CT Football Coaches Suspended

Off Topic
1

…for blowouts

This is a piss poor solution to a semi-legit problem.

Heres the problem: you can’t just say that a 50 pt win was an automatic run up. I have seen games where the 2nd string was in, and running the ball (NOT passing) and they were still that much better than the opposition’s 1st string that they hung an additional 2 or 3 TDs on them. Under this rule they would have had to have simply taken a knee. nonsensical.

I think that coaches who leave their starters in, call timeouts at the end of a blowout, or pass on a blown out team deserve to be dealt with, but what a typically bone-headed bureaucratic response…

2

In Germany we have that “mercy rule” they talk about at the end: when one team leads by more than 35 points, the clock runs continuously. This primarily hurts the backup player, who get less playing time. On the other hand, points scored is a significant tiebreaker for the league, encouraging coaches to run up the score.

While I don’t agree with the mercy rule, I think suspending coaches for winning by too much is completely retarded. If the backups still kick the snot out of the other team, why should the coach be punished for that? Coaches shouldn’t keep their starters in the game for many reasons, but forcing personell decision on them is bullshit. Suspend the coaches who allow their team to loose by more than 50 points!

3

GAY GAY GAY.

As long as the backups for the team up 50 points are playing, I have NO problem with getting an ass whoopin’.

I’d rather get beat 400-0 than have a team pity me. Especially in football. How do you not try in football without getting someone hurt?

4

Good lord are these people ever going to stop trying to pussify todays children. We start with having young children play in leagues with no score so they don’t ever feel bad for themselves. Now they are imposing rules that say when kids are actually allowed to win they can’t win by too much or it is the coaches fault.

I agree that calling a timeout right before the half when you are winning by so much is a jack-ass thing to do but the kids on the other team are eventually going to have to learn that there are a bunch of assholes out there who don’t give a rat’s ass about their feelings. Why not have it learned in highschool sports like many of the other things that are important in life.

5

That is bullshit.

While I hate coaches that leave in the first string to run up the score I think this rule is completely unnecessary.

I have been on the giving and receiving end of huge blowouts.

While it is better to give than receive you can learn alot about yourself and teammates by seeing who is still playing hard while being blown out.

6

HOLY SHIT!!! but why am i not surprised, because as bigscarymontster so intelligently pointed out…another point for the pussification of america.

agreed with everyone else, the timeouts before the half if up by a huge amount and leaving first string in is crap.

how are the youth supposed to learn the simple fact that there are winners and losers and nothing is gonna be handed over to you without effort. when i played high school football we were a better team and many of our games were scores like 61-7, 54-14, stuff like that. But come basketball season one school was so good our ass was handed to us, 101-45 or something like that. we learned the hard way and was on both ends of the spectrum.

it’s so frustrating cos i know it’s been happening in my home town and what used to be great programs is now barbie u.s.a.

7

Being from CT, I am very familiar with this coach in question. Now, formally creating a rule to suspend a coach in this situation is pretty weak, but at the same time, I understand it [b]to a degree[/b]. The coach in question (Jack Cochran) has had a very long run of absolutely running the score up on the weaker teams he plays.

I remember when he was at Bloomfield HS (the high school Dwight Freeney went to), they were playing my alma mater (long after I left). Now, my school is no football powerhouse, but regardless, Bloomfield was up about 50 or so points early in the 3rd quarter. Well, the ol’ alma mater actually forced a 4th down and there was joy in the land! That is until Bloomfield faked a punt which they took in for a touchdown. I think the final score was about 77 or so to zip.

So, do I get why people think this sends a bad message to kids? Sure, I do. You have to take your lumps in life. At the same time, I also see the other side where the level of sportsmanship is just atrocious and there is a full intent to run up the score as high as possible (i.e. not putting in subs, calling needless timeouts to get more points, etc.)

8

I remember a quote from Bob Stoops from back in 2003 that addresses a side of this issue that is often ignored. This quote is more applicable to the high school level, IMO. But anyway, to paraphrase Stoops:

“These [starters] bust their ass every day of the week in practice, and it’s not fair to them to pull them out at halftime of every game. We’re not trying to humiliate our opponents, but at some point you’ve got to reward your [starters] for working their tail off in practice by letting them play.”

In 2003, OU opened the season 12-0 and in those 12 games they really blasted a lot of their opponents (in particular, OU beat Texas A&M 77-0). But in those 12 games, OU had about 8 or 9 that Stoops had pulled starters early due to blowouts, and that time off was really adding up for the players. Jason White was OU’s starting QB, and he had about 4.5 games worth of sitting the bench.

