Taking A Knee

[MD Longhorn]

Originally Posted by SamG

Something else I thought of...

If A is leading as time is running out (whether by 1 or by 50) is there really a reason to run a 'fake kneel'? I'm thinking A's coach will be keeping up with how many TO's team B has, how much time on the clock, etc.

The more appropriate situation would be a TIED game, less than a minute to go. THEN a coach may try a fake... team B thinks A is playing for OT & relaxes, A runs the fake and gets the score/big gain to set up the score.

Which still leads to my question about team B players notice the official ISN'T saying A is taking a knee = A has a play on.

I'll tell you EXACTLY how it happened ... or happens.

Team B is completely out of the playoffs. Team A needs to not only win, but win by 8 to win a tiebreaker to make the last slot of the playoffs. A is up by 4 with 30 seconds to go on the B 20. A lines up in victory (and had practiced this all week for EXACTLY this scenario). QB pretends to bobble snap. TE takes one firm step at the snap and pretends to give up on the play, then darts to the right corner as QB throws him the ball - no one on the defense moved.

That one actually happened - I was not there, but we ALL heard about it.

Another plausible scenario would be next year when Team B above plays Team A, and is up by 20 ... and wants payback.

And a far more common possibility would be from your own 40-ish at the end of the HALF. Act like you're taking your 6 pt lead to the locker room, lineup in victory and fake it. This one ACTUALLY happened in the Texas Tech v. Texas game 2 years ago. Unfortunately Mike Leach was unaware that if his QB went toward the ground as if taking a knee, the ball was dead in NCAA. If he'd not have acted as if he was going down, he would have caught Texas completely unaware.