"Substitution" rules?

[Trice]

Is this like the Baylor Tent Controversy from a few years ago? Where we mismanage something then blame the other team for holding us accountable for our mistake?

If the rule sucks, change it. But everyone knows what it is and it's your job to manage it.

 

[jdoggivjc]

Okay, on the extra point conversation for the Cyclone's first touchdown, they had 10 players on the field and the eleventh ran on late. The officials held up Iowa State as Cincinnati slooowly made a substitution. Resulted in a delay of game penalty.

In my mind, this was not a late "substitution" by Iowa State as all player were changed for the extra point. This was just one player getting on late. Was this called correctly by the officials?

Yeah, the substitution rule is something along the lines of if the offense makes a substitution the defense gets a reasonable amount of time to put the personnel on the field to match the offense. Defenses have long abused this rule to force offenses into delay of game penalties or taking time outs in order to avoid them. It's completely against the spirit of the rule and the rule should be adjusted to eliminate the tactic.

 

[jdoggivjc]

Is this like the Baylor Tent Controversy from a few years ago? Where we mismanage something then blame the other team for holding us accountable for our mistake?

If the rule sucks, change it. But everyone knows what it is and it's your job to manage it.

how do you possibly consider putting on the XP team as "a mistake to be held accountable for?"

 

[isufbcurt]

Did we even "sub" or was the 11th guy just late getting on the field? If it's not a switch out of players I'm not sure why the substitution rule is enforced there.

Burkle was late getting on the field.

 

[isufbcurt]

My problem with the rule is that it is purposely abused to delay a team and get a penalty call against the other team. On that play there was NO reason for Cinci to sub as we were setup to kick and did not change to a formation to run the ball. They were just hoping to delay and force us back 5 more yards.

It's not abuse of the rule. It's using the rule to their advantage and any team that doesn't do that is stupid. It can either result in a team prematurely using a timeout or pushing them back 5 yards. Slow playing the defensive subs is simply good coaching.

 

[jdoggivjc]

It's not abuse of the rule. It's using the rule to their advantage and any team that doesn't do that is stupid. It can either result in a team prematurely using a timeout or pushing them back 5 yards. Slow playing the defensive subs is simply good coaching.

it's not an either-or thing - abusing a loophole in a rule is good coaching... and at the same time it's against what the spirit of the rule was meant to be. the rule was designed to give defenses a fair opportunity to match personnel on the field; it was not designed to force offenses that make timely substitutions to decide whether to take a time out or a delay of game penalty. but yes - defenses are smart for using the loophole when it presents itself.

 

[isufbcurt]

it's not an either-or thing - abusing a loophole in a rule is good coaching... and at the same time it's against what the spirit of the rule was meant to be. the rule was designed to give defenses a fair opportunity to match personnel on the field; it was not designed to force offenses that make timely substitutions to decide whether to take a time out or a delay of game penalty. but yes - defenses are smart for using the loophole when it presents itself.

Spirit of the rules has no significance, the written rule is the rule. Spirit of the rule is as dumb and baseball's "unwritten rules."

 

[AllInForISU]

It was a full 10 seconds before cincy even started to substitute. If the rule isn't ditched entirely it needs to be amax of a 10 second delay total. More than enough to get a college athlete on and off the field.

No it wasn’t. The officials prevented the snap starting at 13 seconds, the Cinci player came from across the field from the 25 at around 9 seconds, the player getting subbed out starting leaving the field around 5 seconds.

All of that is pretty reasonable, especially since the player coming out didn’t know he was getting subbed for, obviously and there is no reason they need to sprint off.

 

[AllInForISU]

it's not an either-or thing - abusing a loophole in a rule is good coaching... and at the same time it's against what the spirit of the rule was meant to be. the rule was designed to give defenses a fair opportunity to match personnel on the field; it was not designed to force offenses that make timely substitutions to decide whether to take a time out or a delay of game penalty. but yes - defenses are smart for using the loophole when it presents itself.

Iowa State didn’t sub in a timely manner. If they did, they wouldn’t have gotten a penalty.

 

[jdoggivjc]

Spirit of the rules has no significance, the written rule is the rule. Spirit of the rule is as dumb and baseball's "unwritten rules."

disagree. the rule was written for one purpose, but is being used for something entirely different that screws over an opponent.

