Paul Johnson don’t want to hear it. It doesn’t get much better than this. Frank Beamer is still steaming from his team’s 28-23 loss to the Yellow Jackets two weeks ago. The Virginia Tech coaches sent in about eleven plays that they believed constituted illegal blocks that should have been flagged — a fairly routine thing to do, though the Hokie coaches believed several of those blocks came on game changing plays. Apparently the ACC officials confirmed that at least four plays included illegal blocks, though that news was leaked by Beamer rather than the ACC itself. Paul Johnson is not impressed:

Yellow Jackets coach Paul Johnson, a man with a reputation for bristling at criticism, fired back after his team’s practice Monday.

“They got out-schemed. So, it’s illegal to out-scheme them, I guess,” he said. “We blocked them the same way we blocked them a year ago and they weren’t complaining when they won.”

Zing! A different article quotes Johnson saying, “That’s a joke. Put the tape on and watch. Tyler Melton cracked the free safety. He doesn’t even block him. He shields him.”

“They got out-schemed. So it’s illegal to out-scheme them, I guess.” Somewhat supporting Johnson was the ACC saying Beamer should not have disclosed the results:

Doug Rhoads, who oversees the league’s officials, said the Hokies coaches shouldn’t have disclosed the conference’s admission of mistakes and he wouldn’t specify the number of missed calls.

“I would only say that Virginia Tech, just as every team on that weekend, submitted plays for my review,” Rhoads said. “Out of those plays, there are a few the officials missed, a few that were the right call and a few that were judgment calls somewhere in the middle. ”

Johnson said he also submitted about a dozen plays to the ACC that he thought should have been called holding on the Hokies.

“It’s part of the game,” he said. “Nobody from the conference called and told us that we did anything illegal.”

Two non-committal comments. One, Paul Johnson’s offense has always relied on “cut blocks,” which are legal, but when done improperly can result in being illegal “chop blocks.” The line is a thin one, and is not always easy to call. The relevant parts of the rules state:

e. Blocking below the waist is permitted except as follows (A.R. 9-1-2-IV-XI):

1. Offensive linemen at the snap positioned more than seven yards from the middle lineman of the offensive formation are prohibited from blocking below the waist toward the original position of the ball in or behind the neutral zone and within 10 yards beyond the neutral zone.

2. Backs at the snap positioned completely outside the normal tackle (second player from the snapper) position in either direction toward a sideline, or in motion at the snap, are prohibited from blocking below the waist toward the original position of the ball in or behind the neutral zone and within 10 yards beyond the neutral zone (A.R. 9-1-2-XXVI). . . .

So the basic gist is it is illegal if it is a block “back” towards where the ball was snapped from. It’s completely legal on the edge, however, or any inside-to-out block. The way Johnson using his wingbacks and tackles to block downfield can result in gray areas. Again, not necessarily bad or illegal or even unsportsmanlike, but not always easy when the defender is a moving target.

The second thought here is just that it appears to be the season for complaining about calls, particularly in the SEC but also elsewhere. I can say I’ve seen some really horrible calls this year — many documented on film — but I do hope this isn’t a larger trend. It’s not just coaches too. I’m tired of seeing receivers stand up and look for/beg for a flag after every incompletion, and quarterbacks turn into kickers acting for the personal foul penalties for hitting them. The NFL has proposed a rule that would make it a personal foul to grandstand for a flag to be thrown. That’s a rule I could support, though its enforcement too would be difficult.

- Jimmy Clausen, great quarterback? This is not really newsy — he is second in the country in pass efficiency and eighth in yards per pass attempt — but Jimmy Clausen is playing very, very well this year. Indeed, maybe his weakest performance of the year came last week against Boston College, and he still threw for 246 yards, two touchdowns, and no interceptions. For anyone who watched him the last two years, however, this is very interesting: Clausen came in with a lot of recruiting hype, but how did he suddenly morph from befuddled underclassmen into a real playmaker? One answer of course is the exceptional Golden Tate, but there is no question that Clausen has both hit a lot of big plays and protected the football. As Art from Trojan Football Analysis remarked after USC’s win over Notre Dame,

[W]hat caught my attention in the recent Notre Dame game was how easily the Irish appeared to move the ball in the second half through the air. When this happens fans and the media usually jump on the staff for making poor adjustments…Or they vaguely complain about “zone schemes” or “prevent defenses”. Sometimes the criticism is right and sometimes it is just arm chair quarterbacking mixed in with the benefit of hindsight and second guessing.

