Mitchell: Utah’s Brilliant Way Of Gaining Advantage On Defense – Without Faking Injury
Apr 9, 2020, 3:49 PM
Head coach Kyle Whittingham of the Utah Utes signals for an officials review of a play against the Washington State Cougars at Rice-Eccles Stadium on September 28, 2019 in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Photo by Chris Gardner/Getty Images)
(Photo by Chris Gardner/Getty Images)
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Injuries are a part of sports but there are times when teams that are in a disadvantageous situation will fake injuries to slow down the other team.
They are not easy to enforce from an official standpoint and they are a tool in a struggling team’s belt to slow down the opponent.
Some do a better job than others but there some whose acting skills need some work to make a fake injury look real.
Biggest flop of the year 🤣🤦🏻♂️ pic.twitter.com/sRLMIjyA5A
— MaxPreps (@MaxPreps) October 27, 2018
The ones that are good at it have unique hand signals from the sideline and make it look like a leg cramp. The big question is – is it cheating or creating a loophole?
If a player is injured on the football field the clock has to stop and a trainer comes out to check on the fallen player. During that time it can give a team a chance to substitute or get a breather while facing a fast-paced offense. There is a 10-second run-off at the end of each half in college football to try to prevent faking injuries to gain an edge, and the NFL does the same within the two-minute warning.
The claim is that offenses are innovative and the defenses are severely at a disadvantage due to the spread offense, lack of substituting and hurry up. Offenses can just keep the same 11 players on the field and line up and not allow a defense to make changes.
So, defenses need to get creative and one of the laziest ways is to fake an injury, and they do that even if there is a run-off on the clock it can still be helpful for the team. However, there are other teams that are a bit more creative in preventing an uptempo offense from going full speed. One of those teams is the University of Utah.
How Utah Skirts Rules Around Fast-Paced Offenses
The Utes have found out a way to skirt this rule to give its defense an advantage against offenses that want to go as fast as possible.
KSL Sports Scott Mitchell is the radio analyst for Utes football and noticed a brilliant tactic used by the coaches to slow down an opposing offense, and it has nothing to do with pretending to be hurt.
“Utah employs something a little different, brilliant and totally within the scope of the rules. I watched it over and over last year,” Mitchell said. “The offense is breaking the huddle and getting to the line of scrimmage with 18 or 19 seconds on the playoff clock. A player then runs on the field to substitute for an offensive player. That allows the defense to substitute as well.
“As soon as Utah sees this, a defensive lineman – usually the biggest guy on the field – very slowly maneuvers himself over to the sideline. He is jogging but he could walk faster than this jog. As this is happening the play clock is winding down to zero.”
The big question is if doing what the Utes are doing is cheating, and Mitchell claims this move is a workaround from the rules.
Is @Utah_Football creative in subbing or is it against the spirit of the game? pic.twitter.com/iBfyP6kz1O
— KSL Unrivaled (@KSLunrivaled) April 9, 2020
“It is a subversive kind of messing with the rules kind of play. It is really finding the loophole and finding how making the loophole work for me,” Mitchell added. “This is done everywhere and there is so much you would have to cut out of football… to penalize all of the deceptions.”
There are a lot of ways to massage the rules to be in one’s favor and it happens all the time with faking to call a play on 4th and short, or deliberately being penalized to let the clock run down even more.
Some of these tactics may seem more illegal or against the spirit of the game, and the latter is harder to control or call illegal. There will always be coaches who find a loophole and closing them all is an impossible task.
Tune into KSL’s Unrivaled every Monday through Friday, 7-9 p.m., or download the KSL NewsRadio app to subscribe to the podcast.
