NCAA Football, 2014-2015

[derspiess]

https://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf-dr-saturday/marshall--conference-usa-hire-pr-firm-to-help-thundering-herd-make-college-football-playoff-233338157.html

If only West Virginia still played them.

I kind of wish they still did, but it's one of those things where WVU has nothing to win and everything to lose.

[CountDeMoney]

Yeah Brian Kelly is a great football coach who is doing great things at Notre Dame but he is a pretty ruthless competitor with few scruples.  Objectivity is not to be expected.

I'm glad there's so few of those types in college football.

[derspiess]

Yeah Brian Kelly is a great football coach who is doing great things at Notre Dame but he is a pretty ruthless competitor with few scruples.  Objectivity is not to be expected.

I'm glad there's so few of those types in college football.

And...?

[Admiral Yi]

Berkut: I think those pictures you posted actually advance the case for blown coverage.  In the first pic the outside receiver and his DB are on the same axis.  In the second the DB is inside his man, proving, in my mind, that he was jumping the slant.  He also doesn't appear to be making any effort to fight through a block and get back outside to cover the open receiver.

Receivers always fight their way clear of press coverage, and I think the case can be made that that is what those two engaged receivers are doing.

[CountDeMoney]

Yeah Brian Kelly is a great football coach who is doing great things at Notre Dame but he is a pretty ruthless competitor with few scruples.  Objectivity is not to be expected.

I'm glad there's so few of those types in college football.

And...?

...And they all lived happily ever after.  Douchebag.

[derspiess]

Btw we forgot to trash talk last week when our alma maters played.  Your cheating Tigers got lucky. 

edit: oops

[CountDeMoney]

Yay.  Tiger Pride, etc.

[Berkut]

Berkut: I think those pictures you posted actually advance the case for blown coverage.  In the first pic the outside receiver and his DB are on the same axis.  In the second the DB is inside his man, proving, in my mind, that he was jumping the slant.

A couple things:

1. The WR is on the outside of the DB because that is his job - to seal the outside from the defender so they cannot get over to make a play. That is how a screen play like this works.

2. Officiating a football game is not a court case. The "defense" doesn't get to come up with some palusible story under which they can come up with a scenario to explain away an obvious infraction. Is it possible that BOTH ND WRs were trying to run routes and it just so happened that the DBs did exactly the right things that made it look like OPI? I suppose it's possible - but it isn't likely. And it takes more than a desperate effort to come up with an alternate explanation to convince.

2. Whether there was blown coverage is completely irrelevant to the call. It's not like there is a rule that says "If in the judgement of the covering official, the defensive backs mistake who they should cover, then offensive pass inteference restrictions shall be lifted from the offense". It doesn't matter who the DBs were supposed to cover - the offensive players cannot initiate contact with the defenders on a pass that crosses the line of scrimmage. Period. And that is clearly what is happening.

  He also doesn't appear to be making any effort to fight through a block and get back outside to cover the open receiver.

He doesn't need to - but for the offensive player to convince anyone that they are trying to run a route, they DO need to make an effort to avoid defenders who are legitimately occupying a spot on the field they are entitled to, and neither ND WR was doing that. They were clearly not trying to get into any route, just trying to screen the DBs.

Receivers always fight their way clear of press coverage, and I think the case can be made that that is what those two engaged receivers are doing.

Errrh, no, actually, you cannot make such a case. The outside DB is backing UP as the play develops - if the WR wanted to get away from him, he could do so trivially - he makes no effort to do so, and in fact runs straight at the DB and seals him inside. In fact, they make an excellent play for a screen pass.

There are two reasonable possibilities here:

1. This was a screen play where the target WR and/or the QB missed their route/throw causing the ball to go beyond the LOS when it should not, which makes this OPI.
2. This was not a screen play, but an intentional pick play where the ND players coaches thought the officials would not have the balls to call OPI in such a critical situation and told the WRs to screen downfield and dare the covering officials to call OPI. In which case this is OPI.

