry-up offenses also plays a factor. "... Linebackers and D-backs are forced to cover more receivers, which means more running and more fatigue. Receivers are asked to go over the middle and on short routes in seams which makes them vulnerable to high-velocity, high-impact hits by defenders."
Keep in mind, any attempts to correlate tempo with a greater risk of injury is speculative at this point. No known study has been conducted. However, Steven P. Broglio, director of the University of Michigan's Neurotrama Research Laboratory, published a study last year that correlated head injuries with a team's style of offense.
Broglio's researchers spent a season measuring the number of head impacts on both a traditional run-first high school team in Illinois (it attempted just 8.8 passes per game) and a pass-first team in Michigan (25.6 attempts per game). Not surprisingly, players on the Illinois team -- with its abundance of bunched-up formations -- sustained 50 percent more head impacts over the course of their campaign. However, players in the more spread-out passing offense endured, on average, higher-magnitude hits, due in part to running backs' and receivers' abilities to accelerate more quickly before impact.
Still, Nauman does see one potential health benefit to hurry-up offenses.
"My sense from watching teams like Oregon is they're running so much, that their linemen aren't super massive guys," he said. "From an overall health perspective, that's probably a lot safer long-term than having some of these enormous 370-, 380-pound nose tackles. They probably do have healthy cardiac functions, but as soon as they stop playing their knees are done, they have all sorts of health issues later on. I'm not sure people should be trying to get that big. Hurry-up offenses could at least curtail that a little bit."
In the meantime, none of the concussion experts in this story suggested the NCAA or conferences should implement dramatic rules changes like the one proposed by Bielema. They don't yet have data to quantifiably conclude that hurry-up offenses are an issue.
"That's part of the problem in this area right now," said Dr. Micky Collins, director of the Sports Medicine Concussion Program at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. "There's so much discussion and so much concern, I'm worried decisions will be made that are knee-jerk decisions that could cause harm if not made on solid scientific evidence." As an example, he pointed to the Pac-12's recent initiative to reduce allowable contact in practices. While driven by "phenomenally good" intentions, there's not yet evidence to conclude that the benefits of less frequent hitting in practice outweigh the potential harm done by reducing players' opportunities to hone tackling techniques so important to in-game safety.
"Before we change football, and change the game, having science is really important," said Collins. "It sounds like a reasonable study can be done, to see if the incidence of concussions is higher in [hurry-up] offenses than more traditional offenses."
That study wouldn't even necessarily be as labor-intensive as some of the others mentioned in this story, which required embedding teams with special equipment.
"If you focus just on the games, you could probably look at video tapes of games and the time stamps," said Anthony Kontos, Collins' colleague, who has studied concussions at the Pop Warner level. "When are injuries happening? How many [consecutive] plays were run prior to the injury?"
Perhaps Saban was genuinely concerned with more than just how to defend Ole Miss' no-huddle attack when he made his comments last October. "... At some point in time, we should look at how fast we allow the game to go in terms of player safety," Saban said. "... They're snapping the ball as fast as you can go and you look out there and all your players are walking around and can't even get lined up. That's when guys have a much greater chance of getting hurt, when they're not ready to play."
The people who study this stuff for a living believe Saban and Bielema make a valid point. But before pushing for any changes, they need more data to prove it.


Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-football/news/20130711/hurry-up-offense-safety-concerns/#ixzz2Ylk2P9L4

[Tiger Wench]

AGAIN - it's ok for a 300+ lb OFFENSIVE lineman to be on the field for 5-6 hurry up plays but there is concern for the health of the 300+ lb DEFENSIVE guy he is blocking against?

Do wha?   

[Buzz Killington]

Do these same "concussion experts" agree that being hit by a deer antler spray/roided up 260 lb linebacker is worse than anything playing faster could do to you?

[Snaggletiger]

I had to stop reading because:

"We don't have quantifiable data to support Bret's claim, but conceptually, it makes sense and lines up with what we observed,"

This is smoke and mirrors and nothing more.  Here's the argument in a nutshell.  We can't substitute so the same guys are staying out on the field play after play and getting tired and more subject to injury.

Bull....Shit

#1: The offensive players are all out there the same number of plays.  They aren't substituting either.

#2: If you don't want your guys on the field so long, tell them to tackle the ball carrier before he makes a first down.  It's kind of a basic fundamental technique taught by most football coaches. (Except some AU coaches)  A HUNH offense does not call for some magical set of plays you can't defend.  Stop the offense and you come off the field.

#C: I'm no X's and O's guru, but I don't care what Gus Malzahn or most any other corch who runs a version of this offense says.  I truly believe the HUNH is designed as much as anything else to eventually get defensive players out of position or the wrong personnel on the field so you run into mismatches. 

