Hurry Up and Hold On for Your Life

Oct. 3, 2011

Football coaches are always trying to outthink each other, and sometimes they outthink themselves. The old saying “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” doesn’t apply to football coaches, who love tinkering with their offense even when it doesn’t need tinkering.
The latest thing for college coaches is the no-huddle, hurry-up offense. For decades, this was used exclusively in the final minutes of a half. Then some teams started going to it to change the pace of the game and maybe spark some life into their offense when they were behind. Then a few years ago, someone decided it was something they should do for all 60 minutes of a game and, of course, the copycats took notice.
 
The theory is that you do two things when you run the no-huddle. First, you make it more difficult for the opposing defense to make strategic substitutions during a series and second, you wear out the opposing defense physically; they can’t tackle as well when they’re tired.
 
But what about the effect the no-huddle has on your defense? Can your defense tackle as well when they’re sucking wind as a result of the shorter possessions from their own offense?
A few years back when Sam Bradford was lighting it up at Oklahoma, the Sooners were a scoring machine, routinely scoring in the 60-point range with a spectacular no-huddle attack. But if you looked closer, you noticed that the vaunted Sooner defense was giving up around twice as many points per game as they would normally give up. Instead of beating teams 42-14, OU was beating teams 62-28.
A win is a win, of course, but you see my point. By going no-huddle for the entire game and scoring as quickly as they were, the Sooners were not giving their own defensive players any time to catch their breath while providing the other team’s offense plenty more chances with the ball. Some people think time of possession is an overrated statistic; try telling that to a defensive player who’s just taken a seat and has to get back out there after his offense had a 30-second possession.
 
Which brings us to Air Force’s memorable 35-34 OT win over Navy.
 
Time was, when service academy teams and others who didn’t think they could measure up size and talent-wise, they would run the triple option offense just so they could hang on to the ball and keep the other team’s offense off the field. The triple option was designed to grind out three and four yard gains on running plays, keep moving the chains, keep possession of the ball and shorten the game. This approach gave those teams their best chance to win.
 
Times have changed. Now, even option teams are running the no-huddle offense. That includes Air Force, which leaves me scratching my head. The way the Falcons had been running the option was working, wasn’t it?  Why mess with that and put this new burden on your defense?
Case in point: Against Navy, Air Force bolted out to a 21-3 led on the strength of a couple of big plays on offense (operating in the no-huddle) and a defense that was bending, but not breaking, in the first half. They held that lead despite Navy having the ball for almost 10 minutes in the second quarter alone.
 
In the third quarter, Navy began to cut into the lead against the tiring Falcon defense, once again holding the ball for almost 10 minutes of that 15.
 
The game Falcon defense, led by Brady Amack’s 23-tackle effort, was wearing out. The Middies outscored the Falcons by seven in the third, and then 11 in the fourth quarter to overcome the big deficit and send the game into overtime. Before you light up the Air Force defense for surrendering an 18-point lead in the fourth quarter, consider this: Navy ended up running an astronomical 105 offensive plays in the game to a modest 51 for the Falcons. Think about that. More than 100 offensive snaps. Does that happen if Air Force is taking a more traditional grind it out and control the ball sort of approach?
Navy controlled the ball for more than 40 minutes of the 60 minutes of regulation play. Tell me of any defense that will hold up in the fourth quarter having been on the field for than amount of time against that amount of snaps. I’m telling you there aren’t many - if any - anywhere.
 
The Falcons made the most of their chances with the ball and that’s why they won the game. But maybe if they weren’t in such a hurry and would’ve opted to hold on to the ball, they wouldn’t have had to hang on for dear life at the end.