Declining 4th quarter personal foul?

[cheeseheadgophfan]

Sorry if this has been discussed, but I couldn't find it.

1. "Leaping" penalty (dumbest rule ever) on Ellested's last field goal. Would give us 15 yards and a first down.

2. Less than 5 minutes left, but AFA has all 3 timeouts.

3. I realized that the FG put us up 2 scores, and you don't usually take points off the bouard, but 15 yards and 2 more minutes (or 3 AFA timeouts) I thought was too much to pass up...

4. Is there any reason you wouldn't take the penalty on the kickoff. AFA was getting great field position on returns....why not have EE kick it through the endzone.

I love Brew, but I thought this was some bizarre decision making.

[cduff]

It was absolutely the correct decision by Brewster. We had gone up by two posessions with the FG; you don't take a 2 posession lead off the board. If we had accepted the penalty, for all we know Eskridge or Bennett could have fumbled on the next play, and then AF would be driving for the tying score.

As for the kickoff, the refs messed that up. By rule, once we accepted the FG, the penalty was automatically declined (since it occurred during the play). Despite what the refs first said, there was never a chance of us getting a kickoff from the 45. When I re-watched the BTN Broadcast, I noticed that the network did not pick up the correction, the announcers were talking over it.

[Ole]

I found the rule quite strange as well, I don't blame Brew for taking the points it effectively ended the game(up 2 scores), but the fact that there was no penalty walk off for the personal foul on the kickoff is strange. So basically as long as a team takes the points, a guy could go up and kick the long snapper in the nuts or throw a punch and it would be a free shot unpenalized? Stupid rule. Obviously a leaping penalty is not a kick in the nuts, and none of it mattered because Ellestad kicked it deep anyway.

[dayjoh]

It was absolutely the correct decision by Brewster. We had gone up by two posessions with the FG; you don't take a 2 posession lead off the board. If we had accepted the penalty, for all we know Eskridge or Bennett could have fumbled on the next play, and then AF would be driving for the tying score.

As for the kickoff, the refs messed that up. By rule, once we accepted the FG, the penalty was automatically declined (since it occurred during the play). Despite what the refs first said, there was never a chance of us getting a kickoff from the 45. When I re-watched the BTN Broadcast, I noticed that the network did not pick up the correction, the announcers were talking over it.

What he said.

Absolutely the right call by Brew. Who among us can't envision Eskridge getting popped and the ball coming free? The way Air Force plays, two scores in five minutes is highly unlikely given their offensive scheme. I felt really good about the ten point margin at that time.

[Maverick]

Absolutely the right decision by Brewster! Take the points which made it a two score difference.... Then let your defense control the clock (That is wierd to say, but in essence what happened)

[Gophers09]

Sorry if this has been discussed, but I couldn't find it.

1. "Leaping" penalty (dumbest rule ever) on Ellested's last field goal. Would give us 15 yards and a first down.

2. Less than 5 minutes left, but AFA has all 3 timeouts.

3. I realized that the FG put us up 2 scores, and you don't usually take points off the bouard, but 15 yards and 2 more minutes (or 3 AFA timeouts) I thought was too much to pass up...

4. Is there any reason you wouldn't take the penalty on the kickoff. AFA was getting great field position on returns....why not have EE kick it through the endzone.

I love Brew, but I thought this was some bizarre decision making.

1. Don't totally disagree but I think the rule is necessary to prevent players from using other players as organized stepping stools to jump over the line.

3.Likely 3 AF timeouts but then you are facing a possible turnover or missed field goal. If either of these happened obviously you are only up one score (assuming AF doesn't have a return). Taking the 3 with under 5 to go forces a team with an undeveloped passing game to move the ball quickly twice against a defense that was nearly dominant throughout the game.

4. Could be wrong on this but I think the referee and subsequently the commentators did a poor job of explaining this. I don't think Minnesota had the option of taking the penalty on the kickoff (it'd be a no brainer if they did). I think the choices for that situation are simply accept or decline (not sure on this though).

[Gophers09]

wow, apparently took me way too long to write that.

[Gophers09]

I found the rule quite strange as well, I don't blame Brew for taking the points it effectively ended the game(up 2 scores), but the fact that there was no penalty walk off for the personal foul on the kickoff is strange. So basically as long as a team takes the points, a guy could go up and kick the long snapper in the nuts or throw a punch and it would be a free shot unpenalized? Stupid rule. Obviously a leaping penalty is not a kick in the nuts, and none of it mattered because Ellestad kicked it deep anyway.

Is the difference between the two scenarios that one is during the play (and therefore not penalized on the kick) and one is after the play?