I'll say it again, despite what he says he wants to do, Malzahn's offense just isn't that fast.  And I'm not talking about the year Chiz told him to slow it down.  They do get back to the line quickly.  THAT is the key.  You have now accomplished what you set out to do IMO.  The defense can't substitute for fear of a quick snap.  But traditionally, Auburn hits the line, then they wait while the play gets called in, get set, prarie dog again, then run the play and get back to the line. 

What Oregon ran under Kelly was a true hurry up.  They did in fact have a series of plays called and snapped the ball the second the referee set it for play. 

Experts, what say you? 

[Buzz Killington]

I agree with you Snaggs for the most part.  However, I did see a few times along the way that Malzahn, realizing that the D was gassed, would start running plays much like what you saw out of Oregon's offense and either force them into a timeout or to fake an injury.  He can play it fast when he wants to.

But just like you said...if you stop the ballcarrier, it doesn't matter how damn quickly the O gets up to the line.

[dallaswareagle]

I had to stop reading because:

"We don't have quantifiable data to support Bret's claim, but conceptually, it makes sense and lines up with what we observed,"

This is smoke and mirrors and nothing more.  Here's the argument in a nutshell.  We can't substitute so the same guys are staying out on the field play after play and getting tired and more subject to injury.

Bull....Shit

#1: The offensive players are all out there the same number of plays.  They aren't substituting either.

#2: If you don't want your guys on the field so long, tell them to tackle the ball carrier before he makes a first down.  It's kind of a basic fundamental technique taught by most football coaches. (Except some AU coaches)  A HUNH offense does not call for some magical set of plays you can't defend.  Stop the offense and you come off the field.

#C: I'm no X's and O's guru, but I don't care what Gus Malzahn or most any other corch who runs a version of this offense says.  I truly believe the HUNH is designed as much as anything else to eventually get defensive players out of position or the wrong personnel on the field so you run into mismatches. 

I'll say it again, despite what he says he wants to do, Malzahn's offense just isn't that fast.  And I'm not talking about the year Chiz told him to slow it down.  They do get back to the line quickly.  THAT is the key.  You have now accomplished what you set out to do IMO.  The defense can't substitute for fear of a quick snap.  But traditionally, Auburn hits the line, then they wait while the play gets called in, get set, prarie dog again, then run the play and get back to the line. 

What Oregon ran under Kelly was a true hurry up.  They did in fact have a series of plays called and snapped the ball the second the referee set it for play. 

Experts, what say you?

Where? on this board?

[Snaggletiger]

I agree with you Snaggs for the most part.  However, I did see a few times along the way that Malzahn, realizing that the D was gassed, would start running plays much like what you saw out of Oregon's offense and either force them into a timeout or to fake an injury.  He can play it fast when he wants to.

But just like you said...if you stop the ballcarrier, it doesn't matter how damn quickly the O gets up to the line.

Well, I didn't mean ALL the time.  I can't believe you thought I meant all the time. I'm stunned.  Of course I knew he sped it up on occasion.  I thought that was a given.  I mean, I knew that.  Who wouldn't know that?

[WiregrassTiger]

Where? on this board?

Well, I could expound but I hate to get so technical and talk above the audiences heads.

[Hogwally]

AGAIN - it's ok for a 300+ lb OFFENSIVE lineman to be on the field for 5-6 hurry up plays but there is concern for the health of the 300+ lb DEFENSIVE guy he is blocking against?

Do wha?   

     Playing defensive lineman involves much more running than playing offensive lineman.  That's why generally you see defensive linemen rotating in and out while offensive linemen almost never do.  Having said that, I think Bielema sounds like a crybaby over this.  If you're that worried about it, play lighter defensive linemen.

[AUownsU]

O.k. we all know without a doubt lord shrimpdick doesn't give a damn about player safety. So what is his real motive behind wanting the rule changed? Kind of obvious, the king of the inbreed nation actually has some fear of what Gus' O is capable of. Seriously, what else could it be? Between this and the shit floating around about ex-coaches pretty much telling recruits they were gonna be fired even before the Ole Miss game last year, I'm starting to feel more and more confident about 8 wins or more. Hard to wins games and be competitive when there is so much dissention on a team the fucking OC calls it quits before the season is half way over.

