Alabama coach Nick Saban, as old school as they get in this modern age, recently threw out this head-scratcher about the effect that hurry-up offenses, the hot thing in college football, are having on the game:
“I think that the way people are going no-huddle right now, that at some point in time, we should look at how fast we allow the game to go in terms of player safety,” he said.
The comment came a few days after the Crimson Tide defeated Ole Miss 33-14. Ole Miss, which runs the hurry-up offense, was held to 218 yards.
It seemed like an odd point from someone who may have been trying to protect what is traditionally the strength of his team: a fast and quick defensive line.
From the offense’s perspective, the quicker it can line up and snap the ball, the less time a defense has to analyze situations, call plays and line up. When the defense isn’t sure what it’s supposed to do, the advantage goes to the offense. Forgetting for a moment that the hurry-up offense doesn’t necessarily increase time of possession, just plays per possession, from Saban’s perspective the quicker the offense can go, the less time, if any, defenses have to substitute fresher players. His theory is that tired players can quickly become injured players.
Opinions are split on Saban’s belief.
Clemson coach Dabo Swinney, whose team runs some hurry-up but also substitute a lot, emphatically disagreed with Saban. Swinney said not only does the hurry-up offense not increase the likelihood of an injury, innovations like it and the varieties of offenses make college football fun to watch.
“If you really want the same old thing and everybody to be conformed, then you’ve got that in the NFL,” Swinney said. “That’s what Sundays are for, in my opinion.”
The hurry-up offense doesn’t use the same 11 players on every possession, nor does it use the same players during every play on one possession. There are substitutions, but they usually occur quickly, with players poised to sprint onto the field and others off as soon as the play is whistled dead.
“The team gets in the same formation group, you can’t substitute defensive players, you go on a 14-, 16-, 18-play drive, and 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,” Saban said in the rest of his original statement about the risk that hurry-up offenses present. “That’s when guys have a much greater chance of getting hurt, when they’re not ready to play.
“I just think there’s got to be some sense of fairness in terms of asking is this what we want football to be?”
The offense is working for a lot of teams, including Oregon. But officials are trying to ensure that the defense isn’t put at a competitive disadvantage.
If an offense substitutes, the referee, or whichever official is on the sideline of the substituting team, will raise his arms and cross them. That signals to the umpire to stand over the ball for three seconds to give the defense time to see what the offense is doing and counter.
But when those three seconds are up, the official will uncross his arms, which is the signal to the umpire to take up his position behind the line of scrimmage and “go live.”
There is no rule that the officials must give the defense time. It’s an adaptation of an interpretation, according to ACC supervisor of officials Doug Rhoads. But he said the theory is the defense should always have a chance to match up.
And if the offense doesn’t substitute, it’s every man for himself.
The adaptation was put into place several years ago because teams would try to either rush their punter onto the field and not give the other team time to drop a returner back, or they would do the opposite and try to run a quarterback onto the field on fourth down and not give the other team time to put in their defense.
LSU coach Les Miles didn’t agree with Saban either. He said if the defenses want to match the speed of the offenses, there are things they can do.
“Hurry up will always be an issue if the defense isn’t ready,” he said. “Making the defense ready isn’t a time issue. It’s the length of time of the defensive call and the length of time the defense has to substitute.”
So far, injury reports don’t support the most extreme version of Saban’s point.
A survey of ACC and SEC schools show that of the 11 teams that responded, only three players on defense have been lost to season-ending injuries, and none came against teams that run hurry-up offenses.
But other coaches empathize with Saban’s concern, but mostly because of the havoc it’s causing their game plans.
“I can see what he’s saying,” Georgia State defensive coordinator Anthony Midget said. “Guys can’t really sub. But you saw the story on tackling, that’s one of the main focuses. When you get guys spread out on the field and have to make a tackle, it’s tough.
“You put a D-I college athlete in space, most of the times they should make that guy miss.”
