Matt Hayes is Wrong A Lot

The NCAA rules committee is talking about some changes, and Matt Hayes doesn’t like it one bit. I don’t particularly like one of the new clock changes either, but Matt hates the wrong one.

Here’s the kicker: the explosion of offense over the past three or four years — a trend that many coaches don’t like — will get only worse with the proposed rules. One of the recommendations: a 40-second play clock that begins at the end of every play.

They made a horrible clock change a couple of years ago that led to fewer plays and fewer points, or, in other words, less offense. Offenses kind of exploded last year I guess. It seemed like they did anyway, but the last three or four years? Not so much. Also, are a lot of coaches walking around saying things like, “This offense is getting out of hand. Give me the good ol’ Wing-T and a football that was really hard to throw so we can get back to real football?” Also, how does the 40-second play clock help the offense beyond possibly letting them use up more clock? I’m asking you Matt.

Guess whom that favors?

You already implied that it favors the offense. I asked you how. Don’t answer my question with a question.

If the 40-second play clock is approved by the oversight panel in April, you’ll see more teams move to the no-huddle offense from the ever-expanding/popular spread-option scheme. Imagine if you will, this scenario:

Noel Devine rips off a 25-yard run for West Virginia, the ball is spotted and the offense lines up with about 30 or so seconds on the play clock. That’s an eternity to read a defense, find a flaw and expose it.

The spread has been gaining converts pretty steadily for the last several years. Kind of like the wishbone and veer did way back when. It isn’t going to spike because the playclock is 40 seconds. The second part is the really stupid part though. First of all, this scenario is horribly, laughably, embarrassingly unrealistic. The 40 second clock would start immediately after the play ended, so the officials would have to spot the ball, move the chains, and get reset for the next play in 10 seconds. If that ever happens on a play resulting in a first down I will have “em naht retrams si seyaH ttaM” tattooed on my forehead. Even so, in that highly unrealistic hypothetical scenario, the offense would get…five additional seconds to look over the defense.  That will no doubt be the difference between a touchdown and a sack.

Sunday Morning Quarterback probably has the best breakdown of the rule actually means, though I’m still unconvinced it will lead to a reduction of plays as he thinks. I expect it to have almost no impact.

It’s bad enough that no one — no one — has figured out a way to slow down the spread option. Now, we’ll simply give teams who run the scheme more of an advantage.

Seriously, he really wrote this, “It’s bad enough that no one — no one — has figured out a way to slow down the spread option.” Sorry for using Florida so much, should you be a Gator reading this, but that’s pretty much who Matt Hayes is talking about.

But those in the rules committee think they’ve found a way to balance that out: the running clock. Under the new proposed rule — which, like all the others, must be approved by the oversight council in April — the official will start the game clock after a player runs out of bounds and the ball is spotted ready for play.

The proposed rule will not apply to the final two minutes of each half, but there still will be time lost from the change. How much? Likely not enough to impact a game — and certainly not enough to slow down offenses.

Now see, this is the rule that he should be upset about, but he blew it right the hell off. This one will probably shave off five plays per team, per game on average. That’s something to complain about.