Glasgow tipping snap?

Submitted by yossarians tree on

I haven't gone back and watched the whole game or anything, but as the Minnesota game went on I started picking up Glasgow tipping the snap pretty much every time Gardner was in shotgun. As Gardner goes through his reads and players motion to new positions, Glasgow would be looking back at Gardner through his legs, looking forward for a second or two to get his own reads, look back again, etc.

Gardner would then stand there motionless with his hands ready to get the snap. Glasgow would then jerk his head up, give it a half-count, and then snap the ball. Every time, it seemed. It appeared to me like any defensive lineman could figure out how to time that snap very easily and come flying off the ball. I would like to believe the coaches picked this up if I could spot it from my living room. I'm sure the kid is not even conscious of it, starting his first game at center and all.

I'm not even sure how the shotgun snap is coached (silent? hard count?), but anyone with insight feel free to illuminate us all with your football acumen.

dennisblundon

October 10th, 2013 at 11:03 AM ^

The center can snap ball any time after qb signals he is ready. Once he snaps the ball he gives the hut or go call to get other linemen moving. I am sure they worked on him altering his timing but Molk also did the same thing at times. You just get in a groove and it slips your mind.

LSAClassOf2000

October 10th, 2013 at 11:04 AM ^

I could be way off, but I've heard from a few people - and SmartFootball wrote something on this back in the day - that one of the advantages of the shotgun snap was that it didn't necessarily require a count per se, or at least no hard, fixed count. That, and the shotgun sometimes makes pressure / blitz a little easier to discern depending on the response of the defense. 

reshp1

October 10th, 2013 at 11:08 AM ^

I think you can probably chalk this up to not overloading your new starting center with too many things. He got the ball to Gardner all except one time, that's good enough for week one. I think after the 2011 Staee game, the coaches have installed enough variation to keep guys from jumping it too much. It's one of the inherent draw backs of shotgun formation.

On a related note, I'm surprised no one is jumping ohio's thing where the QB claps for the ball.

Dizzo

October 10th, 2013 at 11:12 AM ^

When will some linebacker start clapping his hands against teams that do this to try to throw the center off?  Braxton sits back there, claps once, looks around, then claps again.. Is the center actually basing the snap on the clap, or just on some ocunt he has and totally ignores the sound?  It can't be based just on sound because somebody on the defense could clap after they see the first one triggering a snap when the QB wasn't ready, right?

IndyBlue

October 10th, 2013 at 11:23 AM ^

It's a penalty for the defense to simulate the snap count.  It would be different if a LB was clapping to get the attention of teammates to audible or get lined up, but it would probably be pretty clear in the scenario you suggest that the LB is simulating the snap count.

WolvinLA2

October 10th, 2013 at 11:12 AM ^

This isn't really a big deal. The DL is trained to go on the movement of the ball, and getting out of that habit will do more bad than good. If we see they're doing this, Glasgow will hold for a second longer and get an offsides penalty and they'll stop doing it.

mGrowOld

October 10th, 2013 at 11:17 AM ^

Well we let them know if it's a run or a pass on our substitution patterns and we also started telling them where we were going run (tackle shifts) so I guess we might as well let them know when the ball is being snapped too.

That is the highest and most evolved form of Manball there is.  Telling your oponent in advance what you're going to run, where you are going to run and finally when you're going to run it. 

We are going to be manballiest, manballers known to man.

JeepinBen

October 10th, 2013 at 11:18 AM ^

A new thing that has permeated the NFL is for a guard to look at the QB in shotgun and tap the center on the leg. The center will then do a head-bob and snap.

The whole offense needs to be on the same timing. The key is to change it up occasionally enough that the D can't jump every play.

An Angelo's Addict

October 10th, 2013 at 11:19 AM ^

Ya, I don't see how our snaps are any easier to count then the rest of the shotgun teams out there. It seems pretty standard the center puts his head down, snaps it up, then half a second later the ball is snapped 9 times out of ten. For OSU they sometimes do two or three claps, but generally on the first clap the ball is coming out

yossarians tree

October 10th, 2013 at 11:32 AM ^

After noticing this I specifically watched Dominic Raiola in the Detroit game and he was varying the snap, waiting sometimes two or three seconds after lifting his head up. Granted he's a 10 year NFL vet.

