Aussie Football Instincts
Watching the game with my Dad, he mentioned after the soul-wrenching final play that it appeared Blake O'Neill, in his panic, reverted to the instinct of an Aussie Rules Football player, in that he felt he needed to kick the ball or take a penalty. I guess there is no "falling on the ball" in Aussie Football, so the act of simply covering up and holding onto the ball would not have occured to Blake in the heat of the moment.
Anyone on the board have a firm understanding of Aussie Football that could speak to the veracity of this idea?
Edit: It was just a question. I love me some Blake O'Neill and agree that he is a great punter. I don't know much of anything about Aussie Football so I was hoping for someone who does to give an opinion. Instead I get "Rabble, rabble, rabble... let it go." Fair enough, the wound is still to fresh to talk about things rationally.
October 19th, 2015 at 10:57 AM ^
Have you seen Peppers catch punts? That's more difficult than catching a snap.
Another possibility would be to have Peppers run around between the numbers and then chuck it out-of-bounds as high as possible to run out the clock. That strategy could have been employed on all four downs to run out the clock. JoePa, of all people, once used that tactic to run out the clock on us.
But we have to keep in mind that we are trying to protect against what should be a 1-in-500 event here.
October 19th, 2015 at 9:33 AM ^
October 19th, 2015 at 9:52 AM ^
If you think that throw was on Chesson's numbers, you don't remember the play correctly. He still should have caught it, but your description is inaccurate. And if you can't describe that play accurately, I'm not sure how fit you are to judge O'Neill's actions.
October 19th, 2015 at 9:58 AM ^
Gotta admit, I laughed at you thinking you have any right to question what someone saw on the field. I mean, in your mind, Shane Morris took a slight whack to the chest last year against Minnesota and hurt his ankle because of it.
October 19th, 2015 at 10:15 AM ^
That's hyperbole. I'm not going to spend time arguing what happened 12 months ago, but I'm not the only one who thought that his ankle might have been the cause of his stumble. This was addressed in "Endzone" in case you haven't read it.
October 19th, 2015 at 10:23 AM ^
I read Endzone. Doesn't have anything to do with this.
Again, I just find it odd that someone so incredibly wrong (and who doubled down on it over and over again) about one of the most replayed plays in Michigan history would try and criticize someone's ability to view the field. Just calling out the obvious hypocrisy of you making a snide remark to someone else in a far less viewed situation.
Good stuff though.
October 19th, 2015 at 10:31 AM ^
Again, I'm not going to spend much time arguing about what happened a year ago. What I defended was the idea that someone viewing that play could interpret/misinterpret Morris's stumble as having to do with his previously injured ankle. "Endzone" does have something to do with it, because it verifies that there were people who thought it was his leg causing the stumble.
Regardless, diagnosing a concussion on TV and diagnosing a well thrown football are two very different things. One involves watching a football and the positions of bodies. The other involves guessing at what goes on inside a player's cranium.
Anyhow, I'm not going any farther down this road. That's all I have to say about your comments.
October 19th, 2015 at 1:10 PM ^
I read Endzone. Doesn't have anything to do with this.
If you had read it carefully, you wouldn't be arguing.
October 19th, 2015 at 10:22 AM ^
have some support on that one. Doesn't matter, but I thought it was a leg stumble and not a "head" stumble. Now, if Morris would have taken a horrific, life altering, NC-17 looking shot to the head the likes of which Bolden "delivered" to Cook on Saturday my opinion may be different.
October 19th, 2015 at 10:34 AM ^
October 19th, 2015 at 10:30 AM ^
"definitely should be caught" window.
Chesson jumped at it oddly, resulting in a tilted mid-air body positioning that was not necessary.
October 19th, 2015 at 9:56 AM ^
you may want to keep it off of all local sports radio for the next two weeks. I have two books on CD that I have been waiting to crack into and this was the perfect morning. I had it on Ryan and Rico long enough to hear "the referees were bad for both sides" and then decided to go ahead and throw in Disk 1.
October 19th, 2015 at 10:10 AM ^
October 19th, 2015 at 9:41 AM ^
Makes me laugh that people blame the players and coaches, they had NOTHING to do with it.
Here is why it happend. My wife and I are to go to a neighborhood Octoberfest and had a babysitter over for the last couple minutes of the game as we were going to bolt right after it was over. With 10 seconds left the babysitter says "guys go ahead and leave this game is over." I told her right away to knock on wood and she refused, the rest is history. This stuff is real and impacts games.