[Omega015]

Sorry if this has been discussed, but I couldn't find it.


3. I realized that the FG put us up 2 scores, and you don't usually take points off the bouard, but 15 yards and 2 more minutes (or 3 AFA timeouts) I thought was too much to pass up...



After watching the first three quarters, it was possible that we get called for holding twice after we accept the penalty and find ourselves at 3rd & 30 and out of field goal range. This decision is made even easier when you know that Air Force is an option team and is not built to score quickly. Air Force proved taking the points was the correct call by taking 4 minutes and using 2 timeouts for a field goal when they needed to score in half that time.

[husker70]

Is called if you use a teamate to elevate yourself. That includes boosting yourself of a shoulder, back, or helmet with one hand and reaching up with another. Leaping on your own is no problem. Its actually, Unsportmanlike Conduct. Seldom called, often violated.

[Go Gophers Rah]

I heard special teams coach Butler say on CCO after the game that the refs did not correctly explain the options for accepting the penalty. Having said this, though, he said that he would generally never want to take points off the board (especially when they put us up by 2 scores).

BTW, who provided the officiating? Was it a MWC crew? They were horrible. Many of AFA's blocks were below the knee (isn't clipping still ilegal?) and they blew at least 1 offensive pass interference that should have been called on AFA.

I'm usually not one to criticize officiatin (seems like a cheap excuse), but this crew was clearly sub-par to me.

[gopherguy05]

Is the difference between the two scenarios that one is during the play (and therefore not penalized on the kick) and one is after the play?

Yes..the personal foul was in the act of the play, which is why it was either take the result of the play or the penalty, like a Pass interference penalty.

Had it been a personal foul after the kick like a late hit, or a punch after the play, that would have been assessed on the kick off.

[TubbytownUSA]

Hell if anything take a knee 3 times, make them burn timeouts/clock, then kick a 25 yarder

[Gophers09]

"and they blew at least 1 offensive pass interference that should have been called on AFA."

Yep and Collado probably would've had a pick.

[the accomplice]

That's what happens when you hire Mills Lane as your lead ref.

[cheeseheadgophfan]

Hell if anything take a knee 3 times, make them burn timeouts/clock, then kick a 25 yarder

That's what I would've done....:confused:

[dpodoll68]

Hell if anything take a knee 3 times, make them burn timeouts/clock, then kick a 25 yarder

And watch Ellestad shank one? No thanks. The 3 points were already on the board. You don't give away a 2-possession lead, under any circumstances. Ever.

[PlayHosea]

Hell if anything take a knee 3 times, make them burn timeouts/clock, then kick a 25 yarderLike that less than 25 yard kick that Joel Monroe hammered down the middle to defeat Northwestern and move the team to 8-1 last year?

[RodentRampage]

Superstition. Taking the penalty would have allowed us to eat up at least two minutes off the clock. I'd take the risk of a missed short field goal to get the benefit of eating up 2+ minutes.

[badgergopher]

And watch Ellestad shank one? No thanks. The 3 points were already on the board. You don't give away a 2-possession lead, under any circumstances. Ever.

Agree.

Ask Dennis Green if, had there been a penalty against the defense in the '98 NFC championship on Gary Anderson's 4th quarter field goal attempt, he would take the penalty or the points...

[thailleagle]

That's what I would've done....:confused:

So make 20-10 with 5 minutes left a potential 17-10 with 3 minutes risking the field goal getting blocked or bobbling the snap?

Or take the 2 possession lead and show your Defense that you have complete faith in them?

FOOTBALL 101

[LloydChristmas]

That's what happens when you hire Mills Lane as your lead ref.

:clap::clap:

Exactly what I was thinking the whole game.... but he didn't say "Let's get it on!" at the start.

[RodentRampage]

If Air Force had gotten the onside kick and scored a TD, people would be insisting that we should have taken the penalty.

[PlayHosea]

If Air Force had gotten the onside kick and scored a TD, people would be insisting that we should have taken the penalty.If the Gophers take the penalty and don't score, people would be insisting that they should have declined it. I can play the "what if" game too. The end result was a win.

[highwayman]

...especially anything that puts you up by more than 8 or cuts a deficit to less than 8. Should be tattooed on a coach's forearm.

Nothing is a sure thing. A field goal has four major parts--the snap, the blocking, the hold, the kick. Statistically, that means that you have a 50-50 chance that one will go wrong for utter failure. Kickers have a higher percentage only because most of the time 3 of the 4 (except the kick itself) are executed to within tolerance, close to 100%.