Mr. Yost

October 10th, 2013 at 12:24 PM ^

Molk got better, but he was also an amazing blocker so it didn't matter.

Mealer was a GOD at drawing people offsides. His "freeze play" was truly the only thing he was exceptional at.

Miller was awful, he had 2 OL false starts called on him because he didn't snap the ball and the other 4 guys moved. He also has NUMEROUS times where he got the DL to jump but he didn't snap the ball so Gardner could throw his fade.

Hopefully Glasgow is better, it's a GREAT asset and all C's should have it and master it. We earned so many free yards last year with this. Once we even got the free play and got a pass interference off of it. That's huge.

Take free yards if you can get them.

Perkis-Size Me

October 10th, 2013 at 12:41 PM ^

I'm guessing if there's a problem, the coaches will pick up on it and correct it. The last thing they want is another repeat of the 2011 Staae game, where Worthy and Co. were able to read the snap count and explode off the ball every single time.

1 percent

October 10th, 2013 at 1:00 PM ^

Said that when they run the shotgun the QB doesn't make the snap call but that the center does. Basically the center looks around and makes his reads. Looks back at the QB to see if/when he is ready. then the center looks back all the dline and lbs to make any other adjustments and calls the snap.



I know it can be a problem and is something the center needs to be cognizant of so he isn't tipping his snap. Hopefully the coaches changed it and it was first game jitters.



I never really noticed it during the game but I was watching it while trying to fly.

Magnus

October 10th, 2013 at 1:20 PM ^

In our offense (granted, without 100,000 people screaming), the quarterback gives the cadence when he's under center; the center does the cadence when we're in shotgun. The receivers and running backs have to watch the ball for the shotgun snap.

rob6reid

October 10th, 2013 at 1:47 PM ^

On a semi-related thought, every time I watch OSU, Braxton Miller does that hand clap, wait a half second, and then has the ball snap seemingly every time. Couldn't a dline pick up on that too?

JHendo

October 10th, 2013 at 2:02 PM ^

I was center for 7 of my 8 years I played football. 3 of those years were in a shotgun based offense (1 using hard count, 2 using silent count), so I have a little experience. Firstly, hard count in shotgun sucks as a center. You don't get a chance to look back and line up your snap right before you have to snap it and also having to shotgun snap not on your own terms is a bit unnerving.

Now on to the silent count shotgun snap. It's a little more stressful than a regular center exchange as more can go wrong, so centers are more concerned with getting into a rythym than they are tipping the defense. It's normally "look back, get the good to go signal from the qb, line it up one last time, look up, reassess the d line/watch for blitzes, breathe and then snap." It's a routine that ensures a clean snap. Another consideration in this process is the rest of the offense. They are all waiting on the ball to move. Too much variation on when the ball is snapped could mean false start trouble, or hesistant players that are too slow off the ball. So yeah, there is occasionally an attempt by a center in a shotgun silent snap to mix things up, but it's few and far between.

Regardless, since it's still a silent count (albeit with physical cues), it's still harder for a defense to jump it than a qb who doesn't vary his cadence.

danimal1968

October 10th, 2013 at 3:20 PM ^

(granted it was 25 years ago so we didn't use a lot of shotgun), but my experience was that if any of the OL felt the D was jumping the snap count, they'd get on my case to do something about it.  Typically, since we were under center 90 percent of the time, that meant I'd grab the QB and tell him to stop going on 1 all the time, but if we were in shotgun I'd try to wait and extra count after lifting my head before snapping the ball.  All you have to do is mix it up once or twice and the DC will tell his guys to knock it off and just wait for the ball to be snapped.

WolverineFanatic6

October 10th, 2013 at 4:16 PM ^

I can promise you that if that is still the case when we play in EL, our day will be over before it starts. They've been jumping our snaps for years so why not make it easier for them?