In depth article on the effects of the cut-blocking rule change

18in32

18in32

Petard Hoister
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Hat tip to the fellow poster (you know who you are) who alerted me to this interesting article...

https://www.sbnation.com/college-fo...t-block-rule-army-navy-air-force-georgia-tech

There's some early evidence that the rule change has had a particular effect on option teams, which is no surprise. Also good to read that there's some momentum building to revoke the rule, which would be good.

Without clear evidence that cut blocking downfield is more likely to lead to injuries than other kinds of blocking, they should have never passed the rule to begin with.

EDIT: The article also links to a change.org petition you can sign to persuade the NCAA to revoke the rule. Already got 1,300 signatures.
 
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I noticed several uncalled downfield cuts, on both sides, when I attended the MTSU/UGAg game this past weekend. I suppose some refs will see it, some won't

My opinion is they ought to also eliminate below the waist tackling downfield if they eliminate downfield below the waist blocking
 
Stats seem a little suspect at first glance. GT average penalties have increased from 4 to 5 per game, but as far as I can remember, we've only had 1 or 2 penalties in 3 games related to the new blocking rules. A lot of our increase in average penalties is more obviously traceable to a couple of iffy targeting calls against USF (a game in which we had a disproportionate number of flags against us) and a couple of bogus late hit calls against Pitt. We haven't really started getting a lot of blocking penalties all of a sudden.

JRjr
 
JJacket said:
I noticed several uncalled downfield cuts, on both sides, when I attended the MTSU/UGAg game this past weekend. I suppose some refs will see it, some won't

My opinion is they ought to also eliminate below the waist tackling downfield if they eliminate downfield below the waist blocking
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I bet they'll see it a lot more against teams like us who are "noted" for using cut blocks, versus teams that don't have that reputation (but of course do it, although to a lesser extent).

Ironically, the only low-hit injury I can even remember at the moment was Kirvonte getting tackled low and going out for the year. Maybe there's something to that "if you can't block low, why can you tackle low?" thing, although I can see how it would be really hard to enforce a low-tackle ban. (How do you quantify the difference between a "dive at the knees" tackle and a "grabbed him by the foot" tackle?)

JRjr
 
vapspwi said:
How do you quantify the difference between a "dive at the knees" tackle and a "grabbed him by the foot" tackle?

JRjr
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Why wouldn't they both be illegal under a 'no low tackles' ban? And why ban low tackles downfield but not at the LOS?

Seriously, why do any of this without some clear cut evidence that it's particularly dangerous? I mean, football is an inherently dangerous sport.
 
goldmember said:
There larger impact is not the penalties but missed or ineffective blocks based on the new rules.
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Agreed... but that would be very difficult to establish or quantify for comparison purposes.
 
vapspwi said:
I guess he’s trying to use the “success rate” to get at that?

JRjr
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That would have only a very attenuated correlation to what he's trying to measure. There's all sorts of reasons plays work or don't.
 
I know. So the effect is going to be very hard to quantify, especially with only a small data set.

JRjr
 
Deke said:
I'm probably just being dumb here, but why would a defensive lineman be blocking (cut or otherwise) a tight end?
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Sometimes on a stunt or blitz, a lineman's job is to essentially block out the offensive lineman and allow another d lineman, linebacker or defensive back to come through the gap into the backfield.
 
vapspwi said:
Stats seem a little suspect at first glance. GT average penalties have increased from 4 to 5 per game, but as far as I can remember, we've only had 1 or 2 penalties in 3 games related to the new blocking rules. A lot of our increase in average penalties is more obviously traceable to a couple of iffy targeting calls against USF (a game in which we had a disproportionate number of flags against us) and a couple of bogus late hit calls against Pitt. We haven't really started getting a lot of blocking penalties all of a sudden.

JRjr
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As visiting team in both of these games, didn't we bring refs? Maybe we need to pay the refs better after we school them better on our blocking style? Or since both teams were ACC, does it matter?
 
This rule definitely seemed to be targeted at option teams, IMO.

Seems to me that cut blocking on the line would be way more likely to result in injury, especially since accidental chops usually occur there. The only explanation I can think of not to ban it outright is that everyone cuts on the line to get DLs hands down and prevent pursuit. Seems like if the real motivation is for player safety, they'd get rid of it altogether.
 
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