Also, kicks are the only time the ball is "struck," rather than handled. That's why you want to minimize the number of kicks you make. The result of taking the penalty will be a touchdown, a turnover, loss of down, or another kick attempt--which may or may not result in a field goal.

You've already scored the points and nothing can take that away from you--except yourself.

As a side bar, Mr. Ellestad has great kicker form. He kicks the ball quickly and with authority, and keeps his head down. You may notice that he gets the ball up high and hard on every kick. He doesn't try to push it through. It will always come down to aim for him.

The tip on the miss at Syracuse was more a breakdown of blocking. Also, Hudan made a great save and hold on the low snap on the last FG vs. Air Force.

[mjohnson6767]

I think there are some really good points on this. For me it came down "playing to win" or "playing not to lose", and my thought process was take the penalty and play to win. If you take the penalty you get to burn off more time and maybe get a TD instead of just the 3. I was thinking our offense was finally putting together some drives and have some confidence in them and put the nail in the coffin.

I guess something that bothered me even more then that call was the use of the timeouts at the end of the game. Air Force has a 4th down and you have them on the ropes it appears with their team scrambling to figure out what play to call. So instead of making them use up a time out or give yourself a good chance to stop them you call the time out. What was up with that?

[glovedgopher]

It was easily the right call. We went up by ten and forced a running team to pass the ball. If we're playing a high powered offense than you might consider taking the penalty.

[UptownMaroon&Gold]

I find it a little sad that no one on this thread has any confidence in our offense to score a touchdown if we had taken the penalty. It's a tough call, and I'm glad for Brew that it worked out and we won, but it would be nice to have some more confidence that our offense can score a TD from the opponents 15 yard line to seal a victory.

I guess we're all real pessimistic, myself included, which is sad. Maybe at some point later in the year we will get some offensive rhythm going where we feel like we can punch it in the endzone consistently. That would be fun.

[RodentRampage]

Do you really think there is a 50% chance that something is going to go wrong on a field goal? Your statistics are off. Taking the penalty would have given us a first down on about the 11, and allowed us to burn off 2+ minutes off the clock or forced Air Force to burn up their time outs.

[Maverick]

The offense had just scored 3 points! And having confidence in your defense does not mean you have no confidence in your offense.... I like the fact we are showing confidence in our defense. I actually felt comfortable with a 10 point lead and five minutes to go.... The last decade I couldn't say that very often!

[dayjoh]

How is it sad that we want to take our points. It's not pessimistic to think that your defense can hold them to less than ten points with 5 minutes left. I'm so thankful that some of you are not our coach, because this is about the most basic decision that can be made in this situation. I can't even believe this thread is still going.

[Mulligan]

How is it sad that we want to take our points. It's not pessimistic to think that your defense can hold them to less than ten points with 5 minutes left. I'm so thankful that some of you are not our coach, because this is about the most basic decision that can be made in this situation. I can't even believe this thread is still going.

Likewise. I doubt there's a college coach that would have made a different call in those circumstances.

[MaxyJR1]

Do you really think there is a 50% chance that something is going to go wrong on a field goal? Your statistics are off. Taking the penalty would have given us a first down on about the 11, and allowed us to burn off 2+ minutes off the clock or forced Air Force to burn up their time outs.

Great we take points off the board and have 1st and ten on the 11. We can only get another first down inside the 1 and we now have a short field to run our offense on. Brewster made the right choice. We were up 10 and AF had to score twice and pass to do it.

The officials got the play right and explained it properly the second time. What bothered me was they would allow AF to have 12 players on the field in their no huddle and then have a guy leave the field late. Also on the last drive, there was a play where the clock kept running properly, then the AF coaches complained about something and the official wrongly stopped the clock and reset the play clock to 25 and didn't restart the game clock.

[grunkiejr]

BTW, who provided the officiating? Was it a MWC crew? They were horrible. Many of AFA's blocks were below the knee (isn't clipping still ilegal?) and they blew at least 1 offensive pass interference that should have been called on AFA.


They were Big Ten officials and those are called cut blocks and they are legal unless the defender is already engaged with another blocker. Mason's offense was predicated on this type of blocking.

[RodentRampage]

I know, I know, it's bad juju to take points off the board, and by all means, we must not violate superstition.

[highwayman]

I know, I know, it's bad juju to take points off the board, and by all means, we must not violate superstition.

Thanks RJSF, I had a really bad smart-a$$ response and I pulled it back.

Last year, Grandpa Sports criticized Brewster for kicking the FG that put us up 16-7 on Indiana--"Well, Mr. Brewster, most of the time, Indiana would block that field goal and run it back for the winning touchdown."

