Paul Johnson era signature game

[LibertyTurns]

Going for it on 4th and short depends on a lot of factors like field position and how good your defense is. It isn't something you should always do and it isn't something you should never do. Coaches need to get it right more often than not.

Going for it on 4th & short is more likely to result in a positive outcome than punting, but let’s ignore reams of staitistical analysis and rely on conventional “wisdom”.

 

[smokey_wasp]

Going for it on 4th & short is more likely to result in a positive outcome than punting, but let’s ignore reams of staitistical analysis and rely on conventional “wisdom”.

Over time, yes it works out more often than not, but that says nothing about each individual case. It can still be a bad call in certain cases.

 

[LibertyTurns]

Over time, yes it works out more often than not, but that says nothing about each individual case. It can still be a bad call in certain cases.

Yes, 4 & 1 at your own 25 with 10 secs left in the game and you’re up by 8 it’s not a prudent move. I wasn’t alleging 100% of the time you go for it. My point was if we revert back to playing “NFL ball” and mindlessly punting on 4th & short regardless of the odds I’ll be disappointed. In the majority of situations it’s favorable to go for it and if we start making bad decisions ala Gomer, well that will say something for sure & it won’t be positive.

 

[RickStromFan]

Yes, 4 & 1 at your own 25 with 10 secs left in the game and you’re up by 8 it’s not a prudent move. I wasn’t alleging 100% of the time you go for it. My point was if we revert back to playing “NFL ball” and mindlessly punting on 4th & short regardless of the odds I’ll be disappointed. In the majority of situations it’s favorable to go for it and if we start making bad decisions ala Gomer, well that will say something for sure & it won’t be positive.

having a competent PK makes that decision tougher too. Do we still go for it on 4th and 1 from the 27 or do we try the FG? Etc. PJ got that call right a few times and missed it a few others, like almost every other coach in football.

 

[LibertyTurns]

having a competent PK makes that decision tougher too. Do we still go for it on 4th and 1 from the 27 or do we try the FG? Etc. PJ got that call right a few times and missed it a few others, like almost every other coach in football.

The decision matrix is not as simple as taking 1 or 2 situations and applying that to your overall chances of success. You’re approaching like if you called heads twice and lost, you’d call heads again because your odds improved. It doesn’t. It’s still 50-50.

Football Outsiders has an abundance of data collected over thousands of football games, Pro & college. The data is fairly clear. Going for it on 4th & short is the most favorable choice a coach can make from a game management standpoint, unless as I stated before there’s some mitigating circumstances such injury of key player(s), timeclock situation, etc.

My position is if we train properly & are organized, understand our strengths and weaknesses and those of our opponents, we should be no worse than an average team therefore our odds should reflect the average of all other teams combined with respect to whether or not going for it or punting is warranted. 4th & 3 under most circumstances the statistically favorable choice is going for it.

We all have opinions & this is mine. I hate punting and was thrilled we had a coach that trusted his players enough to execute. The new coach will have a philosophy on game management. If he does something different and it works, I’ll like that strategy just as much.

 

[bobongo]

There have been a couple of times where going for it on 4th and short straight up cost us the game.

And times when it won us the game, no doubt. Statistically, going for it on fourth and short will be the wise choice more often than not. I think that's actually been proven. There are no guarantees, but punting on fourth and one is usually dumb IMO, and I don't care how many coaches do it. I've seen this scenario played out a thousand times - fourth and one at midfield, and a punt. It goes into the end zone. Two plays later, the ball is back on the fifty, but this time the other team has the ball.

Punting is especially a bad idea with a weak or tired defense. The thing I hated to see was trying to draw the other team off side. That might have worked a couple of times 50 games ago, but it got old and just cost us a bunch of time outs for nothing.

 

[LibertyTurns]

You’re right @bobongo that damn shift into the backfield play so we could run all the time off the play clock & call a timeout was particularly annoying. The couple times I saw it work I was amazed. You had to ask yourself didn’t anyone on the other team watch our game tape?