OU has been on both sides of ugly blowouts more than most teams have been lately, and Stoops has always maintained that while humiliation should be avoided if possible, it’s not the winner’s responsibility to ensure the score doesn’t get out of hand. He said this even after OU lost to Kansas St. 35-7 in 2003. Yes, the same season in which OU beat Texas A&M 77-0.

Way back in the day, Bobby Bowden’s West Virginia team beat Lou Holtz’s William & Mary team by some unholy margin. After the game, they had an altercation:

Holtz: “I thought we were friends, Bobby!”

Bowden: “My job is to score, Lou. Your job is to stop me!”

Mike Leach (Texas Tech Head Coach who is infamous for running up the score): “Why is football the only sport where you’re asked to stop playing? Isn’t that the other team’s job, to keep you from scoring? When did it become my job to keep my offense from scoring?”

Bottom Line, IMO, it’s the loser’s job to keep from getting blown out, period. A team should never have to apologize for winning by a large margin.

9

[quote]tGunslinger wrote:
I remember a quote from Bob Stoops from back in 2003 that addresses a side of this issue that is often ignored. This quote is more applicable to the high school level, IMO. But anyway, to paraphrase Stoops:

“These [starters] bust their ass every day of the week in practice, and it’s not fair to them to pull them out at halftime of every game. We’re not trying to humiliate our opponents, but at some point you’ve got to reward your [starters] for working their tail off in practice by letting them play.”

In 2003, OU opened the season 12-0 and in those 12 games they really blasted a lot of their opponents (in particular, OU beat Texas A&M 77-0). But in those 12 games, OU had about 8 or 9 that Stoops had pulled starters early due to blowouts, and that time off was really adding up for the players. Jason White was OU’s starting QB, and he had about 4.5 games worth of sitting the bench.

OU has been on both sides of ugly blowouts more than most teams have been lately, and Stoops has always maintained that while humiliation should be avoided if possible, it’s not the winner’s responsibility to ensure the score doesn’t get out of hand. He said this even after OU lost to Kansas St. 35-7 in 2003. Yes, the same season in which OU beat Texas A&M 77-0.

Way back in the day, Bobby Bowden’s West Virginia team beat Lou Holtz’s William & Mary team by some unholy margin. After the game, they had an altercation:

Holtz: “I thought we were friends, Bobby!”

Bowden: “My job is to score, Lou. Your job is to stop me!”

Mike Leach (Texas Tech Head Coach who is infamous for running up the score): “Why is football the only sport where you’re asked to stop playing? Isn’t that the other team’s job, to keep you from scoring? When did it become my job to keep my offense from scoring?”

Bottom Line, IMO, it’s the loser’s job to keep from getting blown out, period. A team should never have to apologize for winning by a large margin.[/quote]

I get this, but at the same time, I don’t think the same holds as true at the high school level. NCAA D-1 football is basically the minor leagues of the NFL, for the most part. A fair majority of the athletes (at least at elite programs) are there to make it to the NFL, so the educational experience is not necessarily high on their list of priorities (and truthfully, probably not really high on the priorities of the schools they play for… as sad as that is).

However, there is still an educational mission at the high school level that needs to be enforced about playing with class and sportmanship. I’m not 100% convinced this suspension thing is the way to go (I am not a fan of more administration), but I see [i]some[/i] of the logic behind it.

10

Sorry guys I’m from Australia where gridiron isn’t the number one sport. Is this whole ‘blowout’ thing a problem only because you have strings in football? In Aussie rules we have 18 players with 4 reserves, and you just keep going until the game is over. Same with rugby (although the player numbers are different).

So is it simply a matter of the individual sport? When you’ve won the game is it considered good form to play your shit players? Or is this some weird ‘let’s hold hands and it’s all about how you feel inside and let’s have a nice happy fun game’ kind of thing?

11

I live in CT and went to school here as well. I’ve been on teams where we lost FB games 55-0, soccer games 15-0, baseball games 14-0, and a basketball game where we lost 120-35…

Know what…I REALLY didn’t give a fark about them “running up” the score because most instances the THIRD string was handing us our ass.

I think you should be allowed to keep the first string in until the game is 3/4 over and then throw the scrubs in…

While I think it is poor sportsmanship to run up the score w/ the first string players, anything after that is the losing teams fault for being so horrendous…