I don’t the substitution rule, but I like the way Whitt uses it

[ProudUte]

Whitt drove Riley crazy by making late defensive substitutions. It threw off Williams and the offense and even forced Riley to take an early timeout in the second half. It was funny that they would slowly jog on a player and the player leaving the game would wait until the last second to jog off the field.

Whitt will use any possible rule to help his team and he did it brilliantly on Saturday night.

[Tony (admin)]

It’s a hilarious chess move.

[utefansince79]

Idea behind the rule is (for example) the offense puts in 5 wide receivers, so defense changes to a dime package. But for the most part, Utah would change one defensive line man (invariably the one furthest from the Utah side line) for another defensive lineman.

Instead of yelling at the officials for correctly following the rules, USC should have adjusted their sub patterns.

[EagleMountainUte]

Why don’t you like the rule? Seems like allowing subs makes it fair for everyone. It was always a clear advantage if the Offense can only be starting ahead.

[ProudUte]

I like the ability to sub when the offense subs. However, if the defense does it in the last ten seconds, then I think they should add ten more seconds to the play clock unless it is in the last few minutes of the half or game.

[Ute Dub]

So the offense had 45 less 10 seconds = 35 seconds to sub and now the defense has 10 seconds or else we’ll add more time? Not for me. The o can sub in the first 10 seconds and be just fine for everyone.

[Milton Vanderslice]

This is a great visual of responding quickly but taking all the time you are allowed

In yesterday's Utah-USC game, every time USC's offense subbed, Utah made sure to counter by subbing their biggest D-linemen on and off the field to burn time off of the clock 😅 pic.twitter.com/QOFvO5LaH5

— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) October 22, 2023

[PlainsUte]

Maybe USC could get their play and personnel called much earlier so the opposition substitution is not happening in the last 10 secs of the play clock?? In any event, Whittingham was obviously playing chess while Riley was trying to figure out checkers.

[Charlie]

Riley and CW want to take their time and look at the Utah defense before they call a play and they can do that easily if they do not sub. If they sub, Utah would like to see who that is looking at the offense and sub accordingly. Which the rules clearly allow. Riley was p**sed because he thought he should have every advantage. He could have also simply ran the ball more which besides this issue may have won him the game. Problem there is that this does not feed CW’s ego.

[2008 National Champ]

They had to add the rule when teams like Oregon were running HUNH. They would race their subs on straight into the formation and snap the ball while the D was still trying to get aligned. Effectively they were forcing the defense to play whole drives with the same personnel while getting to change theirs at will. The rule helps mitigate that.

[ravensute]

I can’t remember the game/team, but several years ago, Utah was on the other end of this – constantly running low on the play clock and risking delay of game penalties because the other team would sub a big D line player after Utah made a sub.

Nice to see that we have learned to use the rule in our favor.