Before the drive, the announcers mentioned that Neuheisel fancies himself something of a two-minute offense expert, having learned it from Homer Smith, the undoubted clock management guru. And he delivered: that two-minute drive was one of the best I can remember seeing in recent memory, but not simply because the quarterback was so sharp, though he was.It was so good because the team was so well coached. They wasted almost no time, as after each play they were back at the line, everyone informed of the play, and off they went. Not once did they spike the football unnecessarily, and they conserved their timeouts rather than use them up before they had to. Indeed, the two-minute offense was so good that few commentators or announcers seemed to really perceive how good it was. This is probably due to the fact that so many teams--including so many high-profile, otherwise well-coached teams--are so incredibly bad at two-minute offense.
Say what you will about Neuheisel, but, well, the thing speaks for itself: UCLA's drive took nine plays, covered 70 yards, scored a touchdown, and it took less than 1:30 off the clock.
So this is a good opportunity to review some of the reasons why that drive was so good, along with some of the things that drive me absolutely crazy. And if you are talking about clock offense, you must turn to that aforementioned guru, the great Homer Smith. Coach Smith has coached for five decades, and his resume is rather, well, extensive:
Smith served as Head Coach at Davidson College, UOP, and the U.S. Military Academy, and as offensive coordinator at the U.S. Air Force Academy, UCLA (three times), the Kansas City Chiefs, Alabama (twice), and Arizona . . . . His academic degrees: Princeton, BA, Stanford, MBA, and Harvard, MTS.
As an aside, keep all that in mind when some particular people proclaim themselves "innovators." In any event, I will first talk about why the intentional spike is (almost) always a bad play, a few of Homer Smith's other points on clock offense, and the finally I'll briefly discuss the play that UCLA scored on to finish their drive against Tennessee.
The Spike
When you watch any of these late game offenses, the announcers love to tell you "now it's time for the offense to go up there and spike it," or "they should spike it -- the offense is wasting time!" It's amazing how little thought has been put into such a crucial decision. There are two responses: (1) when you spike the ball, you have no idea how valuable the down you are losing might be, and (2) although it's true for some teams that spiking the ball might take less time than just lining up and calling a play at the line, there is no reason that that should be the case.
Coach Smith also makes the further point that the spike play itself uses time off the clock: "Even when there is not time to use all four downs and even if you can snap the ball for a regular play as fast as you can snap it for the spike, it consumes a second that might have otherwise allowed you an additional play."
As evidence of the costs of spiking and the benefits of avoiding the spike, Coach Smith points to some examples. First:
In a span of five years, two Rose Bowl games ended with spike calls, without the ball getting to the endzone even though there was time to throw it there.
For example, the 1998 Rose Bowl between Washington St. and Michigan involved some spike-the-ball folly. Here is the description of the end of the game from Wikipedia:
"The ending of the game involved some controversy; as Washington State was driving, Ryan Leaf spiked the ball to stop the clock. However, the clock continued to run until time expired, securing a victory for Michigan."
I couldn't locate video of this online, but I remember it vividly. Now, it was no sure thing that Washington St. would score a TD by throwing the ball into the end zone, and yes, Washington St. fans point out that it appeared that at least a second should have remained on the clock and so they were robbed. But the point is that you ought to be avoiding that kind of unnecessary situation: if they had simply lined up and said "hail mary play" -- which can't take more time to communicate than saying "spike the ball play" -- it wouldn't even have been an issue, and they would have gotten their shot to throw the ball into the end zone.
Coach Smith then uses another example:
In 2002 against Auburn, Georgia threw for the endzone four times and hit the fourth one for a touchdown and a victory. They scored with the down that so often gets used up with a spike.
In a typical understatement, Coach Smith laments: "These experiences suggest how important this stuff is." So, when you spike the football, you hurt only yourself. And the point is that if your team's organization and verbiage is too time consuming and inefficient to where spiking the ball does save time, then you're hurting yourself.
So when does the spike make sense? Coach Smith's answer is simple: "When you are out of timeouts, [the spike] stops the clock to get fieldgoal personnel onto the field for an unhurried kick."
Clock (mis)management
Many of you are probably still not convinced, because the clock offense still seems to complicated, and here I am telling you that the spike is almost always stupid. And it's true that spiking the ball does relieve the pressure on the offense when getting ready for the next play. So there's a few other clock dynamics we have to address, though I mention that this is in no way an exhaustive list.
