Another way Harbaugh is revolutionizing football -- the 'dead snap'
ESPN (YTESPN) article on the "dead snap," meant to avoid snap disasters. And Coach Jim is right at the forefront of the revolution.
http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/19126951/how-dead-snap-…
All others shall be in awe of his superior choaching skills!
Who's got it better than us?
He is already badass and doesn't need extra middle names issued to him.
With the defense on the field the center sits on his hand while on the bench. That way it feels like someone is snapping the ball...
ah, similar to the stranger/phantom!
if that's the case, I'd have won the Rimington at age 12.
phrasingbedamned
Saban has asked, nay ordered, this to be outlawed.
...no doubt, can't wait for pete finebaum to somehow equate this with sodom and gomorrah!
I wonder if Cezar Ruiz would do a dead snap or a spiral snap. He has played center before and if he is comfortable with doing a spiral snap, conventional wisdom would be to leave his mechanics alone. But doing a dead snap may limit any snapping issues whatsoever.
FWIW, Ruiz was using the dead snap when he was at Camden (NJ) Camden in his younger days. I'm not sure if he was taught differently at IMG, but I think he was still doing it.
EDIT: After a quick look at his senior highlights, it looks like Ruiz was using the spiral snap as a senior.
Another JH innovation (at least I think it's his innovation) that I noticed from watching various practice clips on the interwebz, are the video monitors on the practice field. Makes total sense. If you have a 4 hour practice with little to no classroom time, having a video monitor on the practice field would seem like a huge benefit. You could show a player the "tape" of his last rep while he's waiting for his next rep, show clips of plays run properly, go through the playbook, review clips from prior games and practices, anything, right there on the practice field. I have to imagine with today's technology and tablets a creative coaching staff could easily combine on-field reps with classroom "chalk-talk" sessions into a single practice. If this is indeed what JH is doing, brilliant! Every team should do it.
We could do this at the high school level. (We don't, but we could.) So I'm sure college coaching staffs have the ability to do this pretty easily if they want.
At the very least, you could have a GA hang around with an iPad and take video. My dad and I used to do this on the golf course--take iphone videos of our swings so we could see how we looked and critique it--all on the way to the next shot. I would think teams with the budget of Michigan's could put up several 40-in (or larger) touchscreen monitors all over Glick, each wirelessly connected to ipads/surface books.
Edit: Although I don't know why other teams would want to put up monitors in Glick. Would seem to defeat the purpose.
The Hudl Sideline system makes this really easy for high school teams if you have the staffing. As a smaller Class C school, we did not use it for practice either but it was great for games.
Thinking about this brought up another question; does Michigan use Hudl or some other program that allows players to watch film, or do they have to be at Schembechler?
I know they were using Hudl in 2014, and they were able to watch it from home. I'm not sure if they're still using Hudl or if they've moved on to something else, but I doubt their technology has gone backward.
I find it neat that a small high school and major university are able to use the same technology.
When working for the athletic department (last semester was Winter '12), I frequently seen guys watching film in groups or by themselves at Schembechler Hall and wondered if they had to be there to do so.
Sigh.
I'm not going to go back and look because it'd be too painful, but I'd think punts and FGs would still use spiral snaps because of the distance they have to travel.
More so, the time difference. Every .1 second matters as far as getting the kick off, or having it blocked.
I am not sure how much the difference in the time of the snap affects the short passing game though.
Unfortunately, one of our most hated rivals is already onto this:
"This is something you're going to see more of," Rutgers offensive line coach AJ Blazek said.
That neutralizes what little advantage we have over them. The "other game" should be a lot closer in 2017.
Rutgers. Never resting on its laurels.
April 11th, 2017 at 11:31 PM ^
No, but they might get a first down in the first half.
I believe Graham Glasgow mentioned this as a thing Drevno brought with him during Glasgow's last year here and that it helped him be more consistent in his shotgun snapping.
Yeah, I noticed Glasgow doing this a couple years ago, too. One of our centers was having trouble with snapping wet footballs this year, so we told him to switch from his traditional spiral method to using the dead snap. It worked out pretty well.
to upvote this. Well done!
do the dead snap for years. I'm not sure this is a Harbaugh original.
Yeah, it's not so much an innovation as a popularization.
April 12th, 2017 at 12:03 AM ^
And our varsity coaches taught us the dead snap way. I prefered the spiral snap because that was what I had been doing since my freshman season and I was more comfortable with it. They let me stick with the spiral snap as long as my snaps were good.
Although I am truly in favor of Harbaugh being "innovator of everything", the dead snap has been in use for over ten years. Saw it for the first time at a clinic in 2005 and have seen high school teams using this ever since. Every center I have coached has preferred the dead snap over the spiral snap.
How long before the SEC has the NCAA declare this tactic an unfair advantage and banned from use in games for any team north of the Mason Dixon line?
April 12th, 2017 at 10:10 AM ^
If professional teams don't adopt this method universally, wouldn't a dead snap center have difficulty switching back after 4-5 years of not spiral snapping?
If so, I would think this could potentially be a effective negative recruiting tactic with top flight center prospects in the future.
I think Michigan centers will have a significant technique advantage when it comes to their pro prospects, since we actually use under-center snaps. A lot of schools rarely or never do that, which means those centers need to learn or re-learn that to make the NFL.
April 12th, 2017 at 12:50 PM ^
I noticed Peyton Manning & the Colts (Saturday) doing this for years and never really thought much about it. The snaps to him were always soft floaters. I just figured he preferred them that way so he could get his eyes downfield earlier--didn't realize his center was using a specific technique to do it.