. . . Only once on these 13 big pass plays did USC run anything resembling a true prevent defense with 3 DL rushing and 8 men dropping into coverage. Clausen escaped the 3 man pressure on that play, scrambled and found an open man. Conversely, USC did run some type of +1 or +2 blitz on 5 of the 13 plays — all five saw completions by Clausen. Notre Dame had two completions in the game of over 21 yards. One came on a trick fake FG play that caught USC off guard. The other come with cornerback #36 Pinkard in straight man coverage versus WR #23 for the Irish [Golden Tate]. Clausen made some very good throws and reads in the game. I doubt USC will face a QB of his caliber again this season unless something funny happens in the BCS rankings. Jimmy Clausen strikes me as very improved compared to the previous two seasons and clearly had more talent around him this season than the previous contests. My respect for his skill level is considerably up after this most recent game.

Art backs it up with analysis of the thirteen plays he mentioned, along with video of those completions, shown below. I particularly liked the very first pass. It looks simple but USC showed a straight “Cover Two” look with the corners in press coverage to take away short, quick routes. It turned out to be a zone-blitz though, with the cornerback blitzing. Clausen saw it, as did Tate, and they hooked up for a simple hitch pass that Tate turned into a first down. A big key to good quarterbacking is in making those kinds of plays look easy. I guess with Charlie Weis, there’s a long-tail in quarterback development, but you can’t say he hasn’t gotten Clausen to that point.

Is Michael Crabtree ready to sign? Deion Sanders, who is inexplicably one of  Crabtree’s advisors, seems to think so. I don’t really see what other options he has left: The 49ers can’t trade him now, and if he waits through the fall deadline without signing to re-enter the draft next spring, he will sign for significantly less than he is being offered now (not to mention the time value of money, etc).  As has been repeatedly mentioned, it was probably quite stupid for Crabtree to hold out this long.

That said, from a labor perspective at least, I continue to find the draft and the associated hoopla relatively unfair for players. There is no question that Crabtree could have commanded more money from another team (Jets?). Yet he is effectively owned by the 49ers for at least a year, presenting him a hobson’s choice: sign for whatever the 49ers are willing to offer, or sit out an entire year for less money, take a PR beating, and possibly jeopardize your whole career. Imagine if doctors were drafted out of medical school. “Sorry Mr. Number One at Harvard Med, but you’ve been selected by a fine hospital in Topeka, Kansas! They are offering a nice salary. Should you not want to go there, you will have to sit out from practicing medicine for a year, and then maybe try your luck next year. Sorry!” Or the same for the world’s bankers, librarians, pharmacists, and coaches, where an employer would get the opportunity to own that person’s rights for a year, offering the choice between a take-it-or-leave-it offer and a year of unemployment.

I know what many of the responses will be: But they offered him millions of dollars! He should sign! Well, maybe under the current system he should have. But the United States fancies itself a meritocracy, and players, like all other professions, should be entitled to bargain for the most someone is willing to pay for them. If Crabtree thinks he should be paid more than Darius-Heyward Bey, he should be able to negotiate for that from various competitors. Of course the 49ers weren’t going to up their offer: in five years, there will still be the 49ers, but this is Crabtree’s shot to get paid (imagine if he got injured). Indeed, they feared the Jets were coming in to promise more than they were and they filed tampering charges! Again, imagine if you were deciding whether to take a new job, and a different employer offered you a more lucrative offer and your current employer — or not-even, just a company that “owns” your rights for a year based on some kind of ceremonial “draft” — could prevent anyone from offering you anything.

So what are the alternatives? Increasingly I’d like to see some kind of auction system installed instead of the draft. (Fat chance, now that the draft is such a media event.) It’d involve the same elements of scouting, and the like, except that the team could allocate the money however they feel. The salary cap would still exist, so Jerry Jones couldn’t just outbid everyone mercilessly. Moreover, it would give real choices to teams to make decisions based on whether they want a big star player like Crabtree and want to pay him a lot, or want to go after a lot of mid-level guys, or some mixture. A similar system would just be a Madden franchise-mode-esque series of free agency “rounds,” where you’d have periods of free agency activity though maybe limits on how many guys a team could sign during that time — i.e. the Cowboys couldn’t announce 15 rookie signings on day one and be done with it. You’d still get your TV drama, but the players could shop around a bit more, as could teams. Indeed, I’d be more excited to see who the shrewd dealmakers were in this system than the current hodge-podge draft system.