 

[Milwaukee]

The decision matrix is not as simple as taking 1 or 2 situations and applying that to your overall chances of success. You’re approaching like if you called heads twice and lost, you’d call heads again because your odds improved. It doesn’t. It’s still 50-50.

Football Outsiders has an abundance of data collected over thousands of football games, Pro & college. The data is fairly clear. Going for it on 4th & short is the most favorable choice a coach can make from a game management standpoint, unless as I stated before there’s some mitigating circumstances such injury of key player(s), timeclock situation, etc.

My position is if we train properly & are organized, understand our strengths and weaknesses and those of our opponents, we should be no worse than an average team therefore our odds should reflect the average of all other teams combined with respect to whether or not going for it or punting is warranted. 4th & 3 under most circumstances the statistically favorable choice is going for it.

We all have opinions & this is mine. I hate punting and was thrilled we had a coach that trusted his players enough to execute. The new coach will have a philosophy on game management. If he does something different and it works, I’ll like that strategy just as much.

I don't care what football outsiders or a few dudes with spreadsheets want to tell me as far as their talking points.
Just watch people like Saban and Belichick, and you'll see that most of the time even in short yardage you punt the damn ball and rely on your defense. That's the smart play, the football IQ play. The caveat being you have fielded a defense with a pulse, or a prayer at stopping offenses.
I think Paul was the gambler that he was only because he knew his defense didn't have a prayer. It wasn't a philosophy of his, it was just the only option [] he had.

Just my opinion.

 

[bobongo]

You’re right @bobongo that damn shift into the backfield play so we could run all the time off the play clock & call a timeout was particularly annoying. The couple times I saw it work I was amazed. You had to ask yourself didn’t anyone on the other team watch our game tape?

The one thing I thought had a great chance to work (maybe once or twice, before they caught on) was to act like we're going to do the same old tired thing again and then, with three seconds on the play clock, snap the ball and run the play. They couldn't help but be relaxing a bit on the other side of the ball.

 

[bobongo]

I don't care what football outsiders or a few dudes with spreadsheets want to tell me as far as their talking points.
Just watch people like Saban and Belichick, and you'll see that most of the time even in short yardage you punt the damn ball and rely on your defense. That's the smart play, the football IQ play. The caveat being you have fielded a defense with a pulse, or a prayer at stopping offenses.
I think Paul was the gambler that he was only because he knew his defense didn't have a prayer. It wasn't a philosophy of his, it was just the only option [] he had.

Just my opinion.

Saban. With the talent advantage he had, it wouldn't have mattered much whether he went for it or punted on fourth down, 99% of the time.

But in referring to the "football IQ play", keep in mind that that play changes over time. Dodd had a lot of success punting on third down, but I don't think anyone would go for that now. More and more coaches are discovering that conventionally punting on fourth and short is the statistically inferior option in many cases. The "football IQ play" is changing. Statistics strongly suggest that a change is warranted. And if a coach should rely on his defense, he should also rely on his offense.

Just a guess, but I think a lot of times a coach knows he should go for it, but figuring into his calculations is the fact that if he goes for it and doesn't make it, the fan reaction will be far worse than if he does the conventional, football IQ thing and it doesn't work out.

 

[Animal02]

And times when it won us the game, no doubt. Statistically, going for it on fourth and short will be the wise choice more often than not. I think that's actually been proven. There are no guarantees, but punting on fourth and one is usually dumb IMO, and I don't care how many coaches do it. I've seen this scenario played out a thousand times - fourth and one at midfield, and a punt. It goes into the end zone. Two plays later, the ball is back on the fifty, but this time the other team has the ball.

Punting is especially a bad idea with a weak or tired defense. The thing I hated to see was trying to draw the other team off side. That might have worked a couple of times 50 games ago, but it got old and just cost us a bunch of time outs for nothing.

Pitt-2016.

 

[RonJohn]

The one thing I thought had a great chance to work (maybe once or twice, before they caught on) was to act like we're going to do the same old tired thing again and then, with three seconds on the play clock, snap the ball and run the play. They couldn't help but be relaxing a bit on the other side of the ball.

