Questioning Neuheisel's Goal Line Call In Tennessee

by Localbruin on Oct 12, 2009 10:14 AM PDT Comment 43 comments

Neuheisel's goal line bootleg call in Tennessee hurt the team more than Craft, Prince, Chow or any opponent.

To review: Ucla held a 6 point lead in the waning seconds of the Tennessee game but were pinned against their own goal. On third down, Chow called a QB sneak to simply work the clock, with the idea that on 4th down the team would line up in punt formation and take a safety. A resulting free kick from the Bruin 20 would give Tennessee the ball 60 - 70 yards from the endzone needing a touchdown with a handful of seconds remaining and no timeouts.

This is where Rick gave our program a right cross. He overruled Chow on third down and called a naked bootleg pass, intent on picking up the first down and ending the game right then and there. Problem was, it only produced a safety and a broken jaw for our project of a starting QB. We know the Bruins won the game a few minutes later, but the ramifications of the broken jaw would stretch for weeks to come and will hang over the season for months yet.

The offense reverted to Craft, ending all forward progress for Prince and severely limiting the play calling options for Chow. The KSU game and the following bye week might've been ideal development time for a young offense and given Prince a quality start, but instead we got a wasted start and a glimpse of last year's team. The bye week following KSU was also wasted, as Prince could only watch while Craft took the snaps with the first team. At Stanford, the lack of offensive diversity turned a very winnable game into another dull and frustrating defeat. When Oregon came to the Rose Bowl, Prince returned with two days to prepare and it showed. His first pass bounced ten yards short of an open receiver, a bad omen of things to come.

Rick's call in Tennessee had the effect of fracturing the fragile development of the offense under the leadership of a freshman QB. Defeating both Stanford and Oregon with an offense finding it's stride was very plausible. Instead, we dropped those Pac-10 games and the upward arc of the season has been bent downward toward the Blue Carpet Bowl or worse.

Rick's call has Prince, the offense and all of us starting over again---from an 0 - 2 conference hole. We can only wait and hope that rhythm and confidence will soon appear. Had Rick locked his jaw on the sidelines of Tennessee, we may be witnessing it right now.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.

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STRETCH Armstrong

Is that you?

by Tydides on Oct 12, 2009 10:33 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

His initial title for this post

was about fantasizing with “breaking Neuheisel’s jaw.” Very classy.

I think we should leave this post up for a bit because it has “Bill and Ted” potential written all over it.

by Nestor on Oct 12, 2009 10:37 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I am in favor of sometimes keeping the dumb posts up

It sort of has a scarecrow effect.

by Tydides on Oct 12, 2009 10:46 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs

Mea Culpa

My use of an analogy in reference to Prince’s jawbreaker was not intended to incite violence and doesn’t reflect any desire to actually break anyone’s jaw. It’s an analogy and it appears throughout the piece, not just in the offending headline.

I’d much prefer to hear some jawing about the point raised.

by Localbruin on Oct 12, 2009 11:12 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

There should be a word for this

For investing epical import in a moment solely because of a random, freak thing that coincided with it.

Prince could’ve broken his jaw just as much on a sneak. Get over it.

by bluebland on Oct 12, 2009 11:31 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

I think that word is STRETCH

I don’t know anyone that knows their football that takes this kind of chain-reaction, oversimplified, point A to point B garbage seriously. If football were that simple of a game, it would be no fun to watch or play.

by Tydides on Oct 12, 2009 12:04 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

and given that we've been bitching about conservatism

That play is the last one to look to for program-defining problems

by bluebland on Oct 12, 2009 12:10 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Not a good decision

It was a bad decision. The old pro, Chow, had the right play called given the circumstances. The medium term impact on the program is undeniable.

by Localbruin on Oct 12, 2009 1:17 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Blah blah blah

We can all armchair quarterback. We do it here all the time. Saying that he should have considered that a freak injury could happen to his QB on a play he was calling to try to win the game is laughable. Chow wasn’t for calling the sneak because he thought it would be the safer play health-wise for the QB.

