There has been a lot discussion about VT players going down against FSU, and then returning the next series. Most of it has been about if the players were actually hurt, or if FSU fans were bad for booing. But to me there are deeper questions here, and I'd your take.
As Herbie pointed, going down is not against the rules, but he described it as dirty play. Kinda like cut blocks by GT? Or is it not dirty if it is not a safety issue? Was it dirty when the FSU punter flopped to try to get a call?
The hurry-up offenses are designed to tire a defense, and prevent them from subbing, as a strategy. Is stalling acceptable as a counter strategy? If a defensive player is to tired to play effectively, is it fair to force them to stay on the field and risk injury by not giving them time to sub off? If a player feels to hot, dizzy, thirsty, or whatever else, to be able to go on, wouldn't it be in the student athletes best interest to let them get off the field and rest? Do we really need something like what happened at UMD practice happen to talk about the risk factors of a hurry-up offense?
If players do go down, and fake a cramp to get off the field, or have a real one, do fans boo because the other team is countering their strategy? If we really dislike the chin-balls offense for player safety, should we applaud the fake injury as a counter-strategy to the hurry-up? Do fans boo when they think players are faking because of dislike for the strategy, or because they think football is no place for the flopping in soccer, QB hits, basketball charges, near missed on kickers, etc.?
Lastly, if you were the coach, would you have your players do it to win a big game?
Comments
I hate them when the opponent uses them. I'm disappointed when we use them. But I know I will be talking about this win wayyyy longer than a faked injury.
I actually just ran into my coworker who was at the game (FSU Fan) he complained about it. I mean I can see us cramping up in the heat/humidity whatever but the Burke one was an absolutely awful look no matter what actually happened. I'm definitely against falling over to slow the opposition, if you're going to fall over to avoid a penalty cause you're not going to make it back to the line on time I guess that's just using the rules to your advantage.
I've watched the Xavier Burke injury.
Here's the replay of the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAv_C31RGKw
At 56:19 Burke goes down at the start of the play. At 56:32 you see him hobbling/limping to get lined up. To me he obviously got hurt or was cramping from the last play.
He lines up and looks completely slow on the next play. The coaches know he is fighting through pain, which if you can't get off the field, go down and let the staff help you off.
I spent about 20 minutes going through the film, and Burke doens't come back into the game until the next change of possession, and he is replaced by Hewitt for the rest of the game.
I don't see how this could be faked or how losing a starter helps us.
This is a great find... at 56:19 Burke can't even get out of his stance and goes to the ground at the snap, then gingerly lumbers to new LOS and next play he's at maybe 50%, then goes down. To call this a flop is total BS. The dude was hurt and trying to gut it out.
Burke only played 11 snaps in the game due to his "fake" injury. I guess Fu wanted to carry the fake out as long as possible.
At 40:40 Burke has his first injury to his ankle.
EDIT
He was the victim of an illegal block. Look, he engaged his man high and the TE goes low on him and fucks up his ankle.
BOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! /s
It was #69 Dickerson, the RT diving at the side of his legs while he was engaged up high. As I understand it, this is a legal play, and was a rule that Paul Johnson lobbied for.. if the defender initiates the contact up high with a blocker, they can still be cut block by another player...
Really? Wow.
Anyway it was hard to tell if it was a RT or TE because those Unis make depth perception difficult.
Pretty sure all high/low blocks are illegal, no matter which happens first.
An offensive lineman can "cut block" - hitting below the waist, but no one can hit the DL up high.
Edit: The contact is simultaneous, and Burke may have initiated the contact on the guard. I'm not sure if that is a penalty or not. My dad has 20+ years of officiating experience - I sent it to him to review.
According the this post: https://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2018/8/30/17472936/block-below...
The block on Burke was illegal.
Yep. I provided the same summary after the game when people were discussing it in the FAM thread. It looks bad in isolation but if you take the 2 minutes to review the sequence leading up to it, it's pretty damn apparent that he was suffering from an injury. Unfortunately most people are perfectly willing watch a 5 second clip on Twitter, read a chain email, or hear something at the water cooler and take that as 100% verifiable truth.
At this point, Burke's injury has been brought up in nearly every FSU related thread and someone has given the additional context necessary to judge the play. Frankly I see no excuse for Hokies on TKP to continue to be ignorant about this and make statements about our players faking injuries unless they are able to produce contradictory evidence.
This need to go plaid.
