Auburn's Gus Malzahn and Ole Miss' Hugh Freeze are among a group of head coaches nationally who think an NCAA Rules Committee proposal to change the illegal man downfield penalty is misguided.
Arizona's Rich Rodriguez, Arizona State's Todd Graham, Baylor's Art Briles and Clemson's Dabo Swinney have voiced similar concerns about the current rule, which prohibits offensive linemen from drifting more than 3 yards past the line of scrimmage on pass plays unless a screen pass is caught behind the line of scrimmage.
The new rule would make it a penalty if a lineman is or has been beyond 1 yard of the line of scrimmage when the ball is released, which matches the NFL rule. Malzahn thinks it's an overreaction to rewrite the rule simply because of what he said were some higher-profile plays that might have been missed by officials last season.
"There has to be a better reason to change the rule than just a handful of plays," Malzahn said. "It's just a small number of plays we're talking about."
Malzahn's suggestion is to table the proposal this year, make it a point of emphasis among the officials and see how it all shakes out after another season. Several other offensive-minded head coaches around the country have relayed similar messages to Air Force coach Troy Calhoun, who's the rules committee chairman.
"Keep the current rule and enforce it," Swinney said. "If they call the penalty, it would stop the blatant violators."
NCAA coordinator of officials Rogers Redding said the feedback among FBS coaches has been about 50-50 on the proposal. The NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel will have the final say when it votes on March 5, but the coaches against it are hopeful the proposal will be withdrawn before it reaches the panel. That was the case last year with the 10-second rule, which was geared to slow the pace of play.
"I don't understand the rush," Rodriguez said. "Unless it's a safety issue, we're supposed to have a year to discuss it and comment about it, and this isn't a safety issue. This all came about from a survey that nobody really knows about. It's just like the 10-second rule last year. That thing was ridiculous and just sort of showed up out of nowhere."
Rodriguez said there's no reason officials shouldn't be able to enforce the current rule, especially with the addition of an eighth official next season. But his biggest beef is with the process -- he would prefer to see such proposals discussed at the American Football Coaches Association convention every January.
"It's not Troy's fault, and I told him that. But how does this get to a point where it's going to the next committee [the oversight panel] where there's not a single football coach on it and basically gets rubber-stamped?" Rodriguez said. "There has to be a better way to do this.
"I just want to know who's the person behind the curtain. Who's the grand pooh-bah driving this? The whole process needs to be reviewed."
Redding said officiating the game would be easier if the rule changes from 3 yards to 1, but said the chief reason for the change was hearing from coaches, some with an offensive background, who said the current rule provided too much of an advantage for the offense.
"I just want to know who's the person behind the curtain. Who's the grand poobah driving this? The whole process needs to be reviewed." Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez
Oklahoma defensive coordinator Mike Stoops is still hot about a touchdown pass in the Sooners' 31-30 loss to Kansas State last season that should have been nullified when the Wildcats had at least two linemen who appeared to be well beyond the 3-yard limit.
"The refs don't even look for it," Stoops told USA Today. "It's kind of insane. It doesn't make any sense. ... When linemen are downfield, that's 'run' to us. It makes it virtually impossible for our guys to read run or pass."
Penn State defensive coordinator Bob Shoop feels Stoops' pain in this era of spread option offenses, when the quarterback will sell the run and then throw it at the last minute. And while Shoop doesn't buy the rhetoric he's hearing from some offensive coaches, he's also not pushing to have the rule changed because of the way the Nittany Lions read their keys on defense.
"I saw where somebody said defensive coaches should just quit whining and adjust to the game," Shoop said. "I don't agree with that, but this particular rule is not as big a deal to us as it might be others.
"I don't want to get my defensive coordinator card yanked away for saying that. I understand some defensive guys may be jumping up and down and saying 'Hallelujah,' but it doesn't affect us as much because we don't just solely rely on the line key to determine whether it's a run or pass."
Freeze, who like Briles, Graham, Malzahn, Rodriguez and Swinney, runs a hurry-up offense, uses the "pop pass," which is essentially a play-action pass out of an option set. Freeze fears changing the rule to 1 yard could all but eliminate the play-action pass in college football.
"Why make such a radical change?" he asked. "It's like basketball. If a three-second rule is missed five or six times, you don't go changing the rule to one second in the lane. You just enforce it better. Every one of these plays that people are talking about last year should have been flags. We all agree on that. Throw the flag and we're not even having this discussion."
One of Auburn's most memorable plays under Malzahn involved a pop pass, when Nick Marshall pulled up on a zone read play when it looked like he was going to run and flipped it to Sammie Coates behind the defense for a game-tying touchdown in Auburn's 34-28 win over Alabama two years ago. Under the proposed new rule, the Auburn linemen clearly would have been past the one-yard minimum, and the play could have possibly been nullified.
Even with the current rule, Alabama fans still contend it was an illegal play because replays show Auburn linemen right on the threshold of that 3-yard minimum.
"I'd say that was a pretty important play in the game and our season," Malzahn said. "We were 3 yards downfield and it was a well executed play as far as the current rule was concerned."
But will it stay that way? Redding's sense is that there won't be enough opposition to keep the proposal from going to the oversight panel.
"We have conference calls next week to review the results of the comment period," Redding said. "That's common, and we'll circle back together. But there isn't the firestorm out there about this like there was last year about the 10-second rule.
"Some people are opposed to it, and they are loud. There's always going to be opposition to something, but I've been impressed that some head coaches who run these fast-paced offenses are saying, 'Hey, we've got to play defense, too, and this change will be helpful in evening out the offense-defense mix.'"