This post is a prime example of “Hindsight is 20/20”.

by Tydides on Oct 12, 2009 1:34 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Agree

I agree that it’s armchair qb’ing. For that I apologize. But the incident may be a clue to Rick’s game management abilities and tendencies. So it may also have predictive value.

Probabilities argued for the sneak.

Disagree that Chow doesn’t consider injury to qb’s as a factor in his strategy. Chow, and the rest of us, recognize that the qb has a disproportionate impact on the outcome of a game.

I am a big fan of Rick’s and wouldn’t change a thing about him, but I am beginning to see the outlines of the potential that game management isn’t Rick’s strong suit.

by Localbruin on Oct 12, 2009 1:42 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

You've mixed up your cause and effect

Probability? Probability of what? Of winning the game by taking the safety and putting our defense back on the field to win it? You saw what happened to our kick coverage a couple days ago right?

Here’s another problem with your argument: He doesn’t get hurt if he executes the play as designed. The tape shows the TE coming open. Had he gotten rid of the ball as he was running and not tucked it, he wouldn’t have exposed himself. That’s why factoring in “potential injury” is an even more pointless exercise than arguing the merits of the individual plays themselves. There’s simply no logical way you can connect a singular playcall to an injury when injuries can and do occur on even the most routine plays.

by Tydides on Oct 12, 2009 1:49 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yes, probablility

The chances of winning the game were higher by doing the sneak. That’s why Chow called it.

The fact that the bootleg wasn’t executed properly supports my point that you have freshman qb who needs the reps. Rick made a bad call. Of course it could’ve worked out differently. But it was an unnecessary, imprudent, risk to take under the circumstances.

by Localbruin on Oct 12, 2009 1:55 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

How are the chances of winning with the sneak higher?

There’s no chance of sealing it with the first down and we were going to take the safety anyway on the next down, which meant that we’re in the same position, except we never took a shot at sealing the game. That’s called LOWER probability, not higher.

by Tydides on Oct 12, 2009 1:58 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

As it turned out

As it turned out, we got to Chow’s scenario anyway, but by taking the unnecessarily difficult road to get there. We won in a high probability scenario. Taking the Rick way had the effect of giving Tennesse 40 more seconds. It also cost you your qb and probably the best chance you had of winning your opening games in the Pac10.

by Localbruin on Oct 12, 2009 2:03 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I do recall them stopping the game once on offense

So that was either a timeout or an injury timeout. Either way it reinforces my point: Your entire argument rests on the assumption that rollouts lead to jaw injuries. However, injuries can and do happen on any play no matter how routine, and it’s not like a bootleg is some exotic play. I’d like for you to go back and reevaluate this without the benefit of hindsight.

by Tydides on Oct 12, 2009 2:06 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

game management

It was a poor decision based upon probabilities and available options. It cost him his QB at a time when every rep counts. A sneak probably wouldn’t have.

by Localbruin on Oct 12, 2009 1:14 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

You have proof of this?

This is where Rick gave our program a right cross. He overruled Chow on third down and called a naked bootleg pass

You were in the room?

It’s a bold charge to make, and unsupported, a foolish one to make.

You also make a slippery slope argument that everything since then is the fault of that one fateful decision. But you can’t blame that call on Rahim Moore’s late hit. You can’t blame that decision for the wrong routes being run by receivers. You also can’t blame that one call for the fact that Oregon and Stanford are actually good teams.

Your post is in no way insightful, or productive and begs to question your team loyalties.

