Kneel formation fake play

I wish they outlawed the fake spike before this season.  My mind may change if I decide to play fantasy football for free next year.

Either way, trick plays are trick plays for a reason.  If we tried this to win a playoff game or Rose Bowl, we'd probably call Harbaugh a genius.

Should've been flagged for Intent to Deceive!! Ask Jim Harbaugh if he knows that rule now! BS rule! That was an excellent playcall and ended up being the deciding points. 

Arizona has 3 time outs left. They obviously weren’t kneeling bc Arizona could have gotten the ball back with 1 min left. Don’t understand how they let it happen, but now I see the refs basically told them to shut it down. I’d be pissed too if I were rich rod. Purdue is a 2nd class program with a gimmick coach. Their throwback screen playbook won’t work year after year. That said, if Arizona could stop the run up the middle, they probably would have won the game.

This reminds me of a situation a few years back in the NFL when Schiano was coaching the Bucs. They were playing the Giants, down by less than a TD and the Giants were taking a knee to run out the clock. Schiano told his defense to still go for the ball and not just accept defeat, so they went full speed on the Giants OL while Manning was just going to kneel. Obviously caught them off-guard.

Coughlin was pissed after the game that it was supposedly poor gamesmanship, not how the league does things, could've injured someone, and so on. As much as I think Schiano is a jackass, I had to side with him on that one. It's an unconventional move to be certain, but it's a completely legal play. When you strap on those pads you'd better be ready to play until the final whistle blows. The Bucs had a chance to win, however small, and Schiano was willing to do what it took to try and win. 

As far as how it relates here, I don't think there's anything wrong with what Purdue did last night. Brohm is known for highly unconventional thinking in how he runs his offense, so if Arizona wasn't prepared for that then that's their own fault. Football is not a gentlemen's sport. It's full of men who will step all over you, kick your face to the curb, and merrily dance on your rotting corpse if it means they win. To quote the great Herm Edwards, "you play to win the game." 

I seem to remember a lot of people giving Schiano crap when his Buccaneers defense fired off the snap against victory formation. I think a rule change needs to be made that requires the offense to express intent to kneel and the defense eases up. If this is something the defense needs to always account for there is a major and unnecessary injury downside.

If you want it addressed by the rules committee, just need to have Harbaugh call the play in our next game. Will be outlawed by March.

Basic question is should the kneel down formation be treated like a fair catch or not.

I couldn't care less about how the NFL handles the same thing.  Those guys are getting paid to risk themselves for a win.  College players aren't getting paid (well, technically, lets just play along!) and shouldn't be put to that risk.  I think the NCAA rules committee (again, lets play along) should better define this situation.  If the offense says they're going to kneel or spike, then the defense rests.  If a play is run, its an automatic loss of down, 15 yds, and unsportsmanlike against the coach.  But if the offense doesn't say anything, assume a play is being run.  If they kneel and the defense destroys everyone by going hard, too bad on the offense.

In this case, RR says the refs told them to stand down.  If thats true, the refs should be held accountable for blowing that play.  They should have blown the play dead the moment it was apparent a real play was being run.  There is no defense for the refs allowing that crap - assuming RR is correct, of course.

It will be interesting to see what happens during the kneel play the rest of the bowl games.  Hopefully no one ends up getting hurt.  You know Harbaugh and Brown are going to make it clear to the defense to attack if USC does it. 

I never understood why any team doesn't do more trick plays.  I mean, if I were a coach I'd run a trick play of some variety at least once a series.  Unless sometimes I didn't.

Part of the benefit of trick plays is actually getting the opponent to think your going to do more trick plays.  Just more for them to defend, think about, and mess up.  Plus, when they work, they work spectacularly.  When they don't work.  Meh. 

And the trick plays don't have to be all polished and practiced.  Some of them can just be done on the fly, street ball style.

Harbaugh, trickeration should become our base offense.  Only half kidding here.

This play is not the same as a fake spike, since any team in the position to be faking a spike (trying to stop the clock) is still actively trying to advance the ball and score points.  A Victory formation kneeldown is a "we no longer need to advance the ball because we have a.) won or b.) are ready to go to the locker room for halftime" play.  While I don't think it should be called as a penalty, it's a pretty pathetic playcall.  If you're going to run it you should fully expect everyone on the LOS to get blasted every time you run a victory formation play, and if your QB hesitates kneeling for a moment he is fair game for any legal hit.

I'm proud of Purdue, really.  It's been a down and out "un-cool" program for a long time.

Last night those fuckers were on. 

They looked cool in their all-blacks, they played cool, and they showed some attitude.  And they stepped up for the win when momentum was heavily against them.

So good for them.  

 

Sad thing is: Arizonas defense was ready for the fake and tried to blow up the Purdue linemen, they just aren't very good at defense..

People bitching about this would call Harbaugh a genius if he did the same thing. NEVER stop competing.

How does the fake knee escape the “intent to deceive” call that We had called against us a few years back?

It’s a silly rule, and should be gotten rid of. If you can deceive the other team then good for you.

I don't know how I feel about it.  I thought it was odd at the time that they were kneeling when there was about 50 seconds on the clock and both teams had timeouts remaining, IIRC, so I wasn't totally shocked that they ran a play.

I can see how it violates the unwritten rules, but if it's a legal play, someone's going to try it.  

exploiting complacency?  (which I'm all for)

or

exploiting sportsmanship?  (which I'm against)

straddles the line even without any input from the refs.  If they requested standard kneel sportsmanship from the AZ D then Purdue can go fuck themselves.

Shame on them... 

That formation only works as an offensive play if the defensive team agrees not to play full defense. It only works if you are unsportsmanlike and lie to them. It’s a lie more than a trick. The tacit agreement is that you don’t line up for an offensive play then we won’t line up to hurt you. It may not be banned by rule but it is unsportsmanlike. Mitch above noted that there was too much time left to take a knee. I thought it was odd too but don’t ask me to look at the clock if you are going to ask me not to pound your players.

Bring back the fumble-rooski!    

 

The trickest old in the book.

This is or could be a player safety issue.  To plan and practice this play is a Dick move. My sons played football as I did so I have been around the game a lot of years.  D move!!!      

 

Makes Schiano’s jumping at the Oline when his team was down in a game at victory formation time both at Rutgers and Tampa Bay not look so bad.

I thought it was a great play. Football is like a game of chess and you should never assume.

This just in: RichRod still can't coach a defense.

Here's the way to solve this, and I think it's dumb it has to be addressed:

Take the refs out of the equation. The refs shouldn't have a hand in saying "Go easy. They're just going to kneel it." The refs should just shut their mouths and referee the football game until it says 0:00 on the clock.

I have no problem with Brohm running this play UNLESS he told the refs to tell the other team not to go hard because they would kneel it.

Let the players play the game, and forget about what the coaches/refs say regarding stuff like this.