The need for speed

Mark Richt goes Solomonic, tries to split the Bielema-Malzahn no-huddle baby:

“I understand the need for speed, so to speak,” Richt said. “I think everybody needs to be in place, in a good football position, ready to go, within reason. If teams are not substituting fast enough because they’re not organized, that’s their fault. But if you’re highly organized, you’re running your guys on the field and they’re not even set when the ball is snapped, I think that’s the thing that might need to slow down just a tad.”

I get the line he’s trying to draw and it makes sense.  The only problem is, how does he expect an officiating crew to tell the difference?  Or is he just saying there should be some minimum amount of time put in place by the conference for defenses, organized or not, to live with?

26 Comments

Filed under SEC Football, Strategery And Mechanics

26 responses to “The need for speed

  1. Cojones

    Could have sworn that the refs did make that ruling several times last year. They waited for subs to all get in before blowing the set whistle. If the subbing team (including us) was not moving very efficiently, they went ahead and blew the whistle, catching many of us before being set.

    It is as Richt states, no more, no less.

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  2. He said what I’d kinda expect a successful, veteran SEC coach to say. He’s probably laughing at the new kids on the block trying to be cool and brash, trying hard fit in. He probably also knows that stuff will go by the wayside when they get slapped into reality once they get into the meat of the SEC schedule. They both seem to be try hards. Mahlzan, with his mouth and attitude, reminds me of Chizik and a former UT head coach and we know how they worked out.

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  3. TennesseeDawg

    I would venture to say all the OCs in the league on are one side and the DCs are on the other. It’s a stalemate and I doubt Slive is listening anyway unless he can find a way to milk a few dollars out of it.

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    • Russ

      You just hit on the answer (if you’re a defensive coach). Tell Slive and ESPN that their on-screen graphics superimposed over the play won’t get as much air time during a hurry-up, meaning less revenue. We’ll soon see a rule change to allow a minimum of 30 seconds between each snap…so the sponsors will get their full value.

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  4. Cojones

    Looked it up: Section 5, Article 2e :

    “While in the process of substitution or simulated substitution, Team A is prohibited from rushing quickly to the line of scrimmage with the obvious attempt of creating a defensive disadvantage. If the ball is ready for play, the game officials will not permit the ball to be snapped until Team B has placed substitutes in position and replaced players must react promptly with it’s substitutes.”

    So what’s the problem?

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  5. Cosmic Dawg

    “Or is he just saying there should be some minimum amount of time put in place by the conference for defenses, organized or not, to live with?”

    I think this is exactly what he meant – you don’t want defenses sandbagging but you ought to give people a fair opportunity to get set up. This is the natural conclusion.

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  6. Dog in Fla

    Mark in the middle again. Sometimes the line is blurred between Nick Saban’s present concerns about the health, safety and welfare of Kirby Smart’s players and Nick Saban’s past concerns (in the role of a non-board certified gastroenterologist) about pressure measurements and hypothetical crimes against nature

    “I’m going to tell you what [‘what’], if I had a barometer up your ass, ” you’d be safe and feel very low pressure

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  7. Bulldawg165

    I still don’t see what the problem is with all of this. If the offense has time to get set up then why doesn’t the defense? Why reward people for being too out of shape to hustle back to the line of scrimmage?

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  8. RP

    Like i’ve said before, the fake injury is about to become as common to football as it has been in soccer for years. Maybe Bobo should get some team USA soccer chaps in this summer for some pointers 🙂

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  9. RP

    Sorry, that would be Grantham. That was stupid.

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  10. Normaltown Mike

    I had the misfortune to hear 92.9 The Game this morning and that witless wonder Randy Cross used the above quotes to say that “the 21st century is coming to the SEC, whether they like it or not…” or some other bilge about how much faster football is outside of the SEC.

    I often wonder if that network is deliberately trying to find people that know nothing about their market or if it’s just happenstance that the “talent” are so clueless.

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  11. Bryant Denny

    Bingo.

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