I really appreciate this analysis, as well as the similar reviews done by others. I also really appreciate this thread and Kville for posting it. It was easy watching the game to get the wrong impression, and I'm glad that a lot of other Hokies were a little uncomfortable with it as well. Win or lose, I've always believed in the lunch pail, and like to think we really are the good guys.
i think only one was fake...the rest were legit in my opinion
Based on what? Imagine being Xavier Burke and coming on here and reading your own fans buying into this bullshit. Come on.
Read the comment above yours or go to Andy Bitter's twitter feed, read his comments and watch the video. Burke had been injured (in fact, by an illegal block) a couple plays prior and had been trying to gut it out.
It isn't against the rules it is just frowned upon. Tech let FSU run the hurry up several times without doing it. I think the key is, if you know your personnel on the field is not set up for the current offensive set...maybe you have a player go down. Bottom line is no one can definitively say any player was faking an injury. Now, it looked pretty obvious with Burke, but we still will never know the true details.
I don't like it, personally, but it is effective and not against any rule. I would hate it if it was done against us and I don't blame FSU fans one bit for being upset. The helmet-to-helmet collision of Walker and Flloyd that received boos got me a bit upset, but the rest was fair game.
I think what you said about a player being gassed is probably the most logical excuse we may never have the pleasure of hearing. Athletes suffer from heat exhaustion all the time, they need to get out of the game ASAP if that is truly the case.
It's a red herring. You give the benefit of the doubt to the player, especially in the early season that they have an injury. Injury can mean a whole host of things in football, some are easily recoverable (1 or 2 plays) and some are season ending and everywhere in between. But to think that it was purposely part of VTs game plan is laughable.
No injury, whether "fake" or not prevented FSU's offense from executing.
I think it's something that definitely happens but has minimal actual impact and is something that you only cry about when you lose and are too afraid to face the real reasons for your loss.
hokiegirl wins this thread!
Shut it down and lock this thread, Joe!
You know it's bad when a Florida fan is telling you to score more points.
I'd like to see video evidence of 3 plays before and 3 plays after of player not being tweaked on a play before he went down and video after of him running right back on the field.
It's such a gray area because the referees can't just decide when an injury is real or not. You also can't just run start running plays with a defensive player laying in the backfield because you think he's faking a leg cramp. I think it's poor gamesmanship if done purposely to stop a well-oiled, up-tempo offense. However, I don't think this should've even been a side story to this game. It takes away from the defensive performance we had. It's a shame that Kirk and Fowler (and of course the FSU fans) started making vague assumptions for why FSU's widely dysfunctional offense wasn't humming.
Why is it that the tactic of an offense rushing to the line of scrimmage to try and prevent substitutions not seen as dirty play? If that's a key part of an offense's strategy, I think defenses should have some sort of way to counter that.
If an offense substitutes, the officials will stand over the ball and prevent the center from snapping it until the defense can sub. Not giving the defense a chance to sub when the offense isn't subbing doesn't seem inherently unfair to me.
This happened several times. An FSU WR came onto the field and usually lined up in a twins or trips formation near the FSU sideline. The Umpire was over the ball for several seconds after the sub. However, you would have to really be paying attention to catch this and react very quickly (if reacting was your plan). Seems just as questionable as "faking" and injury to slow the game down.
Even tried to do it late once in a bunch set near their sideline...they got flagged for that one though.
that was actually the play after a long gain by them. the opportune time we would "fake injuries"
First thought: Are you saying that they lined up from off the field without going to the huddle? Because as I understand it, that's not a legal substitution. I thought the rules were that all offensive players have to be in the huddle.
Second thought: I hadn't really considered how that works if there's no huddle for the player to go to. I find it hard to believe, though, that a player can just walk a few feet on the field and be lined up right next to their sideline. Do they have to get inside the hashes or something?
Third thought: I've always wondered if, after a play, someone exits the field surreptitiously, and the huddle is convened with ten players. One player runs in, ostensibly to bring in the play, and one player sprints out towards the sideline (as if he's leaving the field of play), stopping short of the sideline on the field, and runs his route. In theory, all eleven players would have broken the huddle. It would just look like a substitution. Thoughts on the legality of that?
you are not forced to huddle there for players do not have to join said huddle if your team doesn't huddle on that play. you can sub from the line in that case, you cannot break the huddle and then make a sub. pre huddle any subs can be made (pre huddle also being NO HUDDLE)
Up tempo offenses try to use pace to get an advantage on the defense. Going down interrupts that pace. It's a chess match between offense and defense. If there offense can set pace, so can the defense. If an offense can only win by playing up tempo, they have an exploitable weakness, and it would be did l stupid for a defensive coordinator to not exploit that weakness.
To me, this is a little different than flopping in soccer. You aren't doing it to try to get a penalty on the opponent, you're doing it to control the tempo of the game. That's fair game.
