UNC Football: Slowing Fed-Ex

Penalties, missing players, bad execution, and bad play calling all had plenty to do with UNC’s loss at Wake Forest but there was also something else. This article is not to focus on WFU but the focus of this article was very clear Saturday. I would like to point out something else Heels fans may have noticed and better get use to. Simply put
opposing defenses “sitting down on the job.”

Photo Credit: US Presswire

It is never popular to boo injured players, it isn’t even recommended to question injured players lest you be thought of as insensitive or just a plain jerk. But college football has the same problem that was extremely prominent in the NFL last year. In case you haven’t figured it out yet I am talking about the practice of defensive players “acting” injured in order to slow down offenses that run at a break neck speeds. There is nothing that frustrates spread speed offenses more yet with no enforceable rules in place there is little to do about it.

Watching live Saturday in Winston Salem I thought a futbol game had broken out where a football game was supposed to be taking place. Nine times on Saturday WFU defensive players went down to the ground causing the need for the injury time out. Only one time in the game did the player not return (N. Whitlock) and most returned within two or three plays. It was all too apparent what was happening and I wasn’t the only one that noticed, I heard multiple UNC and WFU fans pointing out the tactic.

The WFU fans were actually laughing as they pointed out that their players were slowing down the UNC offense almost to a crawl. Even after the weather delay you as fans may have noticed that the game itself took much longer than a normal game. You would be right, the game lasted almost thirty minutes longer than the average televised college
football game and the defensive tactic of stalling was certainly why.

There is a rule against such tactics both in college and NFL football however it is a judgement call that most officials are not willing to make. The penalty is delay of game it is a 5 yard penalty. Clearly that isn’t punitive enough especially if your cornerback is too tired to catch Erik Highsmith on a deep route down the middle. For coaches the option is chance a 5 yard penalty that is almost never called or a 40 yard reception. As far as the officials go, they clearly don’t want to be the guy throwing the flag while a player is down on the field. Even in games like Saturday when it is fairly obvious what is happening there is a clear reluctance because well what if the guy is really hurt.

So Heels fans coaches that go up against the Fed-Ex express will certainly have to do their homework and scheme to stop some dynamic players playing in a system that is meant to showcase their talent. (Trust me for all the problems Saturday coaches around the ACC are still very aware of how dangerous this offense can be.) However,with all the schemes and personnel packages they put together to stop Fed-Ex they may still deem it won’t be enough. Most defensive players are conditioned to play offenses that run 60 or so plays a game because that is what they see all week from their first team offense.

We know Larry Fedora wants to run 80 plus plays and so Heels fans brace yourself for a lot more of what you saw Saturday, opposing defenses out of gas and just taking a seat. As long as Larry Fedora is on the sideline I expect it to be part of opposing coaches game plans because number one it is hard to police and two it is extremely effective. That doesn’t mean we have to like it and who knows maybe they will figure out how to penalize it effectively at some point during the Fed-Ex era.