A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment. John Wooden

by MexiBruin on Oct 12, 2009 11:47 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

I read elsewhere that CRN did in fact make the overrule

and it’s been confirmed to me by other who have direct knowledge of the play call. Basically, Chow though the sneak was the call to make and turn it over to the D, while CRN saw an opportunity to pick up a first down and end the game there. You can (and we did) argue which was the correct call, but I can tell you with certainty that CRN did make the overrule, which as head coach, he should have done if he felt strongly about it.

by Ryan Rosenblatt on Oct 12, 2009 12:25 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I think I remember CRN saying he did it in an interview

Not that it’s at all relevant. He’s the head coach and if he wants to go for the win, then that’s what the team does. It’s not like the play he called was “Rollout Right Jawbreaker”. And all this crap about what happened afterwards purely because of that one decision is pure speculative nonsense.

by Tydides on Oct 12, 2009 12:46 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

It may be nonsense

But I don’t think that it’s speculative. We know exactly how many reps Prince lost because of the call/injury, and we know how he performed against Oregon. We know for a fact that the call retarded freshman Prince’s development at a critical time of the season.

by Localbruin on Oct 12, 2009 1:32 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

It's both

How do we know that? He wasn’t exactly lighting up the world in either of our first two games. You’d have a point if he played okay against SDSU and then tore UT a new one in Neyland, but he didn’t, so there’s no basis to absolutely say he was getting better with more reps. The fact that you can’t prove it and that I can’t prove otherwise makes this post, by definition, speculative.

by Tydides on Oct 12, 2009 1:37 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Probability, not proof

I can’t prove that he’d have gotten better with reps that ended up with Craft. But I think I have more of a leg to stand on by saying I know he won’t get better without reps. Since he had no reps, he didn’t get better. That development period must now lie before us.

The call should’ve been the sneak. Go on to the next game. Give your chosen QB all the reps, take your chances.

by Localbruin on Oct 12, 2009 1:46 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Only with the magical power of hindsight

Do you just get to say “sneak the ball, win the game, move on”. The game was still in the balance, and there were still uncertainties with special teams and a full set of downs on defense to kill before the outcome was sealed.

by Tydides on Oct 12, 2009 2:00 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Offense only

Don’t go too far. Not everything stems from Rick’s bad decision. But there can be little doubt that the effect of the injury to Prince on the offense was quite a bit larger than anyone is recognizing. Every rep counts for a frosh QB, and we lost a ton of reps because of that unnecessary risk taken by Rick.

He’s great for the program, but game management might not be his strong suit.

by Localbruin on Oct 12, 2009 1:23 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

If you want to blame someone for Prince's broken jaw

then blame Prince. He’ll be the first one to tell you it was his fault for not wearing his mouth piece. To try to hang everything on one play for this year so far is absurd.

by makenji on Oct 12, 2009 12:11 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Nah, Rick called it

Rick called the play that put him out in space. A sneak wouldn’t have. There was nothing to gain.

A mouthpiece would’ve saved his jaw?

We lost a key developmental period and maybe a few conference games because of the injury, which was avoidable.

by Localbruin on Oct 12, 2009 1:26 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Sure, nothing to gain

Except the first down that he could have had on the TE rolling out wide open and sealing the game without putting our defense back on the field. But who cares about a tiny thing like that.

by Tydides on Oct 12, 2009 1:39 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Gain

Sure that was all there, but the goal is to win the game and build a program. There were better options available. Rick chose the wrong one. The sneak gets you there without a fraction of the risk.

by Localbruin on Oct 12, 2009 1:49 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

It's so easy to say that now

Now that we’ve won the game and we know what happened with the defense. However, the game was far from in hand at that point. It makes no sense to take the results and work backward from there because that says nothing about game management. The goal is to win the game, and on third down with the possibility of getting the game clinching first down, the rollout was called. The mistake was not getting rid of the ball, which led to him getting hit. You know what the risk of losing that game is if Prince hits the wide open TE? Zero. The risk of him getting hurt if he gets rid of the ball instead of tucking it? Almost none.

Sounds like a decent playcall to me, a questionable decision, and a freak injury. Nothing more.

by Tydides on Oct 12, 2009 1:56 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

OK

The game was at hand. Tennessee would’ve gotten the ball back at no better than the 40 yard line with, what, 20 seconds left and no timeouts? Who’s chances do you like?

The degree of difficulty in completing that pass is orders of magnitude higher than a qb sneak.

by Localbruin on Oct 12, 2009 1:59 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

You do realize Oregon just ran one back on us for a TD right?