On the other hand, if Fuente tries to push tempo this season at any point and an opposing defense does the same to us, that's fair game. You can't have it both ways.
Eh. I think it's the same as in soccer. You're trying to gain an advantage over the opponent. Soccer players do it to slow down the game as well, not just to draw a whistle.
I don't like it in any sport, personally.
I think it is similar to a batter stepping out of the box to disrupt a pitcher's pace. Or the pitcher stepping off the rubber to effect a batter or base runner.
Or a football coach calling timeout right before a FG attempt is snapped.
In that case, they're at least giving up something of value for the stoppage.
Mike London begs to differ. His timeouts didn't appear to be worth much of anything.
In the Burke case, you are giving up a player for a down. Burke, as a relief player, forced a starter who played the majority of the snaps back into the game. It is not like VT has two Hopkins, and a Maddy on the bench.
Literally don't care. If your offense is so gimmicky it can be stopped by defensive players cramping up, you need a better offense. Also, it seriously cracks me up to hear so many Nolies complaining about how much we 'cheated' when they routinely pull this kinda crap in recruiting...
To be fair, most high school seniors drive Lamborghini's.
LeBron could only get a hummer. he must have only been a 4* either that or john calipari was waiting for a reup that weekend.
To a high school kid, a hummer and a Lamborghini might actually be of comparable value.
the car was paid for by bleacherreport or some other also-ran college football recruiting service trying to be 247 or Rivals and get a scoop on Laborn's commitment.
Honestly, I'm okay with since it's within the rules. I'm also okay with coaches going after refs (ala Narduzzi or Bielema) in an effort to influence their decisions. This is all just gamesmanship; its a way to influence your opponent's mental game (side note - highly recommend the book Winning Ugly - it's all about how gamesmanship can be used in tennis, but a lot of the comments can be applied to other sports too).
If administrators want to curb this behavior, than add a rule for it (like when the NCAA started allowing flags to be thrown on coaches). If your defender goes down, he must sit out X number of plays.
After what happened at Maryland, the NCAA would be beyond stupid to even attempt to implement a rule that actively encourages players to "play through the pain" when they are on the verge of physical exhaustion.
As with almost all parts of life, it is very hard to get inside the head of the player (For ease of reference and in no way related to anything else, we'll call the player Burke). Impossible to tell in the moment if Burke had a small cramp or turned quickly and got light-headed to the point of feeling dizzy. From the sidelines and TV booth, no one will ever be able to tell if those types of small injuries exist. As was stated in one of the other threads, coaches have routinely told players that if these things happen, to go down, and let the trainers help. It is not the players responsibly, when presumably injured, to get off the field. It is a safety issue in this case and would subject the players to an increase risk of further harm.
That being said, the rule certainly lends itself to be taken advantage of - especially with up tempo offenses. Unfortunately, and not just Burke, I'm talking across all of CFB, it feels like this is a rapidly growing percentage of "injuries"
It comes down to two things. 1) Is fatigue a legitimate injury or simply a suck it up, you're unprepared, competitive advantage. (almost always should be the latter, a little too "everybody gets a trophy" if it isn't IMO). 2) What remedies exist to prevent unnecessary stoppages? As stated before there's no way to evaluate injuries on a case by case basis before the trainers go out. that being the case, all injuries, no matter how severe, must be treated the same. that's to say, If a flop costs a timeout, so should an ACL tear (Extreme example but the principle holds). In that regard, there is no way to prevent this type of "play" by Burke without sacrificing some level of player safety as it stands now. Players would play through injuries if flopping was a personal foul or cost a time out or whatever the deterrent was.
Given the current issues football has with other injuries, no committee in its right mind would pass a rule if there was a chance, however small, it would endanger players. The flopping will unfortunately continue. Is it unsportsmanlike or immoral? Maybe. But if using a trick formation within the bounds of the rules can count as strategy, why can't using the injury timeout rules to your advantage too. Burke has every right to go down and stop play. If that was his decision or the coaches it shouldn't matter. It's legal and people need to learn that's it's going to be a part of football for the near future.
(Obviously this all just my two cents)
EDIT: A lot of what I said has been said above in the time it took me type this all out
Fans boo because they think the hurry up is designed to tire a defense out and create an advantage for the offense. A player allowing that pause to have the defense rest or get other personnel on the field is taking away that perceived advantage.
The way I see it:
1. It can force players who are injured to try to play through it when they should just fall on the field.
2. The game is about creating advantages and exploiting them sometimes. If you're going to boo a "fake injury", you should boo when the offense targets a size/experience mismatch between WR/DB.
