I'm no conspiracy theorist. It just seems so obvious to me over a long period of time and with whichever SEC team has the best shot at the National Championship that those teams are getting preferential treatment as calls/non calls are concerned. It has occurred with multiple different crews, over multiple different years. That just seems like too much coincidence for me to accept that there is no larger plan/directive. Is it possible there is not? Sure. I just think that is a much less likely scenario. I would love to be wrong, but I'm just saying what my eyes are seeing. There's no smoking gun here, but at least in my mind, the preponderance of evidence over more than a decade will not allow me to conclude there is no SEC Office involvement. I just can't do that.
The whole "What is a catch?" at all levels of football is one of the most irritating and mind blowing issues I can recall. I mean, holy shit. How hard is it to define a catch? It blows my mind this has descended to levels of ridiculousness it has.
They damn sure do. I was a better offensive player in my heyday than I was defensive, even though I like defense better. I held every play. And I mean Every. Damn. Play. I got called for holding less than 10 times in over a decade of playing the game. But I was pretty dang good at holding too. Very sneaky. Haha The way holding has had a blind eye turned to it, I'm very confident in saying that it is a significant contributor to the explosion of offensive output we has seen over the last 20 years in the game. Naturally, I hate that as a former defensive coordinator. I personally see a 7-6 final score as a thing of beauty. I know that's not the opinion of most people, but I own it nevertheless. In the late '90s, I was coaching in a JV high school game at Rutledge. First off, when you play at Rutledge, don't expect evenly applied officiating. But that has nothing to do with this story. Rutledge's offense was holding the absolute shit out of my defense. I can't explain how bad they were holding, but please indulge me by accepting that as truth. Trust me, it is. Anyway, it got to the point where the guy running the offense for my team called a timeout to go tell our offensive linemen to fire off the ball and tackle their assignment. We ran a play, and most of our guys held on the play. However, it was not what our OC wanted. He called another timeout immediately after the play. He went to the huddle to chew the OL for not following his instructions. The players pleaded to him saying they were holding on the play. The coach said,"I told you to tackle them! I want you to fire off the ball, wrap your arms around them, bring your hips with you and take yoyr assignment to the ground! In other words, FORM TACKLE your assignment!" Next play, our entire OL tackled their blocking assignment. No flags. 6 or 7 guys, defensive players, were form tackled by our OL, and the officials didn't throw a flag. Ran the next play, same thing. No flags. After about 5 plays, the white hat official (the referee) looked over to the OC and said, "Coach, I know what you are doing", but they STILL didn't throw a single flag for holding. Not one. We played that way for a quarter and a half. Not. One. Flag. For. Holding. Was. Thrown. I know this sounds ridiculous at best, but I swear on my father's grave, the account I just described is 100% truth. Even if I was trying to lie sbout this, I wouldn't have made the claims I just did because I know it would sound too absurd to be believable.
Give coaches 1 review per half and booth reviews in the final 2 minutes of each half. No sense in stopping the game as much as they do
I think favorable calls for the established favorite -- and especially the pure juggernaut like Bama -- can be explained by simple confirmation bias. I'm anti-conspiracy theory because people can't keep secrets. And an express directive from the league for biased officiating would be about the biggest scandal in the history of the sport.
That's amazing. So what do you think should/could be done? Should holding be aggressively enforced? Or is it just too hard? And just so that I'm clear, grabbing the guy's jersey -- even if it's at the letters -- should technically be considered holding, right? Because I think that happens every single play.
As long as the OL hands stay inside the framework of his body, I'm ok with grabbing some jersey. My solution is pretty simple, enforce the rules on holding as defined in the rule book. The worst rules are ones that one is either unwilling or unable to enforce. I think this is a case of unwilling.
My son is a varsity offensive guard. We discuss this regularly. His team runs the veer almost exclusively (3rd and short may find them in an I formation or inverted wishbone with QB under center but not much). I am always on him about his footwork more than his hands. He complains that, in their offense, there is really no snap count so basically everyone is firing on ball movement - offense and defense - so their competitive advantage is taken away. You can have a QB back their clapping his ****ing hands 2 or 3 times to simulate a snap count but that is worthless as an OL advantage IMO. He is still learning to have a good first step to get him in a good leverage position and use his big ass to turn the defender. OL'men are benefited highly from a QB under center with a real snap count IMO.
Agree. Keep preaching feet. Good footwork eliminates most of the need to ever hold. I firmly believe that you block with your feet.