I think these would work because we’re approaching this kind of thing anyway. One, the draft is a relic of a time before free agency — the majority of guys on NFL rosters were not drafted by that team, so any effect on the league and team composition would be less than people think. Second, in ye olden days the draft went on more than twice as long as it does now. In other words, the league has been moving to limit the anachronistic draft more and more, and I can only hope it will finish the job. Though I’m not holding my breath.

In sum: I think Crabtree has severely mishandled himself by holding out this long. But that analysis only applies within the current draft-framework. It’s a long shot, but I think the NFL would be well-advised to replace the draft with some kind of auction or free-agency-by-round system. It’d be significantly better for the players, and at least equal  for the teams.  (And in the long run I think it’d be better for teams to, beyond the initial shock). In other words, eliminating the draft would be the pareto optimal thing to do. It’s too late for Crabtree, but maybe his saga can get people thinking about this stuff.

The best of times, the worst of times. Georgia Tech’s win over Clemson was a fun game to watch, but ultimately taught us very little. GT scored on a long touchdown run (beautiful), and then a punt return for a touchdown off a quick kick and then one of the great trick plays in the form of a fake field goal where GT snuck a guy onto the field. And, after the initial burst, GT’s offense completely stagnated, and, over that stretch, Clemson looked like the better team.

But I wasn’t that impressed with them. Tigers quarterback Kyle Parker had a bizarre statline, where he completed touchdown passes of 77 yards and 63 yards, and added another 37 yard completion, but other than that he was 12 of 28 for 84 yards. I mean, I know it’s not totally fair to imagine someone’s statline without their best plays, but the fact that Clemson could not move the ball well other than two or three enormous plays doesn’t necessary speak well to an offense. (And this goes for GT’s 400 yards of offense considering 82 of them came in the first two plays.)

I think the takeaways are that: both teams are probably better than last year, but have issues; Georgia Tech will not win many games if they have to throw it; Clemson has a very impressive defensive line (they used a nose tackle on every play and managed to stop the dive-phase of the option without committing many extra people, which helped them run down the rest of the option until GT went to some counter plays); Dabo Swinney passed a test by bringing his team back; and Paul Johnson just earned a +1 for wins attributable to coaching (at least in a sense) since the quick kick return and the fake field goal were the result of good planning and taking advantage of plays, and both played into the margin of victory. The question on that last one is whether Johnson has any more of those in his system.

- Option to win. Speaking of Johnson and the option, Andy Staples of Sports Illustrated has a nice article on the subject.

- Best preview you’ll read this week. Blutarsky previews South Carolina vs. Georgia, blahblahblahblah.

- 1969, football’s season of discontent. From Slate.

- What is Michael Crabtree doing? From the Fifth Down. I am normally pretty sympathetic to players who fight for their value — fans and owners are quick to turn them into greedy jerks who “won’t play” to turn all the leverage and public opinion against them when this is, realistically, their one shot to get paid while the money they don’t take will just wind up funding jumbo trons and luxury boxes and whatnot. But I don’t really have a handle on the Crabtree situation: do we really know what he wants? Are the 49ers lowballing him? (That wouldn’t surprise me.) Or is he being irrational? (That wouldn’t totally surprise me either.)

- Roethlisberger and Santonio Holmes lead the Steelers to victory. I didn’t get to watch all of this game, but Roethlisberger is turning into sort of the Lebron James of football to me. Now, he’s not as good as Lebron, but both are excellent, excellent players, who play the game with almost zero grace. I love Lebron, but for pure fluidity and elegance and aesthetic measures, Kobe or Jordan just obliterate him. Yet he’s amazing, and aesthetics is not a metric that affects the bottom line. Same with Roethlisberger: the guy lumbers around, points downfield, does those herky-jerky pump fakes, but hey, he’s turned into a hell of a quarterback.

- A video on pairing wine with cereal. Seriously.

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