3. You never really know when someone is injured. Playing it safe is better than assuming they aren't injured.
4. If the referees buy what you're selling, that's on them. Sell it all you can. Does it upset me? Yes. What I hate even more is a phantom call.
I don't like when it happens. I will even admit that, live, some of ours seemed suspect. But I will have harsh words with ANYONE, to include Hokies, that boos a fucking college kid while they're down. In fact, I did have words with any FSU alum in earshot after they did it multiple times.
The fact that this is causing so many people to get bent out of shape, after the heals of the Maryland player's death, and all that we are beginning to understand about head injuries, makes me believe that fans don't really give two shits about the well-being of the players
The fact that thousands of FSU fans were booing Ricky Walker and Reggie Floyd when both were down with head injuries says everything you need to know about that piece of shit fanbase.
Oh, you didn't realize they had suffered a head injury when you started booing? Tough shit. That's the risk you take when you boo players for getting hurt. You end up exposing your lack of character.
That would never happen at Lane. Sure, we'd have select douchebags throughout the stadium booing. But they'd probably be told to shut up and show some respect by Tech fans around them. You might hear some faint booing on TV. But I'm proud to say that there's no way Lane would ever be roaring with boos the way Doak was while two opponents lay on the ground holding their heads.
Made this exact argument vociferously with lots of colorful language in the thick of the FSU alumni section before having to leave to salvage a friendship.
I had a similar conversation with the fans around me, but I managed to keep it a civil difference of opinion.
Weeeeeeeeeeell...I wish I could say the same, but that ass pocket will get after ya.
Lest they forget the amazing corner back of theirs "passing out" in lane stadium a while ago. It happens. It's part of the game. Wouldn't be a discussion if they won. Just like the hurricane rain only fell on unc not us... 🙄
I think it's wrong to assume players are faking injuries. I'd rather just assume they're actually hurt than risk being a grown man booing a kid who is hurt.
Oh man! You beat my 3 seconds!
Bud categorically said after the game they were not faking, that's all I need to hear. Moving on!
I want to give our players the benefit of the doubt (which I do, with the possible exception of the Burke sitchy and when Trevon went down after the long Akers run) - there were several mitigating factors in all this. The game was at Doak, so any perceived gamesmanship was going to be roundly vilified; the Walker-Ashby collision was a truly scary moment for both players, but got lumped into the "VT players are flopping" narrative; and we now have Taggart openly accusing us of flopping, which is an unforeseen wrinkle since major-program college football coaches don't usually stand up and whine "but they cheated!" TWO DAYS after the game. But I digress.
What I will say is "what if the situation were reversed?"
I have a feeling that our fans wouldn't be openly booing their players (at least not in the disgusting numbers FSU's fans were). And I know for certain that CJF wouldn't go on the record as saying "FSU's players flopped - no fair."
BUT. If that shit happened to us, multiple times, at reeeeally opportune times, by them, in Lane, on national tv? I can picture this fan base having a big problem with it. And I think anyone who says they'd be cool with it happening to their team because "hey, it's not illegal" is either way more circumspect than 99.9% of the sports fans I know - or they're pulling your leg. (Please don't come at me with the weather - North Florida has got nothing on Blacksburg with regards to summer heat, humidity etc.)
Gotta be honest: in my opinion, it wasn't a great look. Not because I think our players flopped, but because most everyone who isn't a Hokie thinks they did. Perception is reality here.
Luckily for us, perception doesn't change the scoreboard.
This whole thing is silly. Not what you wrote, which is very well done, but this blown up excuse for why the scoreboard didn't reflect what everyone thought it would.
"Perception" in the age of social media is just another word for propaganda. I'm bored with it already.
This wouldn't even be a thing if FSU scored points on those drives or won the game. They didn't, so it's "flopping". I hate coaches who blame something other than not having their team prepared.
Re: Burke, I suggest you go to the 56:19 mark in this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAv_C31RGKw amd watch him collapse out of his stance and the previous play and still try to battle the OL. Fowler and Herbstriet were wrong about this situation, we should give huge respect to Burke and his never quit spirit.
Good commentary Too Druck.
I will have to disagree on the whole perception/reality thing though...although I do get where you are coming from.
Who gives a damn what the FSU fans think about the alleged flopping? I don't. I actually enjoy seeing them pissed off. I also don't give a damn what ESPN thinks either.
It's clear the team and coaches didn't listen to what everyone's perception was of the team was going into the year with the "whole whoa is me we are depleted thinking" that all of us had going into the game...myself included. And because of that an asswhooping happened for FSU Monday night.