[Kaos]

O.k. we all know without a doubt lord shrimprichard doesn't give a damn about player safety. So what is his real motive behind wanting the rule changed? Kind of obvious, the king of the inbreed nation actually has some fear of what Gus' O is capable of. Seriously, what else could it be? Between this and the shoot floating around about ex-coaches pretty much telling recruits they were gonna be fired even before the Ole Miss game last year, I'm starting to feel more and more confident about 8 wins or more. Hard to wins games and be competitive when there is so much dissention on a team the fudgeing OC calls it quits before the season is half way over.

No, no not Gus really. 

2012, lost to Texas A&M running a version of the spread.
2011, struggled with Georgia Southern running a fast paced wishbone style
2010, hahahaha
2009, Couldn't put AU away, would have lost to Texas if McCoy doesn't go Wuss McGinger and lay out

Saban's teams will struggle with this type of offense.  They are built to lean on people and if they get winded, they can't do that. 

He, like the entire Alabama fanbase, has no interest in level competition. They want the advantage weighted in their favor. 

The fact that pro offenses are slowly but surely moving to faster paces means nothing.  College football should still be about big, roided up grinders.  Idiot.  I hate him. 

[The Prowler]

No, no not Gus really. 

2012, lost to Texas A&M running a version of the spread.
2011, struggled with Georgia Southern running a fast paced wishbone style
2010, hahahaha
2009, Couldn't put AU away, would have lost to Texas if McCoy doesn't go Wuss McGinger and lay out

Saban's teams will struggle with this type of offense.  They are built to lean on people and if they get winded, they can't do that. 

He, like the entire Alabama fanbase, has no interest in level competition. They want the advantage weighted in their favor. 

The fact that pro offenses are slowly but surely moving to faster paces means nothing.  College football should still be about big, roided up grinders.  Idiot.  I hate him.

Exactly.

[The Six]

There's no engaging the Alabama fanbase or their media mouthpieces in debate about this.

The party line is as follows:

"Football is strategy and not contact basketball on grass with pads."
"Hurry-up Offense is bitch football and real teams don't need that to win."

Never mind that Alabama uses hurry-up to start games sometimes and not just in the last 2 minutes of the fourth quarter. Never mind that we've seen video evidence that they employed several concepts of the "spread" in the 2010 Iron Bowl.

It's just like all that other shoot that they "say" and then it becomes "fact." Most would tell you Alabama has led the nation in rushing attempts for 75 years and that the forward pass is akin to armed robbery. 

[AUChizad]

http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2013/6/20/4447068/sec-bret-bielema-hurry-up-offense-no-huddle-rule

Bret Bielema, how much slower can SEC football get?

By Patrick Vint @HS_BHGP on Jun 20 2013, 10:00a 6
THE CARD SAYS "GO FOR TWO..OR THREE MORE SECONDS BETWEEN PLAYS" - Wesley Hitt

Bret Bielema wants to slow things down. Are the conference's officials already doing that?

Earlier this week, Arkansas coach Bret Bielema proposed a rule change which would allow defenses time for substitutions following an offensive first down. Bielema calls it a "safety issue" for defensive linemen, even though he makes no such claims for offensive linemen playing in up-tempo offenses.

No, Bret Bielema is not concerned with the safety of his defensive tackles so much as slowing the game to his usual tepid pace. Among SEC coaches, Bielema is not alone. He's been joined by other coaches -- Nick Saban, Steve Spurrier, Will Muschamp -- who also operate run-heavy, low-tempo offenses in opposition to the no-huddle attacks of Gus Malzahn at Auburn, Hugh Freeze at Ole Miss, and (at least presumably) Mark Stoops at Kentucky.

Bielema's substitution rule could be unnecessary, if the conference is still operating under its "12-second rule." Back in 2004, with new Georgia coach Mark Richt trying to implement his up-tempo offense from Florida State, SEC officials operated under an unwritten rule that slowed no-huddle offenses and left time for substitutions. From The Macon Telegraph in 2004 (via Get The Picture):

    Since coming to Georgia, Richt has all but ditched the fast break offense he made famous at Florida State because, he says, the league's officials don't allow him to go fast enough to make it worthwhile. SEC officials are required to pause for 12-14 seconds between each play, and that's not going to change despite Richt's arguments, Gaston said.

    "He doesn't agree with it, but he knows what we're doing," Gaston said.

    The mandatory pause is to allow the officiating crew to get in position, Gaston said. Richt argued that the officials should put the ball in play as soon as they are set, regardless of how much time has elapsed, but Gaston said that would provide the offense an unfair advantage.

    "Mark Richt would eat their lunch," he said. "He would go straight to the ball and snap it. He'd get in 100 plays."

