In Fleck's prevent offense, time of possession is largely meaningless. A team with a balanced offense, running in rhythm, snaps the ball typically with 15 or even 20 seconds left on the play clock. Minnesota almost always runs the clock to two or one second before snapping and occasionally failing even that low threshold and taking time out or a delay penalty.
If we run 50 plays from scrimmage during a game with the play clock running, that would translate to about 750 seconds run off the clock just to waste time. That equals 12:30 of fake TOP.
If a team's TOP is actually inflated by twelve and a half minutes of dead, wasted time is that somehow an advantage? Well, our defense is off the field resting, right? True, but their defense is on the field resting. The defense gets the benefit of being able to substitute, relay defensive signals without rush, and being able to catch its breath. All in all, the advantage of this dead time seems to be with the defense.
Our offense gets to catch its breath, right? Yes, but it affords them opportunity to jump presnap. Not a good thing. And one guy is not resting. Morgan is spending that last 20 seconds jumping around behind the line like a one legged man in an ass-kicking contest. If he's not tired when the ball is snapped he is certainly frazzled and an emotional wreck.
So clearly under Fleck's prevent offense system TOP is a farce and not a meaningful statistic. The real goal of prevent offense is to shorten the game. Fleck doesn't want to play 60 minutes of football. He wants to play 50 minutes or maybe 45 minutes. Why? I have no idea. If he would petition the NCAA rules committee and request a shorter game then perhaps we would be able to read about his reasoning.
TOP is meaningful when it signifies your defense is taking the ball away from the opponent by forcing punts or turnovers. And if your offense uses a balanced attack to get successive first downs to hold the ball and inevitably score, you have true TOP dominance.
Dead time, take-the-air-out-of-the-ball, four corners keep away, and all other forms of fake ball control are phony measurements of TOP. Prevent offense covers it all.
If we run 50 plays from scrimmage during a game with the play clock running, that would translate to about 750 seconds run off the clock just to waste time. That equals 12:30 of fake TOP.
If a team's TOP is actually inflated by twelve and a half minutes of dead, wasted time is that somehow an advantage? Well, our defense is off the field resting, right? True, but their defense is on the field resting. The defense gets the benefit of being able to substitute, relay defensive signals without rush, and being able to catch its breath. All in all, the advantage of this dead time seems to be with the defense.
Our offense gets to catch its breath, right? Yes, but it affords them opportunity to jump presnap. Not a good thing. And one guy is not resting. Morgan is spending that last 20 seconds jumping around behind the line like a one legged man in an ass-kicking contest. If he's not tired when the ball is snapped he is certainly frazzled and an emotional wreck.
So clearly under Fleck's prevent offense system TOP is a farce and not a meaningful statistic. The real goal of prevent offense is to shorten the game. Fleck doesn't want to play 60 minutes of football. He wants to play 50 minutes or maybe 45 minutes. Why? I have no idea. If he would petition the NCAA rules committee and request a shorter game then perhaps we would be able to read about his reasoning.
TOP is meaningful when it signifies your defense is taking the ball away from the opponent by forcing punts or turnovers. And if your offense uses a balanced attack to get successive first downs to hold the ball and inevitably score, you have true TOP dominance.
Dead time, take-the-air-out-of-the-ball, four corners keep away, and all other forms of fake ball control are phony measurements of TOP. Prevent offense covers it all.