Reality is FSU was beat handily Monday night by a group of young talented player. They were severely out coached in all aspects. Screw the perception...why give other fans and the media all that control over over our emotions? Let's enjoy Monday night.
Imagine your brand new head coach publicly making soft excuses like this after getting dominated in his first game.
Oh sure FSU fans... 'hey lets fake injuries to our top 2 players on second down so we can be off the field for third down'. (actually 4th down)
I was trying to think of a case where the offense would want to see the game down by "faking" an injury and came up with to allow more time for a video review (by officials or the team prior to throwing a challenge flag). I'm just curious how this would be precieved.
I don't mind it but I also don't mind when James Harden or Neymar flop to get a foul call.
As far as GT's cut blocks go, those are unnecessarily dangerous IMO.
I mean I get them booing for a couple of them simply because of timing. I would do the same.
The bigger issue for me is that there is no way for a defensive player to sub out if he is beyond normal gassed or minor-ly injured other than this. If he tries to hobble off he risks the penalty. There needs to be a way for the guy to hobble to the sidelines waving like a fair catch or something to let someone come on for him so he doesn't have to fake anything.
Bingo. It's likely that Burke was so wore out he was at the point of hyperventilating and did not think he could get back to the line of scrimmage. Is this an injury? I would say that if your production drops below 50% you could consider this a reason to medically be asked to be taken off the field. We've all reached a point of exhaustion where we physically could not continue. Why try to force it? Sit your ass down and have someone get you off the field. There's no point in barely making it back to the line only to drop on the ground and be at the bottom of a pile when you're already physically exerted to the point you can't function. Grey area at best, but what else is he supposed to do? The video evidence is there to assert this.
My take: Did FSU run plays prior to the injury? Did FSU run plays after the injury? If all you have is up-tempo offense with mediocre output, look to improve your offense.
I understand using tempo and personnel packages to keep the defense reeling, but does he really think that if VT had not taken an injured player off the field that it would mean an instant 7 on every drive a player got hurt?
No injuries were fakes on the play where their receiver dropped a ball in the endzone in the first quarter, no injury faked when our Defense ran down your 5 start RB to prevent a TD, no injury faked resulted in half your plays going for negative yards or a loss.
Even if the debate was that Burke was not injured, who else was "faking" it? If someones head collides with Ricky Walker, you are damn sure gonna feel it.
Get em'
#selfplug
"3 point offense":
FSU got smoked and the coach now looks like a big whiner. Now we beat them before, during and after the game. Talking shit on the field is also unethical, I guess they should stop that too. Taggart just gave every future opponent a freebie into how to get into their heads. Get ready for a bunch more laying on the field. If I'm an FSU fan, I'm pissed about this complaint.
Several things here:
Was it a bad look that Burke looked over to the sideline and then went down? Yes, absolutely. But it's amazing to me that no one mentioned that coaches always yell at players to go down if they appear to be hurt so as to not exacerbate their issue. Someone probably did yell his name and tell him to stop. It was irksome that the announcers and most commentators haven't even noted that he was already treated once in the game for an injury and, as Andy Bitter pointed out, was cramping so badly he couldn't even get out of his stance on that series. Same for T. Hill. Cramping happens against tempo teams in the first game of the year across college football, regardless of heat, and it's a legitimate injury. Faking happens, and I'm not a big fan though it's not illegal or unethical per se, but this seems like a lot of sour grapes.
Now, I certainly wouldn't put it past Bud Foster to engage in some gamesmanship. But we've played Syracuse, WVU, UNC, ECU, Oklahoma State, etc. in recent years, several of whom run a faster tempo than FSU and we've beaten, and I don't remember players taking dives in those games. And FSU only ran 63 plays- tempo in and of itself was not the issue. So I don't see a reason to change strategies.
Also, Herbstreit saying Foster was acting unethically was a bridge too far. He's prone to hyperbole (the reason I stopped listening to his podcast midway through last year) but that was especially bad considering they (and other commentators outside of Bitter) failed to mention FSU fans booing VT players who were clearly legitimately hurt.
Regarding Taggart's comments, we had players going down all over the place. Was Walker's hyperextended knee faking too? To say it happened in any particular pattern is simply confirmation bias.
As for GT's offense, I have no problem with teams running the flexbone/triple option or cut blocking. But to my eyes Paul Johnson's offense engages in more blatant holds, chop blocks, and late cut blocks than any other team that runs that offense.
Finally, to address one thing I've seen from FSU fans- yes, you can recover from cramps and relatively quickly. And they can reoccur. Ya idgits.