That was also used to test the defensive alignment. During the Gator Bowl(deep in GT territory), they ran the pull them offsides play, but Kentucky didn't have anyone lined up against the guard that the play was called to run behind. CPJ said that if they weren't going to line anyone up to stop the play, then he wasn't going to call time out and stop it.

 

[bobongo]

Pitt-2016.

Regrettable in hindsight, but had we punted and the game ended up the same, how many would have complained that we didn't go for it? Nobody.

And, we'll never know if punting would have changed the outcome.

 

[Animal02]

Regrettable in hindsight, but had we punted and the game ended up the same, how many would have complained that we didn't go for it? Nobody.

And, we'll never know if punting would have changed the outcome.

I know....it was just one of those times ....the Pitt fans I was sitting next to at the game were impressed with CPJ for going for it

 

[bobongo]

I know....it was just one of those times ....the Pitt fans I was sitting next to at the game were impressed with CPJ for going for it

We had a great shot at making it. Handed off to Mills, the same guy who ran over Kentucky like a Sherman tank. Hats off to Pitt for making the play.

 

[coldbeer]

I was at the 2018 UVA game and the 2015 FSU game. They were both unbelievable but for different reasons.

Things were so bad in 2015 that I tried to give my tickets away to the FSU game but I couldn’t find any takers. Lucky me. To beat a good Criminole team by blocking the extremely dependable Aguayo...that was awesome. The UVA game was like watching a Rocky movie. Back and forth and we came out standing at the end. I’m still scratching my head about the attendance at that game after coming off a big Miami win.


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Why would you give away your home tickets, if you are a GT fan and you could attend the game?

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[coldbeer]

That was also used to test the defensive alignment. During the Gator Bowl(deep in GT territory), they ran the pull them offsides play, but Kentucky didn't have anyone lined up against the guard that the play was called to run behind. CPJ said that if they weren't going to line anyone up to stop the play, then he wasn't going to call time out and stop it.

This.

Often times, they were looking for one particular alignment to run against on 4th down.

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[RickStromFan]

And times when it won us the game, no doubt. Statistically, going for it on fourth and short will be the wise choice more often than not. I think that's actually been proven. There are no guarantees, but punting on fourth and one is usually dumb IMO, and I don't care how many coaches do it. I've seen this scenario played out a thousand times - fourth and one at midfield, and a punt. It goes into the end zone. Two plays later, the ball is back on the fifty, but this time the other team has the ball.

Punting is especially a bad idea with a weak or tired defense. The thing I hated to see was trying to draw the other team off side. That might have worked a couple of times 50 games ago, but it got old and just cost us a bunch of time outs for nothing.

meh, it's all very situational. 4th and 1 at the 50 and up 9+ pts late in the 4th? Punt it and make the opponent use clock to try to score twice to beat you, rather than risking giving them the ball at the 50. 4th and 1 from your own 30 in the 1st qtr? Punt it every single time.

Agreed on wasting timeouts trying to make the other team jump offsides. Just stupid.

 

[GT_05]

Why would you give away your home tickets, if you are a GT fan and you could attend the game?

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If I want to buy tickets and set them on fire then that’s what I’ll do. Are you a season ticket holder? I am. You really shouldn’t question if someone is a fan. That year, I sat through a nice win against Alcorn State then I drove 10 hours to Notre Dame to watch us get a beat down and then watched two more losses at home to UNC and Pitt. The chances of us beating FSU were almost zero. I’m pretty sure that I can give tickets away and still call myself a fan.


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[bobongo]

meh, it's all very situational. 4th and 1 at the 50 and up 9+ pts late in the 4th? Punt it and make the opponent use clock to try to score twice to beat you, rather than risking giving them the ball at the 50. 4th and 1 from your own 30 in the 1st qtr? Punt it every single time.

Agreed on wasting timeouts trying to make the other team jump offsides. Just stupid.

Of course it's situational. That's why I said, "...more often than not". Nobody is for going for it in all situations.