There are plenty of things that can go wrong, and they’re certainly more probable than betting your QB is going to get hurt on a rollout by not throwing the ball away or hitting his wide open TE in the flat.

by Tydides on Oct 12, 2009 2:02 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Bad Post

What a waste of two min’s of my life..lol. Prince was hit on the weakest point of the helmet by the ear whole. mouth guard or not the jaw was in trouble with that violent hit. By the way… were you expecting to go to a bigger bowl than the blue carpet bowl? We have come a long way from where we were last year.

by westwood12003 on Oct 12, 2009 12:24 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

violent hit on a qb sneak?

Point: the qb doesn’t take a violent hit on a sneak. Play the sneak, win the game, keep your qb, develop your offense. What was to gain from the bootleg that wasn’t gained by taking the safety anyway???

by Localbruin on Oct 12, 2009 1:28 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Is there a better case to be made

for my arguement that questioning individual play calling is about the least productive thing one can do?

"when you've seen how big the world is, how can you make due with this?"

by silverlakebruin on Oct 12, 2009 1:42 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Silver

I agree with you generally. This episode has me wondering more about Rick’s game management abilities than about his play calling, which is mostly with Norm.

by Localbruin on Oct 12, 2009 1:56 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

My problem with this argument

is that I don’t understand what it is advocating. It is either blaming Neuheisel for something or it is exonerating Chow or the players of blame because of Neuheisel’s call. Neither assertion holds weight but rather than merely saying that, I will lay out the reasoning of why I feel differently.

Society fixes blame on a member of that society for a wrong in part by looking at the mental state of the wrongdoer. Usually, to be guilty of a crime or negligent in tort, you have to have either intent, a reckless action, or be negligent by society’s standards. We have been over the intent part, Neuheisel did not intend for his best QB to get hurt on that or any other play. Was he reckless? Did he put his best QB in knowing that he would more likely than not get hurt on that play? I don’t think so. Was he negligent in putting his best QB in a situation knowing that he might get hurt? Yes, that is conceivable, however, any play can have that outcome. Therefore all college coaches would be negligent every time a player is injured on any play. We simply to do not hold coaches to such a standard in the game of football. But we are not talking about crimes or torts here, we are talking about a game. Point to anything other than this that would establish Neuheisel’s wrongdoing here other than the mere conjecture that comes from a hindsight view of past sporting events.

Was Neuheisel any more culpable because this play was a gamble? No. Coaches are allowed to gamble. In fact in football it is often the sign of innovative play-calling. As has been stated numerous times, this is all hindsight. Sure, Neuheisel could have foreseen that this could happen to Prince and all the consequences of that injury but an injury can happen at any time, gamble or no. Besides, Prince is partially to blame for not putting his mouthpiece in. The fact that Neuheisel was trying to be novel with his play-calling there does not make him any more culpable than if he would have called the same play at 50 yard-line in a situation that would foresee such a call.

It sucks that all the consequences contributed to us being 3-2 but Neuheisel wasn’t reckless or negligent. He was simply calling something the Tennessee defense might not be looking for. Did he have to call it? No but a 1st down ended the game right there when the game was still in question. He gambled and failed but he is not to blame.

So my question to you is, what are you suggesting because most of us aren’t blaming CNC? We certainly aren’t blaming our players. We simply didn’t win for a whole host of reasons which hopefully will be improved on as the season progresses.

Troy will fall...AGAIN!

by Bruins102NCAA on Oct 12, 2009 4:05 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Game Management?

If anything, that’s CRN’s strongest suit, his best established quality. At Washington he won 17 games on 4th quarter comebacks in only four years. Half our victories last year were 4th quarter comebacks.

That’s not necessarily a great thing — that means his teams have never dominated. But it does show great game management. The flaws of CRN’s early career were of a deeper, program-strength kind (hiring Dorrell as your OC? really?), including recruiting. He seems to have learned a lot in that department. But if you’re biggest worry is game management you are way off.

