‘You’re doing nothing illegal’: How coaches find and use rule loopholes

During every walk-through before Oregon games, coach Dan Lanning and Ducks players review an important and specific set of plays, broadly and innocuously labeled: “College football situations.” Some plays stay the same and some are added.

Oregon staff members collect examples from around the football universe and watch the film of how the plays unfold. Then, Ducks players and coaches rehearse, hoping preparation will pay off but mindful that the right time might never come.

“The amount of different situations you work week to week that never really show up, whether it’s intentionally taking a safety or whatever that might be, you spend an ungodly amount of time on it,” Lanning told ESPN three days after the Ohio State game. “Then, you hope that you recognize it in the moment where you can have a chance to execute things.”

The recognition came in one of the most important moments of Oregon’s 32-31 win over Ohio State on Oct. 12. Ohio State had driven the ball to Oregon’s 43-yard line with 10 seconds left, but faced third-and-25. Realistically, the Buckeyes had time for two or maybe three plays. After an Oregon timeout, the Ducks came out with 12 defenders.

Despite Ohio State coach Ryan Day and others on the sideline pointing out the extra defender, the Buckeyes threw a pass to Jeremiah Smith that Oregon’s Jabbar Muhammad swatted away. Oregon was flagged for illegal substitution, but four seconds had elapsed. On the ensuing play, Ohio State quarterback Will Howard was forced to scramble and slid too late as the clock expired, giving Oregon a massive win.

A Power 4 assistant who saw the play texted Lanning: Be honest, did you do that on purpose?

“He sent me back a wink emoji,” the assistant said.

The Lanning loophole sparked national reaction and, four days later, was closed by a new NCAA rules interpretation on how to handle 12-man penalties at the end of each half. Under the new policy, Ohio State would have had the option to take the penalty and have the clock reset to the time of the snap. But the outcome of the game didn’t change.

The Oregon 12-man situation wasn’t the first time — nor will it be the last — when a team capitalized on a vulnerable part of the rule book. Coaches are always seeking situations where they can gain the upper hand at critical moments in games. Officials also must be on alert for intentional actions that can impact games.

“We all have stuff like that,” a Power 4 coach said. “You’re doing nothing illegal. You’re just taking the rule and saying, ‘OK, if we ever get put in that situation …’ You’ve got to be smart enough to do it. You have to have enough clarity to call it and do it and believe the guys are actually going to get it executed, and know that the referees are going to get it right. It’s the rule’s fault; it’s not the coach’s fault.

“If you tell me the speed limit’s 65 [miles an hour] and you’re not going to ticket me until 65, then I’m going to drive 64.”

Steve Shaw’s phone wouldn’t stop ringing in the hours after Oregon’s win over Ohio State. Everyone wanted to talk to Shaw, the national coordinator of football officials, about the Ducks’ 12-man penalty.

“What seemed apparent by Monday morning, there was a buzz going on in coaching circles,” Shaw told ESPN. “My guess is people were going to say, ‘Hey, great technique. Let’s put it in our arsenal.'”

Shaw had “no qualms” with the way the play was officiated on the field. Illegal substitution penalties happen somewhat regularly and are often a product of sideline chaos. If Oregon had sent out 12 defenders on consecutive plays, Shaw and other officiating sources who spoke to ESPN said an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty would have been called for an “unfair act.” A 15-yard penalty would have put Ohio State comfortably in field goal range.

The concern, one Shaw often hears in his role on the NCAA football rules committee, is that a penalty should never provide an advantage for the offending team. So there was urgency to step in and prevent the loophole from being exploited again.

“People say, ‘Y’all changed the rules,’ and we really didn’t,” Shaw said. “We really are basing it in the rules that we have today, but using it as an interpretation.”

The NCAA also had a precedent with a similar time-killing objective, but a different scheme. In a 2017 game featuring Cal and North Carolina, Cal led 35-24 with 17 seconds left and UNC at the Bears’ 12-yard line. As the Tar Heels looked to the end zone, Cal defenders intentionally pulled down UNC wide receivers after the snap. Penalty flags flew, but six seconds went off the clock.