How many times do you see that in a season?

NEVER TAKE POINTS OFF THE BOARD, especially anything that puts you up by more than 8 or cuts a deficit to less than 8.

[Ron Johnson Super Fan]

I know, I know, it's bad juju to take points off the board, and by all means, we must not violate superstition.

Not juju superstition, just a little football common sense.

[TubbytownUSA]

So make 20-10 with 5 minutes left a potential 17-10 with 3 minutes risking the field goal getting blocked or bobbling the snap?

Or take the 2 possession lead and show your Defense that you have complete faith in them?

FOOTBALL 101

Or take the 2 possession lead and show your Offense that you have no faith in them?

[highwayman]

Do you really think there is a 50% chance that something is going to go wrong on a field goal? Your statistics are off. Taking the penalty would have given us a first down on about the 11, and allowed us to burn off 2+ minutes off the clock or forced Air Force to burn up their time outs.

By your methodology we run the ball three times and kick a field goal anyway. We wouldn't pass, we wouldn't run outside. Being they still would need two scores, they burn all their TOs and get the ball back 30 seconds later.

My stats aren't off, you're generalizing it as raw numbers. There is far more that can go wrong on a FG than any other football play. That's why they practice so much. Until the late 1970s, college FG kickers rarely made half their kicks, as placekicking was not emphasised. Even now, overall NCAA FG % last year was 261 made 363 attempted .719 success. The average missed FG was 38.99 yards.

[highwayman]

Or take the 2 possession lead and show your Offense that you have no faith in them?

Now its getting idiotic. WE ALREADY HAD THE POINTS!!!!!!!!!!

Faith has nothing to do with it. It's SIMPLE MATH!!!!!

time/number of scores needed=we win

[thailleagle]

Or take the 2 possession lead and show your Offense that you have no faith in them?

And after watching the first 2 games which side of the ball do you think Brewster is more comfortable putting the game in the hands of?

[MaxyJR1]

They were Big Ten officials and those are called cut blocks and they are legal unless the defender is already engaged with another blocker. Mason's offense was predicated on this type of blocking.

Pretty sure they were not big ten officials.

[Gophers09]

this is getting out of control. it was the right call (every football coach would tell you that) and we won the game. lets move on.

[cncmin]

How is it sad that we want to take our points. It's not pessimistic to think that your defense can hold them to less than ten points with 5 minutes left. I'm so thankful that some of you are not our coach, because this is about the most basic decision that can be made in this situation. I can't even believe this thread is still going.

Ditto!

This was the obvious, correct call.

[Goldentimeofday]

Points, take the points. I loved that call. Up 2 scores with 5 minutes left, give you kicker even more confidence moving forward for the season. If the take the penalty and snap is bad, of the FG is blocked, or Weber get's sacked and fumbles, or Weber throws a pick that they house the other way for 103 yards, or, well you get the idea. If any of those things happen, people would be on here trying to run Brew out of town for taking points of the board with 5 minutes left.

[gophersfan]

Me either. but at the time i hated the decsion and to this date still have the decsion. you never in the NFL see a coach declined a penalty like that. and most of the time in College you don't either. it is moot point now. as we won the game.

[cncmin]

Me either. but at the time i hated the decsion and to this date still have the decsion. you never in the NFL see a coach declined a penalty like that. and most of the time in College you don't either. it is moot point now. as we won the game.

And you rarely see an NFL kicker miss a field goal under 40 yards, either, and in college, how often do you see that exact scenario (up by 7, five minutes left)?! But in college, as another poster put it earlier, the average missed FG is about 38-39 yards - scoring an easy 3 again isn't exactly a gimme - would you have felt better about the decision had our kicker been Monroe instead of Ellestad? If I recall, Monroe's chip-shot miss basically started last year's 0-5 EOY tumble. You guys are unbelievable.

It's not like our running game was shoving it down their throats or something that we could suggest that we could just pound their gut and hope for a TD. Furthermore, best-case scenario, we run a couple minutes off the clock and score a TD. Then, most likely our D softens greatly and plays prevent D, AFA scores a quick TD in about 2 minutes, and we're STILL facing an onside kick, up 7 points, with the game on the line. Worst-case scenario, we turn the ball over and AFA ties the game or goes for 2 and wins it. Brew did the right thing, you guys are absolutely bonkers nuts. This was a no-brainer.

[GoldInDirt]

It was the right call. But I think it was Fisch, or another coach, who ran onto the field screaming to take the points. It just reiterates this was a text book decision that turned out to be the right decision.