Even now, with the SEC purportedly "loosening up" on up-tempo schemes, the conference's offenses -- huddle and no-huddle alike -- are staggeringly slow. Auburn ran an up-tempo offense under Malzahn in 2010, but averaged just 69.9 plays per game (54th nationally). When Georgia went no-huddle in 2011, it topped the conference with 74.2 plays per game, but that total placed the Bulldogs 32nd nationally and would have been the fourth-slowest offense in the Big 12. It has prompted some to ask whether the unwritten 12-second rule is still in effect.

The SEC as a whole was the slowest among the BCS leagues in plays per game in 2012:

Conference	Plays per game
Big 12	73.48
Pac-12	72.68
ACC	72.28
Big 10	70.58
Big East	68.35
SEC	67.59

This is due in large part to the philosophy of some of the conference's best teams. Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and Mississippi State were among the nation's slowest teams last year, both in snaps per game and adjusted pace. Auburn was the slowest team in the nation by both figures, a condition that Malzahn will certainly attempt to remedy. The same goes for Kentucky's triumphant return to the air raid. But even Texas A&M and Missouri, who brought high-tempo offenses from the Big 12 to the SEC last year, were slowed considerably. Whether the plodding, methodical ground attacks of Alabama and Georgia had something to do with that is unquestionable.

The question becomes: Is refereeing a factor? Do SEC officials still slow down games, or have they truly let go of the reins on no-huddle offenses?

The answer, from limited information, is "probably not." SEC games are slower, but not primarily because of a fiat handed down from the league office to officials, mandating a pause in the action after every play. The best source for examining whether the officials are having an effect on the slow pace of SEC games is conference officials' performance in bowl games, when both teams are not from the conference.
Is this what we want lovemaking to be?

SEC officials were in charge of four bowl games in 2012-13: the Orange, Belk, Alamo, and Armed Forces. In three of those four games, the teams as an aggregate ran fewer plays than they averaged in the regular season.

However, the difference was negligible. In the Alamo Bowl, Texas and Oregon State combined for 136 plays, 5.3 plays less than their season average. The Belk Bowl, between Cincinnati and Duke, generated 152 snaps, just 0.5 snaps less than those teams' aggregate average. While Rice and Air Force took nine fewer snaps than average in the Armed Forces Bowl, they were offset by the 7.9 more snaps that Florida State and Northern Illinois took in the Orange Bowl. In the end, games officiated by SEC crews included just 1.73 plays less than the teams had averaged during the year.

That's not to say that conference refereeing cannot have an effect on bowls. In two of three games officiated by referees from the Big East, the nation's second-slowest conference, the teams were more than 13 snaps below average, with the clash of Bielema's Wisconsin and the similarly pro-style Stanford registering 16.6 snaps lower than those teams had averaged during the season. In all five game refereed by officials from the Big Ten, the teams combined for fewer snaps than average (5.0 snaps per game in total). On the other hand, Big 12 officials meant more snaps in three of the four games they refereed, with nearly nine additional snaps per game overall. And the combination of Nevada, Arizona, and ACC officials led to 21.8 snaps more than usual for those two teams in the New Mexico Bowl.

SEC teams, free of the shackles of their conference's referees, actually slowed down slightly in their bowl apperances. Five of nine SEC bowl teams took fewer snaps than average in their bowl games, while only three -- Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi -- took five or more snaps than they had during the regular season. In all, the 2.37 fewer snaps per game taken by SEC teams in bowls is minor; the conference as a whole continued as it had, regardless of officiating.

The SEC has shown that it can implement a rule change like Bielema is contemplating without formally passing a rule, though the influx of up-tempo offenses in the last four seasons could lead to increased resistance to the return of the 12-second rule.

But the discipline and talent of the conference's best offenses and most successful programs could mean that a change is unnecessary. The SEC will move on at its own pace regardless, thank you very much.

[Townhallsavoy]

Microcosm of the country. 

More rules.  More regulations.  Select few people wanting their desires to be satisfied.  The majority get screwed. 

[dallaswareagle]

     Playing defensive lineman involves much more running than playing offensive lineman.  That's why generally you see defensive linemen rotating in and out while offensive linemen almost never do.  Having said that, I think Bielema sounds like a crybaby over this.  If you're that worried about it, play lighter defensive linemen.

Didn't we try that last year?

Anybody want to barrow Jake? 

[Kaos]

Didn't we try that last year?

Anybody want to barrow Jake?

wheel barrow?

[dallaswareagle]

wheel barrow?

 

He did move slow.   

[Tiger Wench]

Bielema calls it a "safety issue" for defensive linemen, even though he makes no such claims for offensive linemen playing in up-tempo offenses.

He obviously read my post.

[Hogwally]

He obviously read my post.

     He obviously knows just as little about playing football as you do.