Anyone else wondering why they ran the play to center the ball?
I thought it was tempting all the things that could go wrong for very little pay back. Any mishandling of the Center to QB snap could squander away the 5 seconds of time, and leave the Utes with no chance to kick the winning field goal.
When Whit initially sent out the field goal team, I thought great call, the extra downs we had would give us a cushion if there is any mishandling of the snap to the place holder.
In the end, everything went as it needed to and the kick was good. Great! What a win!
After what happened in the Miami – GaTech game (very different reasons, but still), I was very wary of this. But given that our kicking is not elite, it made sense. It also ran down the clock to 0 and gave no chance for a KO return, which was a bigger risk IMO.
Centering the ball is the only play close to a kneel down in terms of easy. The OL doesn’t even have to move. At that point it is the kickers preference. Giving him basically a longer extra point is the highest percentage option, holder and kicker. Then there is the whole thing about which things cause a 10 second runoff but then a runoff can be canceled with a timeout. Myself, I like the center kneel down inside the tackle especially with a TE.
I am wondering what the final grade is on him. Haven’t looked yet. USC arguably better dline than Cal. I like what I am seeing from Utahs’s Oline. But damn those critical first starts when you need a fg to win can’t ever happen.
I had no problem with Barnes running to center the ball. What he did was little more than a glorified kneel-down. Because all he was doing is running a couple of yards laterally and then going down immediately, the odds of him fumbling or even getting touched by a USC defender were very, very small. It was a judgment risk/reward call and it turned out just as planned.
I was watching this with my son, who was a college kicker (D2, but it still counts, right?). I asked him if that was the right move.
His answer: In college, yes. Chances of a mishandled snap are lower than the chances of a right-footed kicker pulling it from the right hash.
In high school, no. Mishandled snaps are much more common. You would definitely want the extra time, just in case.
I think the likelihood of there being a bad snap or some other type of mistake is small enough that the increased percentage of making the field goal from the center of the field is more than worth it.
With the tighter hashes in the NFL no, probably not worth it. But in college with the wider hashes? Yes.
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