No-huddle can offset NCAA change

Considering the fallout, the NCAA move to speed up college football must be the brainchild of defensive coaches. With the new rules reducing the time the ball is in play by five minutes or so, teams will run fewer plays, maybe 10 or so per game. Can less total offense be far behind? Last year, Arkansas averaged 5.2 yards per play. If the Razorbacks had run 10 fewer plays per game, it would follow that their offense would decline by 52 yards per game. Georgia was the best in the Southeastern Conference in 2005, averaging 6.2 yards per play, and Auburn was next at 6.0. Shortening the game could affect the passing yardage even more than the rushing figures. For instance, a year ago, Georgia and LSU averaged more than 8 yards per pass play and four other league teams topped 7 yards per try. Arkansas was next to last in the SEC, averaging 5.6 yards per pass attempt. The trickle down also could be reflected in individual stats. Arkansas running back Darren McFadden averaged 6.3 yards per rush last year on his way to a freshman record 1,113 yards. If he had one less carry per game, his average would have been 95 yards per game instead of 101.2. Knowing that, will the Arkansas staff go out of its way to make certain that McFadden gets a specific number of carries per game? If so, does somebody else get squeezed? Teams could maintain their plays per game if only there was a way to circumvent those time-wasting 65 or 70 offensive meetings a few yards from the line of the scrimmage. You know the ones where the player with a low number on his jersey tells his teammates what play has been called by coaches on the sideline. Such innovation would need a snappy name - the no-meeting offense or huddle-be-gone. Of course, there is such a thing and it's available to the Razorbacks. "The Hurry-Up, No-Huddle: An Offensive Philosophy," is the name of a book by Gus Malzahn, who is preparing for his first season as Arkansas' offensive coordinator. On page two, he lists game-related goals and No. 1 on that list is speeding up the game. "You can accomplish this goal by snapping the football within five seconds after the referee puts the ball into play," he wrote. "This step can be a challenge if you use a lot of motion in our offense, but it should only cost you a couple of extra seconds." That snappy snap fits nicely with the NCAA decision to start the clock when the ball is ready for play on a change of possession. With college games routinely approaching 3 1-2 hours, the NCAA Football Rules Committee looked at several proposals to shorten the game. The consensus was that other ideas were too drastic. In the book, Malzahn lists a dozen advantages of the hurry-up approach and No. 6 - subtitled, it gives you more offensive snaps - should be highlighted in yellow. "The number of offensive snaps is the most important stat with which you should be concerned," he wrote. There are exceptions - Arkansas led USC 78-67 in snaps last year and trailed in yardage 736-326. Malzahn said that prior to 1996, Shiloh Christian was a ball-control team that averaged about 41 snaps per game. "Once we implemented the hurry-up, no-huddle, we averaged over 60 plays a game, even though we often were running out the clock in the fourth quarter in most of our games," he said. During his first spring with the Razorbacks, Malzahn spent much of his time on the base offense already in place. Little time was devoted to the no-huddle, but he is quoted in Hooten's Arkansas Football as saying that the offense is a philosophy and does not take a long time to implement "as long as you have a good communication system and don't have a lot of working in your offense." He has melded some of his passing schemes and some screen passes into what was in place and more of his shotgun stuff will be added. Everyone wants to know when the entire offense will be in place. Wisely, he refused to be pinned down about a timetable.