Yesterday, the NCAA Football Rules Committee announced some potential rule changes. The most controversial of which requires the offense to wait ten seconds before snapping the ball in the name of “player safety”. Even better, Nick Saban and Bret Bielema, two of the biggest critics of the hurry-up, no-huddle offense were in attendance despite not even being members of the rules committee.
Her Loyal Sons managed to get an exclusive audio recording of this disaster in action and have transcribed the shocking truth:
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[The football rules committee is seated in a conference room. All members are suffering from various states of a hangover.]
Alfred White (Conference USA Asst. Commissioner): Man, this is the life. My last year on the rules committee, no real changes can be made, so I can drink all your sorry asses under the table without having to worry about doing any actual work.
Troy Calhoun (Head Coach, Air Force): [Hiding behind sunglasses] You sir, are an asshole. We still actually have work to do.
White: Oh come on, we make one change to that stupid targeting rule “in the name of player safety” and call it a day.
[Todd Berry (Head Coach, Louisiana – Monroe) has his phone ring.]
Berry: Yeah, this is Coach Berry…Ok…really, right now?! No, no, I’m not trying to question your wisdom, sir, I was ju–Look, there is no need to make a threat like that, of course we will let you in, sir…Yes, it’ll be fi–Look, just calm down, we will take care of this…Ok, see you soon. [Hangs up phone] SON OF A BITCH!
White: What the hell is your problem?
Berry: That was Saban, he is on his way up here right now.
White: What the hell is he doing here?! He isn’t even on the damn committee!
Berry: He said something about the committee allowing for an open session for player safety concerns or something…I don’t know, do you want to tell him to leave? Because, you know, be my guest.
White: You know, I am really tired of that son of a– [Door opens, Nick Saban enters with Bret Bielema] — oh, now you have to be shitting me, Nick, you brought Bert in here too? What, did someone in here crash their motorcycle with their mistress in tow?
Saban: [Not amused] Gentlemen, I want to get straight to the point. I’m already wasting enough recruiting time by coming here today.
White: Christ, Nick, signing day was last week. You need some help.
Saban: [Completely ignoring White] We have a serious problem that you need to address: the hurry-up, no-huddle offense. This isn’t how football should be played, and I want to know what the people in this room intend to do about it.
White: How about nothing? This isn’t a rule change year.
Bielema: Not unless this is in the interest of player safety.
White: Player safety? How’s this for the interest of player safety: your team getting their asses handed to them by any team with a pulse. I mean, 3-9, seriously?! Even freakin’ Florida beat you by 20 and your buddy standing next to you hung 52 on you. Ass-kickings like that aren’t safe. I might as well move to remove Arkansas from football competition with that kind of logic.
Bielema: Don’t even start with that bullshit, Alfred. Five teams in your conference had three wins or less and you play eight games against each other. That’s truly special.
Saban: Enough, Bret…as we were saying this is a serious threat to player safety. It’s not right. How can I be expected to run my process when the ball is snapped as soon as I look up from my play sheet?
White: Does your process include trying to kick impossible field goals and having them returned for touchdowns in the biggest game of the year? Asking for a friend.
Saban: Alfred, do you want to keep your comedy hour going or do you want to actually get this done?
White: Oh, you want comedy hour? Ok, I’ll humor you. Your big beef is that you can’t sub in defensive players in “the name of safety”, right? Fine, you get ten seconds. Offense can’t even snap the ball or they’ll be penalized.
Saban: …I actually like this.
White: You have to be shitting me…
Saban: No, no, this is good, it brings the strategy back into the game, brings it back to it’s roots. So what happens if the offense snaps the ball early, what then?
White: Uh…well…let’s just call it a delay of game because that’s totally what we should do when a team is trying to go too fast.
Saban: Make it happen.
White: [Laughing] Ok, sure, whatever. You win, Nick…not like this will ever pass anyways.
Calhoun: [Worried] Hold on just a second here, I run a no huddle offense. I am not trusting this to a vote. We tried to make the targeting rule as dumb as possible last season thinking it wouldn’t pass and look what happened. Plus, are we just going to let him walk in there and decide this all for us? We haven’t even asked the FCS, D-II, and D-III members what they think about this.
White: Is this your first time meeting Nick? I guarantee he doesn’t give a damn about what they think. [Saban nods. FCS, D-II, and D-III members nod] So unless you feel like being lectured for another hour or so on the finer points of fullback play, I suggest we just agree to this, move on, and call it a day. Somewhere, there’s a double scotch with my name on it.