On the ensuing snap, the Bears’ defenders did the same thing and five more seconds ticked away. UNC ended up scoring but no time remained and Cal had a 35-30 win.

“They didn’t put any more time on the clock, so we eventually ran out of time,” Larry Fedora, North Carolina’s coach at the time, told ESPN. “It was within the rules, because that’s the way the rules were set up at that time.”

Fedora, who had been involved with the football rules committee, immediately began communicating with officials about the sequence. Days later, the NCAA announced a rules interpretation that would allow officials to assess unsportsmanlike conduct penalties and reset the game clock following “intentional fouls.”

“You’re fouling purposely and you’re getting a big advantage,” Shaw said. “And because that’s an observable act, those were blatant holds, then we converted to unsportsmanlike conduct. In this [Oregon-Ohio State] situation, many times, teams put 12 on the field totally by accident. They don’t want to do it, but personnel gets goofed up or whatever. In season, it would be very difficult to create a new rule, but we’re really leveraging off that other [Cal-North Carolina] play, where the defense is creating a foul to give them a clock advantage.”

When Fedora watched the end of the Oregon-Ohio State game, his mind immediately went back to the 2017 game against Cal.

“They played within the rules,” Fedora said of Oregon. “They just took advantage of a loophole that not a lot of people would have been aware of. Some of the opportunities never come up, but when it does, are you going to be prepared? You’ve got to give Dan Lanning and his staff credit.”

As Bowling Green prepared to face Minnesota in the 2023 Quick Lane Bowl, Falcons coach Scot Loeffler heard from a coach at another school about a special teams play that would capitalize on a “legit loophole.”

The play called for the offense to switch from a traditional formation into a scrimmage-kick set — in this case, a punt formation. Rules prohibit defenses from placing a down lineman within the frame of the long snapper, to protect the snapper, who has his head down. A foul would result in a 5-yard penalty.

“This is brilliant,” Loeffler said to himself.

He checked with several “high-end [game] officials,” primarily to ensure that he could legally execute the play.

“They said it’s absolutely legal and the minute that you do it, if it’s executed, we’ll have to make a rule change,” Loeffler told ESPN. “Just listening to the voices of the people that I talked to, they wanted it to occur so they could change the rule, because it’s a loophole.”

Loeffler also informed the game officials, from the American Athletic Conference, of what he planned to do if the situation arose.

“It was dead silent,” Loeffler recalled. “They go, ‘We’ve got to call our supervisor.'”

The AAC officials came back and said if they saw the formation change, they would make a verbal command to Minnesota’s nose guard. Down 30-17 with 5:24 left and facing fourth-and-2 at its own 46-yard line, Bowling Green called a timeout.

The Falcons lined up for a tush-push quarterback sneak, but then shifted quarterback Camden Orth to the side and moved tight end Harold Fannin Jr. back to the punter position. Any snap would have triggered a penalty and a first down. Minnesota nose guard Kyler Baugh would never anticipate a punt formation because it made no sense for Bowling Green, given the game situation. But the official not only shouted toward Baugh but tapped him on the side, as did Gophers linebacker Cody Lindenberg. Only then did Baugh move, averting the penalty and forcing another Bowling Green timeout.

“They physically moved the nose guard into a 3-technique position after a verbal command, which is absolutely preposterous,” Loeffler said. “It’s the only time in college football or pro football that I’ve ever seen an official literally put his hands on the guy. Why are you lining up for a punt on a two-minute situation when you need to score? Why did you burn a timeout? Well, we should have had a free 5 [yards] with no time being used off the clock. It was the right [play] call, and they were just afraid to make the call, plain and simple.”

Despite his frustration, and a loophole that’s still open, Loeffler hopes teams are eventually prevented from shifting into punt formations.

“It’s a bad rule,” he said. “They need to clean that piece up.”