Why don’t you just blame the UCLA AD’s search committee for Prince’s broken jaw? After all, they hired Guerrero who hired Neuheisal who called the rollout.

by bluebland on Oct 12, 2009 5:00 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

You could be right, we'll see.

Well, the jury is out on his game management as far as I can tell. This Tennessee episode illustrates a glaring mistake. He failed to consider the probabilities, took a needless gamble and lost big time.

by Localbruin on Oct 12, 2009 7:51 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

The probabilities?

The probability of a qb on a rollout play getting hit hard and then breaking his jaw is 0.006%.

What you’re saying so far has been this:
You’d rather he play not to lose, instead of playing to win. Sounds like you want the last coach back in town.

Prince not putting his mouthpiece in has more to do with the broken jaw than the playcalling.

by pxcasey on Oct 13, 2009 12:28 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Rick wasn’t negligent. Reckless probably. The greater point is that he took a gamble with virtually no payoff. I’d say that he made a bad decision, not that he is “guilty” of anything. Had he snuck the ball, bled the clock and punted the free kick out of bounds, Tennessee would’ve gotten the ball with 20 odd seconds and no time outs needing 60 yards. Your chances of winning are pretty good there. Why take the risks of a naked bootleg?

He showed a lack of seasoning in game management. His mistake cost his young offense some very important development time. He made his own bad luck.

by Localbruin on Oct 12, 2009 7:46 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

I can't believe you're still arguing this

It’s pretty clear you don’t get why you’re wrong, so I’m gonna post this link and wash my hands of this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias

Hindsight bias is the inclination to see events that have occurred as more predictable than they in fact were before they took place. Hindsight bias has been demonstrated experimentally in a variety of settings, including politics, games and medicine. In psychological experiments of hindsight bias, subjects also tend to remember their predictions of future events as having been stronger than they actually were, in those cases where those predictions turn out correct.

Prophecy that is recorded after the fact is an example of hindsight bias, given its own rubric, as vaticinium ex eventu.

One explanation of the bias is the availability heuristic: the event that did occur is more salient in one’s mind than the possible outcomes that did not.

It has been shown that examining possible alternatives may reduce the effects of this bias.

First bolded statement describes everything you’ve said here. Second bolded statement describes what I’ve been doing.

QED

by Tydides on Oct 12, 2009 8:10 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

That's what I'm saying

We can’t say he’s guilty of anything but failing on a gamble. I understand what you are saying, you are saying that a bad decision cost more than what possibly could have been foreseen. That’s what everyone else is saying, it was a bad decision, in hindsight, that cost more than what possibly could have been foreseen. So both views are basically the same with the exception of one not comprehending the hindsight part of it.

So are we going to make Neuheisel pay for making a bad call in hindsight? He did not know this would happen and cannot be blamed for it going awry. I think we need to separate the injury from the bad decision. Neuheisel did not want this to happen. That’s at least a given. So the injury is separate from whatever bad decision he made there.

The bad decision, which he did not foresee, was at the time a gamble. If he succeeded it would have won the game right there. If not, a safety would occur one play earlier than it was going to anyway. So really success meant victory and failure meant some more time to Tennessee. He gambled and lost but the loss wasn’t that very bad.

Now what subsequently happened because Prince did not put his mouthpiece in and the play was read like a book, has since been very detrimental to us. But that’s not Neuheisel’s fault. By that logic, any field goal would be a bad decision in that we could have went for it and scored a touchdown.

I can understand the frustration but I refuse to lay blame for the unfortunate things that followed on a questionable call made by Neuheisel. I think that at the time, if he knew what was to happen, that he would not have made that call. I doubt he would have made that call even if he thought there was only a slight chance of that happening. And in that moment, when he made the call, knowing what was on the line at that point, we cannot say that he could foresee what was going to happen. It is at this moment where any culpability would lie and as we have found, there was nothing there other than a bad call in hindsight.

Troy will fall...AGAIN!

by Bruins102NCAA on Oct 12, 2009 8:47 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs