Thursday, September 25, 2008
Forty seconds changes time, depending on whom you talk to.
With 33 percent of the season past for most teams, coaches at Monday’s Big 12 teleconference discussed their thoughts on the NCAA’s new 40-second play clock. Thus far, the reviews are mixed.
Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy, whose team is 3-0, said his offense had performed the same as it did with the 25-second play clock.
“We haven’t had any issues with it,” he said. “I like it because there is more consistency in when the ball is marked ready for play. A team can play as fast it wants.”
Missouri coach Gary Pinkel agreed with Gundy’s assessment, and even said it was better for his offense than last year.
“It actually gives us more time to substitute, and we can get plays off quicker,” Pinkel said.
However, not everyone is excited about the new rules. Baylor lost to Connecticut 31-28 on Friday night, and first-year coach Art Briles said the clock played a role in the game.
“It affects our game plans a bunch,” Briles said. “It ties our hands some. We use a lot of formations, with shifts and motion. That’s where the clock limits you.”
COMPUTER ASSISTANCE
In Notre Dame’s loss at Michigan State last week, a Fighting Irish assistant coach in the upstairs booth was caught with, and stripped of, a laptop computer.
The NCAA has a rule that bans the use of any computers by assistant coaches or anyone affiliated with the team. Kansas coach Mark Mangino said he was unaware of Notre Dame’s situation, but said he could see how a laptop could provide an unfair advantage.
“I guess it would be a short cut,” Mangino said. “When we ask about tendencies during the game, I’ll ask our coaches upstairs and they have pencil and paper and they’re trying to add them up, and give them to me by down and distance or field position. I guess you could enter them into a computer and have it spit them right out at you.”
Kansas State coach Ron Prince said he had first-hand experience with the frantic efforts as an assistant to keep up with the game and spot future trends.
“It can get pretty hectic,” Prince said. “The guy recording everything, he’s like a court reporter. I guess a laptop could be handy if it was legal.”
GAMBLIN’ MAN
Press conferences with Texas Tech coach Mike Leach are so often off the topic of his team’s play on the field, that for him off-topic is on-topic.
On Monday, Leach was asked if he believed coaches thought about the point spread involving their teams as the game drew to a close.
“I don’t know, that’s a good question,” Leach said. “What do you think?”
Kansas, a gambler’s dream — or nightmare — with a 12-1 record against the spread last season, fell one-yard shy of beating the spread with a last-second touchdown in its week one game.
Likewise, a meaningless safety in the last minute of the Iowa-Iowa State game earlier this year swung the point spread in favor of the Cyclones.
“After some bowl games, I might get a letter from somebody who says, ‘I wish you would have made that last field goal.,”Leach said.
This year, Texas Tech is 1-0-1 against the spread.
MC MARK
Kansas is one of five Big 12 teams facing an idle Saturday this week, and Mangino said his team welcomed the extra time off.
Part of that time will be devoted to figuring out the starters at wide receiver.
Last week, Mangino placed early season starters Dezmon Briscoe and Daymond Patterson on the bench. The idea was that his young receivers would understand they have to do more than catch passes.
Did it work?
“I hope so,” Mangino said. “They still have to earn their way back. They’ll have plenty of opportunities at practice to show they belong there.”
Refusing to settle for generic coach-speak, Mangino reached deeper and pulled out his inner poet.
“You have to earn your way, every day, or you don’t play,” he say. “I didn’t mean for it to rhyme, but it came out that way.”
— - Edited by Kelsey Hayes
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