I told my wife we shouldn't pay her but she did anyway.
October 19th, 2015 at 9:47 AM ^
I was thinking the same thing!
Teenage daughter with tickets in hand ready to walk out the door to go zip lining and to a haunted house looks over at the TV and says can we go now? What can possibly happen in 10 seconds?
Well, there is that!
Exactly how it went.
October 19th, 2015 at 9:54 AM ^
I thought I was fully to blame but now see I share the blame 50/50 with you.
October 19th, 2015 at 9:58 AM ^
I began to feel that a tragedy was in the works the minute the Magic Johnson statue was painted. That changed the vibe of the game for me starting at that moment. True story.
October 19th, 2015 at 9:58 AM ^
It was me, I was the one who caused it to happen. I was in the other room because in close games, I just can't stand to watch. I ask for periodic updates from my husband, who on Saturday said, "One minute and ten to go, they just need to hold on to the ball, and they'll win." And then everything went to hell. Going forward, we'll have a "don't ask, don't tell" policy on close games that I can't watch.
October 19th, 2015 at 9:48 AM ^
I hope you and your neighbors didn't tweet death threats to her.
October 19th, 2015 at 9:49 AM ^
I don't know whether to upvote you for taking responsibility for this loss, or downvote you for causing this loss. Maybe I'll just leave it neutral for both.
October 19th, 2015 at 11:02 AM ^
s/
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October 19th, 2015 at 9:45 AM ^
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October 19th, 2015 at 9:51 AM ^
That's slightly right, but it is on Baxter. Michigan should have been in max protect rather than have uncovered gunners split out. The line has to try to slow up the defenders rather than releasing downfield. If the punt goes off, the game is over because it would have rolled for 10 seconds with no Sparty playing back. There seemed to be some confusion.
October 19th, 2015 at 10:17 AM ^
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October 19th, 2015 at 9:53 AM ^
So you want our coaches to drill into our kids what they should do when they fail at doing their job? That's a great way to inspire confidence in them.
As hard as it is to deal with, this stuff happens. Nobody is prepared for it when it does, not matter how much your coach tells you to fall on the fumble. A punter's natural reaction is to punt the ball, no matter how many defenders are coming at him.
If anything we should have just been in max protect with one or two players back to prevent the touchdown. Other than that there isn't anything you can do about it.
October 19th, 2015 at 10:16 AM ^
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October 19th, 2015 at 10:20 AM ^
It's not exactly a secret that broken plays happen. I'm sure that the punt team runs scenarios of what to do if the snap is bobled, if the kick is blocked, etc.
The problem was that this was an exceptionally weird play where a lot of strange things happened.
October 19th, 2015 at 10:20 AM ^
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October 19th, 2015 at 1:12 PM ^
That's some of the dumbest shit I have ever read. You obviously didn't play sports.
October 19th, 2015 at 10:15 AM ^
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October 19th, 2015 at 10:24 AM ^
is not a bad coach. He is a great coach, but I don't think anybody will disagree that the staff, as a whole, did not have their best day on Saturday. They did not have a bad day, but they did not have their A game either. They will grow as a staff, just like the players.
October 19th, 2015 at 10:29 AM ^
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October 19th, 2015 at 10:26 AM ^
October 19th, 2015 at 10:28 AM ^
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October 19th, 2015 at 9:55 AM ^
Looking for input from others, but did O'Neill grow up with Aussie FB or rugby? Because it looked to me like he panicked (obviously) and tried to box kick it out. Maybe I'm just trying to relate everything to rugby, but it seemed logical to me
October 19th, 2015 at 10:17 AM ^
I don't know many rugby players that would try to box kick like that when they panic, though. First instict on a broken play for most the rugby players I know is to scoop the ball, run as far forward as you can, and then stay on your feet as long as you can to give your team time to get back on-sides and secure a ruck...
October 19th, 2015 at 2:43 PM ^
Yes, that's the rugby play. But the Aussie rules play is exactly what he did. Your choices are (1) catch it and kick it or (2) punch it towards the sideline and hope to get it out of play.
The difference is that in Aussie rules you can't "stay on your feet as long as you can." If you're caught with the ball in your possession it's a free kick, and giving up a free kick there is giving up a score.
October 19th, 2015 at 9:57 AM ^
and they had somone on the air during a radio segment yesterday that essentially addressed this same issue. Apparently this guy was familiar with the Kicking Academy that most of these Aussie players attend in preparation to come and play in the U.S. I am paraphrasing here, but in summary, this is what he said:
- This academy is great in helping the players transition from kicking the rugby ball to kicking an american football.