Is it possible that this was three WRs all trying to run normal routes and in each of those two cases where there was significant contact that looks exactly like OPI they were entirely innocent victims of the defenders "jumping their routes"? Sure - it is possible. And maybe OJ really was setup, and perhaps the moon landings really were faked. Anything is possible.

[Berkut]

Funny things coaches say:

At my game this weekend, it is 2nd and 8, I am on the wing on the offenses side of the field.

B44 is offsides at the snap, so I throw my flag. Coach starts yelling "FREE PLAY! FREE PLAY!" and the QB scrambles a bit and throws a bomb downfield which ends up incomplete. The R throws a flag for holding on one of the offensive linemen, so we have offsetting penalties, replay the down.

Head coach of this college team comes up to me and starts yelling "Jeff! Jeff! JEFF!!!! IT WAS A FREE PLAY!!! YOU CANNOT HAVE HOLDING ON A FREE PLAY!!!!!".

I didn't even know how to respond to that.

[dps]

Probably better not to respond at all, or just say, "No, that's not correct".  Anything I can think of that you might say beyond that would probably get you in trouble--things that spring to mind are along the lines of "Are you fucking insane?", "What have you been smoking?", or "You'd think a coach should know the rules better than that".  None of those are things that are probably appropriate for a game official to say to a coach.

[alfred russel]

Officials rarely make calls based on what someone says in a press conference.

That wasn't about the call of the officials. It was about your statement:

"It takes a serious and dedicated lack of understanding of football to believe that ND was running trips to one side with a pass to the receiver behind the other two just over the LOS...and they were not trying to run a screen."

There is a mountain of evidence that it wasn't a screen. Aside from the words coming out of ND, the national discussion over the play has had a lot of football people weigh in, and I've yet to hear anyone say it was supposed to be a screen. If you want names, Chris Spielman and Sean McDonough were discussing the play, and they agreed that the receivers for ND should have done a better job selling that they were trying to run routes (meaning they didn't think it was a screen, else the fault would have been with the pass catcher and/or QB). [for the record, one thought it was correctly called, the other thought it could have gone either way]

But hey, you've officiated high school games and maybe some games at lower division colleges. You probably know more about plays that are run out of formations than Chris Spielman, who only played big time college ball and in the NFL for a lot of years.

The real tragedy in all of this is that our poor Canadian colleague BB seems to be deferring to your authority in this, and is going to mistakenly go through life thinking that such a formation and slot receiver route running invariably means the team is trying to run a screen. 

[Berkut]

LOL, they are saying the receivers should do a better job "selling" that they are running routes as evidence that this is NOT a screen?

How about just running a route, instead of "selling" anything?

Whatever man, I think the evidence is pretty clear for anyone who doesn't have a hard on for Florida. It was an easy call, and correctly made, and every official I know, and every official who has weighed in all have the exact same opinion. Easy OPI call, except for the situation. I am sure all the talking heads who are paid to come up with something to talk about know more than the officials what the right call was.

You can latch on to my one sentence taken out of context if it makes you feel like less of a douchebag for being so thoroughly wrong if you like, but I don't really care. Our poor Canadian friend should, in fact, defer to the authority of actual officials (and I am by far the least of the ones cited) over fans and talking heads.

[alfred russel]

TCU is kind of scary. derspiess, I'm worried about your boys.

[alfred russel]

LOL, they are saying the receivers should do a better job "selling" that they are running routes as evidence that this is NOT a screen?

How about just running a route, instead of "selling" anything?

Because if it is a screen, those guys are legal blockers. They don't need to sell anything.

[Berkut]

LOL, they are saying the receivers should do a better job "selling" that they are running routes as evidence that this is NOT a screen?

How about just running a route, instead of "selling" anything?

Because if it is a screen, those guys are legal blockers. They don't need to sell anything.

SO that raises the second possibility I mentioned - an intentional attempt to run a pick play, which is still OPI and correctly called.

You can slice it any way you like, but you cannot get away from a simple truth: The rules state that the offense cannot go downfield and screen/block/make contact with defenders on a pass beyond the line of scrimmage. They did so. It is OPI.