First, timeouts. It's another piece of misguided announcer wisdom that you "shouldn't take timeouts into the locker room." Why not? You want to save the timeouts for when you really need them. Timeouts are rarely that advantageous for an offense who is efficient at communicating, getting to the line, and getting off their play. According to Coach Smith, timeouts are primarily useful for two situations: (1) If you get a first-and-goal inside the 10, you want all your timeouts so you can run the ball three times before kicking, otherwise you are forced to pass, and (2) If you're behind and need two scores, you want to save your timeouts to use while your opponent has the ball and is trying to burn time. As Smith says, "A smart team will often take a lot of timeouts to the locker room."
Second, the conceptual problems with thinking of it as the "two-minute offense":
You get off to a bad start by having been told that your problem is within “two minutes.” Ninety percent of your problem is within the last 30 seconds. Also, the identification of your problem should be in terms of time, timeouts, yards and number of plays, probable decisions, and the like.
For example, some coaches recommend calling two plays in the huddle, or calling a timeout immediately after a sack. But "[t]his is unnecessary. You can execute a play, hand-signal another play while the Ref is getting the ball ready-for-play, and snap the ball as soon as you could if you had had the second play already called."
Finally, play-calling. Although it's not terrible advice to use base-plays, Coach Smith is right that as time wanes you need a slightly different approach: It's a problem when you put "receivers at less than firstdown depth and risk[] having the QB throw to them when the only way to get a fieldgoal off (in college and high school) when the sidelines are being protected is to hit a firstdown pass and then spike."
In other words, how many times have you seen a late game drive destroyed because the QB keeps dumping it off and wasting too much time? The philosophy really has to change. Instead of incrementally moving the ball and looking for a high-pass percentage, you basically need to give yourself four shots to throw a pass of ten yards or more. This is a more efficient use of your time and resources. (Sometimes a route less than the first down near the sidelines is acceptable.) And again, the quarterback much be coached to appreciate this difference from the normal part of the game where the dump-off is much preferred to the incomplete pass.
As seen above with the Georgia and Washington St. games, this stuff is important. As Coach Smith admonished his fellow coaches: "Be careful, guys. Get smart on this subject before the next season."
UCLA's TD Play
The play that UCLA scored on is worth taking a brief look at. What they did was put a bunch formation to the left, a tight-end and a wide receiver to the right. To the bunch side, they ran the spacing concept, explained at the link and also diagrammed below.
The diagram above explains the base version: typically, the QB reads either backside to frontside, or frontside (i.e. the quick "arrow" route to the flat) to the sit route, with the option to throw it to the backside receiver who is singled up. The play is basically a shortened version of all-curl ran from a three-step drop instead of a five-step drop.
Norm Chow, UCLA's offensive coordinator (of BYU and Southern Cal fame), and Neuheisel, put in a slight wrinkle on the play. They put spacing to the bunch side, and, in going with a no-back set, isolated the tight-end to the other side in the slot. They had the outside receiver to the two-man side run a fade to clear out, and the TE ran a little option-cut. The quarterback found him for the score. Below is a diagram of the play and then video of the play (the play is run at about 25 seconds into the video).
ADDENDUM: This clock-management stuff comes up all the time. Just now, I watched the Carolina Panthers defeat the San Diego Chargers by throwing a fourteen-yard touchdown pass on the last play. This was after the announcer bemoaned Carolina's choice not to burn their final timeout with roughly twenty-five seconds left and the ball around their own 23; instead Carolina called a play and threw an incomplete pass, which left them with six or seven seconds left. The announcer repeated that they had made a mistake by not using their final timeout before the previous play, largely because they now had only "one more play."
Then, Carolina threw a seven-yard pass from the 21 to the 14 yard line and then used its final timeout, leaving them with one play and two second on the clock. So, contrary to the announcer's clairvoyant predictions, Carolina had in fact two plays. Carolina then threw a touchdown pass on a play that, had they followed the announcer's advice, they would not have even had. (Or, at minimum, they would have had the more difficult task of throwing into the end zone from beyond the twenty rather than from inside the fifteen.) Lesson: football announcers are an incredible source of terrible information.