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AFM Magazine


Do Penalties Help or hurt? You be the Judge

by: AFM Editorial Staff
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The NCAA officially recognizes 24 different statistics for college football. Everything from Rushing Offense to Passes Had Intercepted is updated on a weekly and seasonal basis. Most recently, an additional statistic is Fewest Yards Penalized Per Game.

    The top five leaders last fall in this category among Division I-A schools were Vanderbilt, Michigan, Navy, Penn State and Iowa. The combined record of the colleges: 38-21. The most penalized teams included Texas Tech, Colorado, Arizona State, TCU, and Oregon State. Their combined mark: 39-21. Do the amount of penalties your team commits imply defeat? Or, is there a gray area?

    Among I-AA colleges, the least penalized teams in 2005 included William and Mary, Butler, Davidson, Columbia and Bucknell. The five had a 12-41 record. The most penalized colleges included Grambling, Hampton, Bethune-Cookman, Northwestern State, and Delaware State. Their overall mark: 41-15.

    Why the difference? While coaches want mistake-free play by their respective teams, they want their players to be aggressive. Does that mean penalties resulting from the emotion of the moment could be a good thing? Clearly being a leader in Fewest Yards Penalized Per Game doesn’t correspond to a winning season.

    “I think aggressiveness is part of the issue,” said new Colorado Head coach Dan Hawkins. “I don’t believe that penalties are necessarily a deterrent to your success. We want to be able to control the penalties we can – procedure and motion penalties – as opposed to many judgment calls we can’t control. Holding could probably be called on just about every play but it becomes an official’s judgment.”

    Texas Tech’s Mike Leach feels that some of the Red Raiders penalties could obviously be avoided. “Some of the penalties we’ve received are just stupid on our part – late hits and celebration penalties,” he said. “There’s good and bad to this statistic: the players are taught to be disciplined and play aggressively and sometimes that results in inopportune penalties.

    “I believe, though, that a passing team generally gets more penalties than a running team for two reasons: one, I think the perception or natural bias is that a passing team has the tendency to hold more (than a running team) at the line of scrimmage. And two, a passing team means there’s more space on the field with the wide receivers and defensive backs more spread out (than a running play). Because of that, the officials can see more of the field which may mean more judgment calls.”

    Joe Taylor, head coach at Hampton, knows where their penalties fell: “We had a number of penalties with our special teams play. Our punt and kickoff returner was outstanding and oftentimes, when he made a return, we were penalized with blocking in the back that negated some pretty good returns. Often, penalties are a result of a lack of discipline or, late in the game, because of fatigue. Players begin to grab rather than tackle. We have a great strength and conditioning coach and we actually condition our players for five quarters of play.”

    Navy coach Paul Johnson had one of the least penalized teams in the nation and an outstanding 8-4 record. “We really try to control the things we can control,” he said. Our players are disciplined and may not have the physical ability of other teams that may be bigger and faster but we make up for it in other ways. Our discipline goes along way in controlling what we can do.”

    According to Taylor, learning to control your emotions is part of the battle. “I think you have to learn how not to lose before you learn how to win,” he said. “ How you prepare mentally and control the number of penalties is critical.”

Navy finished 8-4 under Head Coach Paul Johnson (top) in 2005 and was third among all D I-A schools in Fewest Yards Penalized Per Game (33.8); Jerry Holmes (above, left) led Hampton to an 11-1 record and an undefeated regular season; Mike Leach (above, center) and Texas Tech finished 9-3 but were penalized an average of 83 yards per game; Dan Hawkins (lower left) inherits a Colorado team that finished 116th in Fewest Yards Penalized Per Game among D I-A colleges.





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