Berry: This is such bullshit…
White: Welcome to the rules committee, rookie. This is where football comes to die.
The Roundup
Good to know we still haven’t hit rock bottom in recruiting. Mizzou alumnus, Michael Sam, is set to now become the first openly gay player in the NFL. So of course the logical response here is that rival schools will start recruiting negatively because Mizzou is clearly hiding more from everyone. LOGIC!
In happier recruiting news, Michigan proved Notre Dame has a truly national reach. Well, a Michigan blog, but I’ll take it.
The NCAA was also busy further deregulating social media. Sadly, I still can’t mention an unsigned recruit’s name publicly, but using disposable social media for recruiting? No problem!
And now your moment of zen… Daniel Bryan is still taking over the world through football by doing the Richard Sherman rant on the NFL network.
The Booze
If you’re attached to a significant other this weekend, you are likely going to enjoy a nice glass bottle of wine. However, if you are single, you will likely (and should) get drunk and not give a damn.
For the later category, I suggest some alcoholic plays on chocolate. For the beer lovers, go for a good chocolate stout. If that isn’t your cup of tea, go for a Godiva chocolate martini:
- 1.5 shots Godiva chocolate liqueur
- 1.5 shots creme de cacao
- .5 shot vodka
- 2.5 shots half and half
- Pour all ingredients in a shaker full of ice, shake, and strain
- Optional: Line the inside of the glass with chocolate syrup swirls and place in the freezer to harden before pouring your drink
- Epilogue - January 3, 2022
- HLS Podcast Finale - January 2, 2022
- The Final Fiesta: Notre Dame vs Oklahoma State NCAA ’14 Sim - December 31, 2021
trey
I totally dig the humor about the rules changes, but I think you misunderstood a few things that went on. The first of which is that this announcement didn’t come from a committee meeting, it came from the annual College Football Officials winter meeting and there are no rules about who can attend that session. I was actually planning on going next year(missed this one because of baseball games).
Secondly, Saban and Bilema would already have known about these pending changes because they are all first proposed to the member schools before an announcement is made about the possibility of them changing. This wouldnt have been a shock to these guys and they are completely within their rights to argue against such a change. In fact, that’s a big part of why Troy Calhoun is on this committee because he is one of the biggest advocates for keeping low blocks in the game while the Rules Editor and many on the committee want to make it illegal.
Finally, this isn’t nearly the major issue it is being made out to be. Honestly, I see much more positivity but also more radical change in the tweaking of the targeting rule than this one. I’d have to wait to see how the language comes out on the substitution rule(are they going to say the change has to START before 10 secs elapsed, but they get to take as long as they need to get players on?) but I think this will be a minimal impact rule change. Remember, we operate under a 40/25 running play clock so as soon as the ball becomes dead the 40 starts rolling. It’s very rare to see a play get run in less than :10.
NDEddieMac
First: Overexplaining jokes sure is fun and people should do it more.
Second: The Rules committee is by and large terrible and the “radical change” in changing the targeting rule is fixing their own fuckup. They should be fired into the sun.
Third: Calhoun is one of two coaches on the committee, both of whom are ranked lower than 90th in terms of plays run, so clearly they aren’t going to be affected by this.
Fourth: It’s an idiotic proposal to overlegislate the game.
Fifth: Rarity doesn’t change the fact that it’s stupid.
trey
Would you rather the US govt get involved in defining the game and administering it? The whole reason for the targeting rule last year was because the NCAA, the rules committee, and officiating organizations were catching wind that the federal government was threatening to step in and legislate for safety sake. There was a fear that they could so drastically alter the game that it might end up being completely outlawed at the collegiate level.
So if there are a few mistakes that require tweaks, I would take that every day of the week and twice on Sundays to keep Washington out of our sport. You talk about overlegislating…whooo boy imagine if Obama got his claws on football.
Ill grant you that the committee approach to rules changes has its drawbacks, but there are safeguards to help it from being a complete cluster. The first of which is that all of these rules are voted on by the individual conferences. So Calhoun can unilaterally make a rules change that benefits AFA and that’s final. If there are enough people that agree with you and Oregon, Baylor and the others, then the rule will be voted down and not instituted.
NDtex
THANKS OBAMA
NDEddieMac
#tcot
Bayou Irish
I’m going to focus on the recruiting post from the Skunkbear blog and commend EVERYONE to read it. It’s fascinating, at the very least, and important, if the data is accurate. Note: I didn’t bother to fact-check any of it. That said, it’s a great read.