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AFM Magazine

AFM Magazine


Clock Management

Going Out of Bounds is a Really Big Deal.
by: John T. Reed
Author, Football Clock Management
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With 10:10 left in the second quarter at the Cotton Bowl, Texas A&M quarterback Branndon Stewart stepped out of bounds at the line of scrimmage after being flushed out of the pocket on a first-and-ten play.

No one thought anything of it. They should have. Stewart's "one small step" for an Aggie turned out to be "one giant leap" for UCLA. It cost Texas A&M the game.

I have discovered about 145 principles of clock management-and counting. One of them is that football teams should go to a slowdown in two situations: one, whenever the pace graph or first-and-goal table so indicate, and whenever their win probability is greater than 50 percent.

The pace graph is a chart I created for my book Football Clock Management. It applies when you are in your last possession of the first half, regardless of score, and your last possession of the second half when you are trailing by eight points or less.

It simply is a schedule which tells you to speed up or slow down, depending on your field position and time remaining, so you score about 20 seconds before half time.

Once you reach a first-and-goal situation, the pace graph no longer applies because its mathematics are based on achieving first downs. The pace graph and first-and goal tables take precedence over win probability in pace-graph situations.

Win probability is a concept I got from the book The Hidden Game of Football. One of its authors, Pete Palmer (petepalmr@aol.com), created a series of tables which show a football team's win probability in thousands of different situations. The tables are based on NFL rules and statistics, but a table based on NCAA rules and stats would be little different. In general, Palmer's tables say your win probability is greater than 50 percent whenever you are ahead. It is also greater than 50 percent when you are behind, but your current field position and down and distances are such that your probability of scoring the go-ahead points is greater than 50 percent.

The opposite is also true. That is, your win probability is less than 50 percent if you are ahead, but your opponent has a field position and down and distance which give them a greater than 50 percent probability of scoring the go-ahead points.

Palmer created his tables based on the working assumption the two teams were evenly matched. That's rarely the case.

Simply check out point spreads on any given weekend, very few games are listed as "pick-em." But, nonetheless, his theories still work.

Both UCLA and Texas A&M should have had clock management assistant coaches on the sideline, each holding an air shield with an arrow painted on it. Pointing the arrow up means hurry-up. Pointing it down means slow down.

Play-by-Play play could use actually used
1-10@T22 incipt. pass :05
2-10@T22 run :45
3-5@T27 sack :45
4-12@T20 punt :05
total for possession: 1:40 1:23
1-10@T16 run :30
1-10@T37 run :45
2-1@T46 run (1st down) :30
1-10@T49 run :45
2-8@U49 run :45
3-7@U48 inc. screen pass :05
4-7@U48 punt :05
total for possession: 3:25 2:53
1-10@T40 scamble :05 (QB out-of-bounds)
2-10@T40 run :45
3-3@T7 run :45
4-1@T49 punt :05
total for possession: 1:40 1:34
1-10@T10 pass (1st down) :30
1-10@T26 run :45
2-10@T26 run for TD :10
total for possession: 1:25 1:04
1-10@T25 run :45
2-6@T29 run :45
3-3@T32 run :05 (timeout UCLA)
4-8@T27 punt :10 (long runback)
total for possession: 1:40 1:47
grand totals: 9:40 8:41

At the start of the game, UCLA's arrow should have been pointing down because they were 13-point favorites, and Texas A&M's should have been pointing up.

Use pre-game prognostications rather than Palmer's tables until the win probability of either team winning exceeds the accuracy rate of pre-game prognostications. In the 1998 Cotton Bowl, that happened in a flash.

With 4:35 left in the first quarter and the score 0-0, Texas A&M's Dat Nguyen intercepted a Cade McNown pass at the Aggie 17. He returned it 19 yards then lateraled to Brandon Jennings, who took it the remaining 64 yards for a touchdown. Once they made sure there were no flags on the play, both clock management assistant coaches should have instantly reversed the direction of their arrows.

After the ensuing kickoff, Texas A&M was ahead 7-0 and UCLA had the ball first and ten at their own 14. Palmer's win-probability table says that Texas A&M 's win probability at that point was .751 or 75.1 percent. That means slowing down will be the right thing to do for the leading team in this situation 75 out of 100 times.

