NEW YORK (AP) -Who’s got time to worry about time of possession? Not Pete Carroll, Mike Leach, Rich Rodriguez and many other college football coaches.
As offenses have become ever-more reliant on the pass, more capable of breaking off big plays and more likely to skip the huddle and hurry to the line scrimmage, time of possession – often a deceiving statistic – is becoming less and less relevant.
Never was that more apparent than Saturday, when No. 10 Cincinnati and its up-tempo attack jammed four touchdowns into about 16 minutes of possession time during a 28-20 victory against Fresno State.
The week before in the NFL, Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts became the first team since 1977 to win a game while having the ball for less than 15 minutes.
Those are extreme cases, of course. Rarely can a team win if its opponent has the ball more than twice as much.
“Time of possession doesn’t come into play unless it’s 4 minutes left and we’re trying to close out a game,” said Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly, whose high-speed, no-huddle has taken off this season.
The days of 3-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust offense, the type of grind-it-out-football that brings to mind coaches such as Bear Bryant, Bo Schembechler and Woody Hayes, are long gone.
College football now is mostly about passing, with spread offenses and long gains.
The best offenses pick up yards in big chunks and often need little time to get into the end zone. They also get lots of first downs and run lots of plays, which can indeed boost time of possession numbers, but usually that’s just a happy side-effect, not the goal.
Even for a supposedly conservative coach such as Ohio State’s Jim Tressel, whose team only dabbles in no-huddle offense, winning time of possession is not part of his recipe for success.
“We really don’t spend much time with that statistic because it can be skewed by big plays,” he said.
Of the teams ranked in the top 20 nationally in total offense this week, 13 are ranked 50th or lower in time of possession. Auburn ranks fourth in offense and 102nd in time of possession. Cincinnati is 12th in offense and 118th in time of possession.
Heisman Trophy winner Sam Bradford and the Oklahoma offense took doing more in less time to another level last season. The Sooners’ souped-up, no-huddle attack scored a major college record 716 points and ranked 77th in the nation in time of possession.
so reliant on the pass – with every incomplete throw stopping the clock – the Red Raiders rank 94th in time of possession.
Not that Leach cares. To him, ball control is about plays run, first downs and third-down conversions.
Leach said 20 first downs in a game is good target. For plays, he said, “There’s not a magic number but you’d like to have more than your opponents.”
Michigan’s Rodriguez, who has been pushing the pace with his spread offenses for years, said his goal is to make the opposing defense have to defend 80 plays. The less time the defense has to rest between those plays the better.
Missouri’s Gary Pinkel has directed one of the best offenses in the country over the past five years, using an increasingly fast-paced no-huddle with players such as Chase Daniel and Jeremy Maclin.
“I used to be a real big time-of-posession coach, but that isn’t our offense anymore,” he said.
Carroll’s USC offense only goes no-huddle in the 2-minute drill, but time of possession isn’t on his radar, either.
“I think it’s a really a misleading number,” Carroll said. “For teams that run the ball a lot it’s really a significant accomplishment.
“It depends on the style. If your a team that expects to dominate with the running game time of possession might be important. We’re not really trying to do that.”
antage and hoping to narrow the gap by bleeding the clock and decreasing the number of possessions in the game.
Navy and Air Force, triple-option teams that run far more than pass, have used that blueprint for years. Army has gone back to it, too, this season. All three rank in the top 10 in time of possession, with offenses that range from mediocre (Air Force ranks 40th in the nation) to poor (Army is 99th).
“It depends on your people,” Penn State coach Joe Paterno said. “If you don’t have that big-play potential or your defense isn’t quite as good, you hug the ball and play possession.”
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