Ultimate Trick Play

by ouALWAYSsux on Aug 3, 2007 2:53 PM CDT Comment 6 comments

This has got to be one of the best trick plays ever thought up. The referees would have to be informed of how it works or they would blow the whistle.

I'm just trying to bring a little laughter into a stressful day.

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Whats great about that

is that it illustrates the assumptions we make about basic football strategy.

Technically, as long as the center lifts the ball to the QB's hands, it is a legal snap of the ball, whether he does it between his legs or not. But we've been watching one prevailing strategy for so long in football, that we mistake the strategy for the rule. The fact of the matter is that we merely have found it mostly advantageous for the center to snap the ball between his legs so that he can handle his blocking assignment instantaneously.

Obviously the stategies in this game have evolved over the course of 140 years, and there are probably few "re-interpretations" of the rules that would yield more progressive results than what we have seen achieved, but I often wonder what would happen if someone were to read the technicalities of a football rulebook without having seen the game played. I imagine we might see extremely unconventional strategies cooked up.

I wonder if any coaches out there go back and look at the rule book every once in a while to get a fresh outlook. Most of the inovative minds we've seen in coaching have really only taken baby steps forward, in all relativity, basically just expanding on the strategies we already have seen.

I wonder if there are any coaches out there who have ever attempted an offensive scheme that is truly unconventional.

by BrooklynHorn on Aug 3, 2007 3:59 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

michael lewis, is that you?

have you read the blind side, BrooklynHorn? it deals somewhat with bill walsh's offensive innovations. and of course that NYT Magazine article on Mike Leach does the same for him.

but I think you're right that these innovations have been mostly "within the status quo" changes, not "dismantling the status quo" changes. though I'm convinced that what leach has done is absolutely remarkable and he's changed the way smaller schools look at playing football. I think the system is too high a risk for a big school with superior athletes to ever take, which is why i (unlike Michael Lewis) don't necessarily think that leach would succeed at a big school any more than any other very good coach. but he's somewhat shifted the paradigm for small schools and shown that on any given saturday, a medium-size school can compete with and sometimes beat the big boys.

/rant

by billyzane on Aug 4, 2007 12:11 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

may work the first time but....

this kind of stuff would work one time in college football--maybe. I think the reason we don't see this sort of stuff more often is the risk/reward. If someone were to try to repeat this all it would take is one linebacker or DB to lay that QB out. Personally I think this kind of trick play is a bull shit stunt. I have no problem with the hook and lateral, statue of liberty, and HB pass play though -- those create true misdirection and are legitimate.

That said, it sure is funny and I'd hate to be the coach on the opposing side!

by BMG on Aug 3, 2007 4:08 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

That is riduclous

if the other team had laid out the QB the parents would have been going crazy and the refs probably would have kicked the player out of the game.

So cheap to do in pee wee football. But it is still funny.

by Wells on Aug 3, 2007 4:57 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

pure genius!

trick plays are a lost art, and fits on any day of football. whether it be under the friday night lights or on the saturday gridiron. great to see some coaches still have the balls to call the "wrong ball" trick play.

more UT, less cowbell

by kcc28 on Aug 3, 2007 9:39 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs