Concerning my Bert thread on the rant (SEC Media Days related)

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I like Arkansas. I'm not sure I like Bert, or rather his opinion about the HUNH.

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Bert's opinion of the HUNH is he likes to play against it. He has a different philosophy he likes better, but his talk about player safety concerns has nothing to do with the HUNH specifically.

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Do I think he truly believes that HUNH is a player safety issue? No.

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He truly believes in the player safety issue he speaks on.

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I think, like Pinkel, Bert has a system and that system is all he knows. Unfortunately, that system is built around a slow Big 10 smash mouth philosophy that may no longer be effective against the HUNH.

Therefore, it's hard for me to believe Bert when he claims he's against the HUNH for safety reasons. I believe he's against the HUNH because his style of play doesn't per for, well against the HUNH.

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Bert's system is what it will take to stop the HUNH, you can HUNH when you are playing defense and do not have the ball. He needs to get his defense into place for it to work, but a solid defense and clock eating offense is the way to beat HUNH teams, not try to outscore them.

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I dont respect his attempts to convince the NCAA to slow down the game so that his style is more competitive. That's not the way to win.

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The HUNH is only effective as it is because of a rule change in 2008 going from the 25 second play clock that the refs would stop the clock, reset the ball, start the clock, etc which allowed enough both sides of the ball to substitute.

The HUNH teams are not running plays within a couple seconds off the play clock, usually the go beyond 10 seconds off of the play clock, hurrying up to the line is an exploitation of this rule change to prevent teams from substituting on defense.

The simple fix would be to change the play clock rules to what they use to be.

Personally, I have not problem if a player feels tired and needs a sub and "cramps" on the field until the trainers and his sub is brought onto the field by the refs, there is no rule against this and it is only an exploitation of the current rules just like hurrying to the line then staring at the sidelines for 15 seconds.

I started this thread so that y'all would know where I was coming from rather than jumping to the conclusion that I was flaming Arkansas, which would be incorrect.

Like Pinkel or any other coach, Bert shouldn't be exempt from criticism.

And, I appreciate Dale's level headed response.

Why are we on this site if we can't debate?

You don't have to sip the Razorback koolaid to remain on this board. You should have had this thread be your OP on the rant. This one is reasoned out to an extent, but your post on the SECr seemed like you were pandering to the Anti-Arkansas brigade and it didn't work.

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I started this thread so that y'all would know where I was coming from rather than jumping to the conclusion that I was flaming Arkansas, which would be incorrect.

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I actually like you a lot as a poster and even I thought your post on the SECr was nothing more than a flame at Arkansas to get the masses riled up.

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Honestly (and feel free to criticize me for this) I didn't realize until today that Bert was staunchly against the HUNH. I knew about Saban...but Bert was a surprise.

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Bert isn't against the HUNH, he is against the way the teams exploit the play clock rule change which prevents subbing fatigued players, hence becoming a player safety concern.

The rule proposal was only one to allow tired player to be subbed out on defense instead of offenses seeing this and forcing the player to remain in the game by rushing to the line after every play.

The way to counteract this is by exploiting the injured player rules, since there is no penalty for a player "cramping up", if you are tired, squat down on the field and "cramp", this will allow you to be subbed out by the refs stopping the game to allow it.

Now, if this is started to be used, HUNH coaches are going to throw a huge bitchfest and call for a change in the rule which means they have a huge problem with tired players being subbed because their offense isn't based around tempo as much as it is fatiguing the opposing players and keeping them in the game.

All the other people on the road <--serious answer.

He was busted for a DUI which we can safely assume wasn't the only time he had been on the road while intoxicated. He was not only endangering himself but the other people on the road. This is not directly related to player safety, but he does lose some credibility.

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I actually like you a lot as a poster and even I thought your post on the SECr was nothing more than a flame at Arkansas to get the masses riled up.

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I feel terrible now.

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He was busted for a DUI which we can safely assume wasn't the only time he had been on the road while intoxicated.

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I believe the statistic is a person gets away driving intoxicated 70 times on average before they are caught once.

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The O'Neal tragedy was an accident. Similar events have happened throughout the sporting landscape. I truly don't think the coaches reacted to that situation differently than most coaching staffs from that time period.

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It does happen, it also happened at Cal not long ago under Dykes.

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I don't think their goal was to push O'Neal to death. Unfortunately it happened.

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I'm not saying it was their goal, however, they obviously have to push their players to the brink to get them conditioned enough to play their style, which should be the first clue it isn't a "no big deal" in regards to player safety.

Look, Nolan had the exact same strategy in his system, push the tempo and wear out the opponent, the different was he would put together a team with 15 guys who could play minutes each game against teams that generally only went 8 deep. He was looking for his depth to beat your depth, if you didn't have depth you were going to get wore out by his depth.

The HUNH philosophy is the exact opposite because the way the game is played. Subs are not allowed on both sides of the ball after a dead ball, after a play is ran a defense can only sub in a manner to avoid a cheap penalty created by the offense if the offense subs, the ref will prevent the ball from being snapped until the defense has time to sub. So, when a defense is tired or, more specifically a player is tired, you see teams lining up preventing him from subbing and running plays right at the tired player which could result in injuring the player in some form. Is this always going to happen? No, but the possibility greatly increases for injury due to this strategy.

Don't be so naive as to say its a made up concern looking for a competitive advantage or that that no player safety concerns exists for defensive players in this scenario.

Then remember a defensive player is exerting more energy on every play, all 11 having to track and stop the ball from advancing on the field, the offense has the advantage of knowing where the ball is going and a WR for example, can ease up on a play going to the opposite sideline while the DB defending him has to sprint 50+ yards on a play to help contain the play, meanwhile a defensive linemen is fighting off 3+ players on every play to stop the ball.