 

[AuH2O]

Make so the offense can not snap the ball until 10 seconds after their last player goes on the field. If the defense subs the late they don’t add time to the play clock for the offense to sub, this is a big advantage to the defense to give them almost unlimited time to sub.

Something like this would be the best. Make it clear and quantifiable.

 

[isufbcurt]

disagree. the rule was written for one purpose, but is being used for something entirely different that screws over an opponent.

Everyone writes rules for a purpose, but that doesn't mean they write them well. Hell one of my main job duties is taking advantage of that.

 

[bluestarcyclone]

disagree. the rule was written for one purpose, but is being used for something entirely different that screws over an opponent.

Agreed. It doesn't matter as far as how refs are enforcing it, but it should matter when they look at potential changes between seasons.

 

[AuH2O]

It's not abuse of the rule. It's using the rule to their advantage and any team that doesn't do that is stupid. It can either result in a team prematurely using a timeout or pushing them back 5 yards. Slow playing the defensive subs is simply good coaching.

The problem with the rule is like a lot of rules, there could be a completely objective, quantifiable method to accomplish it, but they give officials more responsibility to make some subjective call on “reasonable” time to substitute.

Officials are already generally bad and wildly inconsistent. Why do we keep changing rules to provide more and more subjectivity and judgement calls to officials that already seem pretty overwhelmed by the speed of the game?

Make it a no sub/snap for X seconds that is a reasonable amount of time to sub.

 

[isufbcurt]

The problem with the rule is like a lot of rules, there could be a completely objective, quantifiable method to accomplish it, but they give officials more responsibility to make some subjective call on “reasonable” time to substitute.

Officials are already generally bad and wildly inconsistent. Why do we keep changing rules to provide more and more subjectivity and judgement calls to officials that already seem pretty overwhelmed by the speed of the game?

Make it a no sub/snap for X seconds that is a reasonable amount of time to sub.

Agree. To me it's no different than targeting. The "spirit of the rule" is good, but the subjectivity of it makes it so "hard hits" sometimes gets call targeting.

 

[Trice]

Agree. To me it's no different than targeting. The "spirit of the rule" is good, but the subjectivity of it makes it so "hard hits" sometimes gets call targeting.

I will quibble a bit with the comparison to the targeting rule. There's a fair amount of interpretation with targeting - did a guy lead with his helmet, did the runner lower his head, that kind of thing - where with the substitution rule it's basically as simple as a guy standing there with a stopwatch in hand. Very little ambiguity.

 

[AuH2O]

Agree. To me it's no different than targeting. The "spirit of the rule" is good, but the subjectivity of it makes it so "hard hits" sometimes gets call targeting.

It’s kind of like the “football move” thing with a reception. What the hell is wrong with control and two steps?

Targeting is the worst, just because of the massive implications. It to mention you have a defender coming in perfect position to make a textbook tackle and the offensive player go down or even duck their head, resulting in “forcible contact to the head and neck.” So dumb.

Another with too much subjectivity is defense shifting causing a false start. Seems to be all over the place in terms of what’s considered a normal shift vs sudden movement to draw a false start. I get why they made the rule, but back in the day defenses could move, shift, and jump and it wasn’t like the game was plagued with false starts.

 

[isufbcurt]

It’s kind of like the “football move” thing with a reception. What the hell is wrong with control and two steps?

Targeting is the worst, just because of the massive implications. It to mention you have a defender coming in perfect position to make a textbook tackle and the offensive player go down or even duck their head, resulting in “forcible contact to the head and neck.” So dumb.

Another with too much subjectivity is defense shifting causing a false start. Seems to be all over the place in terms of what’s considered a normal shift vs sudden movement to draw a false start. I get why they made the rule, but back in the day defenses could move, shift, and jump and it wasn’t like the game was plagued with false starts.

Regarding the last paragraph the defender has to be in the neutral zone. Rule of thumb is if the defender gets in the neutral zone either move or reach out and touch them.

 

[AuH2O]

Regarding the last paragraph the defender has to be in the neutral zone. Rule of thumb is if the defender gets in the neutral zone either move or reach out and touch them.

It bugs me when a defensive guy moves or flinches and well after the OL reaches out and touches him and is called on the defense. Not at all the intent of the rule.

 

[CyGuy5]

I didn’t even think Cincy was egregious with how long it took them to sub. Burkle was super late getting on to the field anyways. I thought it was weird people got worked up about it in the stadium considering we took our sweet time subbing guys on after Cincy would sub (and we’ve done it all season really)