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Oregon football head coach Dan Lanning exploited a loophole with the 12 men on the field penalty on Saturday against Ohio State. Late in the game, the Buckeyes were driving with a chance to win it. Lanning purposefully sent 12 players on the field for a play knowing that the clock would still run and that it would give his defense a better chance to get a stop. Now, the NCAA has closed the loophole and the team accepting the penalty can choose to reset the clock to the time before the play.
“NEWS: The NCAA has closed the loophole for illegal substitutions after Oregon's 12-man penalty vs. Ohio State,” On3 said in a post.
It was a smart tactic used by Dan Lanning, and it helped the Oregon football team win the game. However, we won't see that tactic used ever again.
The rule change was made to fix situations like the one on Saturday that was late in one of the two halves. It will come into effect after the two-minute timeout in each half.
“After the Two-Minute Timeout in either half, if the defense commits a substitution foul and 12 or more players are on the field and participate in a down, officials will penalize the defense for the foul and at the option of the offended team, reset the game clock back to the time displayed at the snap,” The rule change states. “The game clock will then restart on the next snap. If the 12th defender was attempting to exit but was still on the field at the snap and had no influence on the play, then the normal substitution penalty would be enforced with no clock adjustment.”
Perhaps things would have been different if the 12 men on the field penalty wasn't purposeful. However, based on what Lanning said about it, it seems like it was.
“There was a timeout before that — we spend an inordinate amount of time on situations,” Lanning said, according to a post from Brenna Greene. “There’s some situations that don’t show up very often in college football but this is one that obviously was something we had worked on. So you can see the result.”
College football world reacts to the rule change
A lot of people from the college football world have reacted to the news of this whole situation involving the 12 men on the field penalty. One person that has shared his thoughts is Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman. He knew that Dan Lanning found a way to use that penalty to his advantage.
“I think if you see 12 on the field I think at some point they’re going to have to stop the game and penalize someone for having 12 out there,” Sam Pittman said, according to an article from On3. “The rule is the rule, and Dan used it to his advantage because there was no penalty for that per se. There was, but the penalty didn’t matter at that point in the game, so they’ll have to interpret it and look at it.”
Steve Shaw of the NCAA also offered some thoughts on the situation. Football is a changing game, and the rules have to adapt with it.
“Football is a very dynamic game,” Steve Shaw said. “Occasionally there are specific situations where committing a penalty can give a team an advantage. A guiding principle of the NCAA Football Rules Committee is that there should be no benefit when a team commits a penalty. The goal of this in-season interpretation is to eliminate a potential clock advantage for committing a substitution foul and take away any gain for the defense if they violate the substitution rule.”
Now, the rule is changed, and we aren't going to see any coach pull a Dan Lanning from here on out.