- It allows them to prepare and get an education here in the U.S.
- While it teaches the rules, it does not necessarily teach the strategy in relation to the rest of the game.
- Finally, it also does not teach some of the "what if " scenarios and stress plays that could happen....like what occurred Saturday. His departing comment was that since this was such a big deal and made huge headlines, he would not be surprised if this sort of training was added to the "curriculum".
Again this is a brief summary of what was discussed yesterday.
October 19th, 2015 at 11:31 AM ^
We should note, though, that he isn't brand new to this sport. He punted at Weber State before this.
We're probably overanalyzing this. He mishandled the snap and panicked - there's probably no deeper explanation than that.
October 19th, 2015 at 10:04 AM ^
October 19th, 2015 at 10:11 AM ^
There, I said it. That play, even executed properly, was a set up to fail. Sparty was bringing the house, everyone in the stadium and TV land knew it with perhaps the exception of Baxter and Harbaugh. So what did Michigan do to counter the 11 man rush? They kept three back to man the moving fence and they managed to block just two of the 11 Spartans.
That very high risk type of punt formation, one designed to maximize downfield coverage while risking the chance of a blocked punt, was completely at odds with the given situation. Sparty had no intention of fielding that punt, so why was Michigan sending six to cover the punt?
October 19th, 2015 at 10:18 AM ^
And every coach would play it like Dantonio did. It's not like it was a great cal by him. Baxter/Harbaugh need to own this mistake and move on.
October 19th, 2015 at 10:26 AM ^
Would every coach stack the line to Blake's right side, as Dantonio did? I'm asking because I don't know, it makes sense since he always runs to his right to kick but I don't recall seeing other teams do this.
October 19th, 2015 at 11:28 AM ^
While I agree that max-protect could have helped, he would have gotten the punt off if he hadn't bobbled it.
October 19th, 2015 at 11:54 AM ^
There is no way of knowing that which never happened. The way Sparty was bringing the house and Michigan was not protecting, there is the very real possiblity the punt is blocked. In fact that is one of the known deficiencies of the "Spread Punt", the risk of a blocked punt is greater.
October 19th, 2015 at 10:15 AM ^
dosen't everything down in Australia spin the opposite direction?
That's got to be hard to adjust to up here.
Plus it wasn't even laces out!.
October 19th, 2015 at 10:20 AM ^
I have played footy (Australian Rules Football) here in the states since 2007, been a member and vice-captain of the US national team, and have traveled twice to Australia to represent the USA in international competition.
For an Australian, the first instinct would be to pick up the ball, not to "soccer" (kick) it off the ground. When US people, especially those who are former soccer players, learn to play footy, they will try to kick the ball off the ground, but this is usually highly dangerous and only permitted in play when there is absolutely no one around you. The Aussies yell at us all the time about breaking that habit. If others are attempting to get the ball and you kick it off the ground it is considered a pentalty and the other team is awarded posession of the ball. An Australian, who has been playing footy all their life would instinctually go to pick up the ball and then either handball it off to another team mate if he was in traffic or put it to the boot and kick it. Even if you have just picked up the ball and you are immediately tackled, you are deemed to have no prior opportunity to dispose of the ball and it would be a ball up (ref comes in and throws the ball in the air and the two ruck men try to tap it to their teammates). It wouldn't be an instinct for them to necessarily fall on the ball because it is part of live play, it isn't whistled dead like in American football. It would be instinctual to pick it up and do something with it
October 19th, 2015 at 10:59 AM ^
"It would be instinctual to pick it up and do something with it"
This is what I was getting at, basically. Thank you for lending your expertise.
October 19th, 2015 at 10:22 AM ^
This really was the perfect storm as already said. From the low snap, picking it up, attempted kick right in to the hands of the sparty. The odds of the entire scenario coming off perfectly to be run into the end zone on final tick? Very Rare.
We have all seen a blocked punt and it is easy to say fall on the ball, had the ball not flew into sparty hands it would have been a different outcome and he would be a hero. In the moment - he done what came with instinct. It happens.
So, I prefer to look at this as it was. A very rare fluke that didn't go our way. I should recover fully by the time we play Minnesota. Sadly I like Jerry Kill, but not when we play them.
Go Blue!
October 19th, 2015 at 10:56 AM ^
Shit happens, especially in football. Would have been nice had he fallen on it. The string of events for it to be returned for a TD was improbable as O'Neil dropping it.