Being in a slowdown mode means complying with the following rules: stay in bounds; snap the ball at the end of the play clock; call any timeouts at the end of the play clock (if you call timeout at all); leave the ball on ground after play; and prefer run to pass when equally effective.

Did the Aggies stay in bounds? No. As described at the beginning of this article, the Aggie quarterback stepped out of bounds when his team was up 9-0 early in the second quarter. That gave UCLA a gift of about 40 seconds.

Texas A&M never called any timeouts at all in the first half. Perfect clock management on that score. They only threw three passes in the first half after they took the lead. Two were incomplete; one was complete. The two incomplete passes represented gifts to UCLA of about 40 seconds each.

Should Texas A&M not have thrown those passes? The question is was the benefit they could have gained from completing the passes commensurate with the risk of giving 40 seconds per pass of game clock time to UCLA if the passes fell incomplete?

Getting a first down enables you to run at least three more plays, each of which could use up around :45.

Did the Aggies leave the ball on the ground after each play and wait until the end of the play clock before calling for each and every snap after they took the lead? I cannot tell from the official play-by-play, but it would appear not.

In the chart is the official play-by-playing showing the actual time consumed by each Aggie drive after they took the lead in the first half, and what they would have consumed if they had used all the play clock on each play.

I assume the officials use 16 seconds per play between the end-of-play whistle and the ready-to-play whistle, and the offense waits 24 seconds after the ready-to-play whistle to call for the snap in the slowdown mode. That's 40 seconds between plays and I will assume five seconds per play unless it was a long run.

Some plays use less time because of going out of bounds, moving the chains or timeouts. The time elapsed is from the snap for that down until the snap for the next down. I will not second-guess the play calling in this play-by-play analysis, only the time of possession.

So it would appear Texas A&M violated several slowdown rules when they were ahead in the first half, and, as a result, 9:50-8:41 means 1:09 was "left on the table." UCLA scored seven points with :02 left in the first half. They later won the game by a score of 29-23.

Earlier, I said the pace graph takes precedence over the win-probability rule in your last possession of the first half. Does the pace graph say Texas A&M should have gone to a hurry-up during their last possession of the first half? They got the ball at their own 25 with 2:29 left.

The pace graph says Texas A&M would have to proceeed at a 20-second-per-play or medium pace if they wanted to both score before halftime and leave little time on the clock for their opponent to come back. They actually took about 40 seconds per play (and failed to get any first downs) during their last possession, not counting when UCLA called time and the punt play.

But the pace graph does not tell you whether you should try to score on your last possession. You should only try to score when your probability of doing so is greater than 50 percent. In this half, when most of Texas A&M 's points were scored by defense, Texas A&M was not likely to score from their own 25 in 2:29. That being the case, they should have stayed in a maximum-slowdown pace, which is what they did.

If Texas A&M had used just :02 more during their possessions while leading in the first half, they would have prevented that margin-of-victory score and Texas A&M would have won 23-21. If Texas A&M had used just :40 more, they would have wiped out UCLA's entire final possession of the first half. Branndon Stewart's stepping out of bounds on just one play provided almost the entire time UCLA needed for their final possession of the half and their game-winning score.

If Texas A&M had thrown one less incomplete pass, they would have won the game.

It is possible that my assumption that the referee averaged 16 seconds per play between the end-of-play and ready-to-play whistles overestimates the amount of time he took. You would have to analyze video that showed the between-play time to be sure. And you would need video other than the broadcast video I had. TV networks cut away between plays for stats, replays, and graphics. You cannot see when the ref started the play clock and how much time was left at the snap. The referee taking less than 16 seconds per play would mean the Aggies are not soley responsible for the whole 1:09.

Am I displaying nothing but 20-20 hindsight in my analysis? No. My book, Football Clock Management, said teams in Texas A&M 's situation should go to a slowdown. The book came out in September of 1997, four months before the Cotton Bowl.

Ball Four author Jim Bouton said baseball players who were on the road often encountered attractive women who asked them if they were married. "Yeah, but I'm not a fanatic about it," was the answer some gave. Texas A&M 's problem in the Cotton Bowl was not that they failed to slow down. The problem was that they were not fanatics about it.

Football is a game of inches. It is even more a game of seconds. Every second you leave on the clock when you should be killing clock may be the one your opponent uses to beat you. You must start managing the clock, speeding up or slowing down, as soon as your win probability so indicates.






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