Special teams can provide the platform for loophole-seeking opportunities, as well as key changes. As a first-year head coach at Wisconsin in 2006, Bret Bielema found one, much to the ire of his Penn State counterpart Joe Paterno. Wisconsin scored a touchdown to go ahead 10-3 with 23 seconds left in the first half.

On the ensuing kickoff, Wisconsin intentionally had players run offside, easily thwarting Penn State’s chances for a return. Although the Badgers were penalized, nine seconds ticked off because of a new rule just introduced — and designed to shorten games — that started the clock when a ball is kicked, rather than when it’s touched in the field of play. Penn State accepted the penalty and, rather than taking over deep in its own end, had Wisconsin rekick. But the Badgers once again intentionally ran offside.

By the time Wisconsin lined up for a third kickoff, only four seconds remained. The Badgers executed a squib kick and the clock expired.

“Coach Paterno was beyond furious,” said Bielema, now the coach at Illinois. “I had a kickoff [coverage specialist], James Kamoku ask me, ‘Coach, how far offsides can I be?’ I said, ‘James, I don’t care if you catch the kick.’ So he took off, he was about 20 yards in front of the kick.”

Paterno laid into the officials and was so upset that he refused to do an on-air halftime interview. Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez, the longtime Badgers coach whom Bielema replaced, told ESPN at the time that Bielema capitalized on a “bad rule.”

“If Joe Paterno does that, everyone says, ‘It’s genius,'” Alvarez said. “There are rules. Good coaches take advantage of them.”

When the rules committee met after the season, it reinstated the kickoff timing policy for the clock to start after the kick is touched.

“They didn’t have a choice,” Bielema said.

The NCAA sends out rule interpretation bulletins somewhat regularly, Shaw said, but rarely do they receive widespread attention like after the Oregon-Ohio State game. Early in the 2021 ACC championship game, Pitt quarterback Kenny Pickett had college football buzzing when he faked a slide, only to freeze Wake Forest defenders, and then sprinted for a 58-yard touchdown.

Days later, a rules memo stated that any play where a ball carrier “begins, simulates, or fakes a feet-first slide” should be immediately whistled dead. Wake Forest coach Dave Clawson thought Pickett genuinely noticed Demon Deacons defenders easing up on the play and ended his slide, while the Oregon 12-man penalty seemingly had more intent behind it.

“The one is a kid reacting in the moment, the other is a head coach making a strategic move to help his team win,” Clawson said. “But I’m glad they closed the loophole, and they closed the loophole on the fake slide. Any time the defense commits a penalty with the intention of making time go off the clock to hurt the offense, I think they have to look at all those fouls.”

Clawson and others highlighted a distinction between plays that are simply unusual and ones designed to target rule loopholes. When coaches meet with officials before every game, they often alert the crew to specific trick plays or exotic formations and shifts.

“You make sure that they’re going to view that as a legal strategic maneuver before you do it,” Clawson said.

Oregon didn’t have the same incentive to tip off the Big Ten crew before the Ohio State game, as its intent would have been revealed. Coaches who watched the play noted that Oregon players were pointing to the sideline and had a player run off and back on, to simulate confusion. Bielema thought the play likely would only be executed correctly after a timeout.

There also was some inherent risk for Oregon to absorb the penalty, which moved the ball inside its 40-yard line.

“There’s a real fine line there with an ability for a kicker to go out and make that kick,” Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea said.

Behind the scenes, teams will keep practicing nuanced situations, hoping for the right time to call them. A coach said his team regularly practices a field goal timing scenario that capitalizes on the time it takes for officials to position themselves, but has only used the play twice in a decade.

Vanderbilt has “teach the game” portions of its Friday practices where it reviews situations like Oregon-Ohio State and others to do with penalties, timing, substitution patterns and end of halves. Bielema said he’s “always looking for little things.”

“Sometimes they come up, sometimes they don’t,” Lea said, “but you always want to be prepared, because that’s hopefully the difference in the game.”