Intentional too-many on the field on OU-TOSU

Oregon beat The Ohio State 32-31 Saturday night. The game was marked by a fortuitous or intentional late-game Oregon penalty.

Oregon lead by 1 with 10 seconds left and Ohio State with the ball on the Oregon 43 yard-line. Following a timeout, Oregon took the field with an additional deep safety (thus blocking any deep passes). The defense broke-up a short pass and ran four seconds off the clock, although it incurred a five-yard too-many-players penalty. But those five yards did not move TOSU into field-goal range, while the four seconds lapsed left time to run only one Hail-Mary. No one knows whether Oregon did this intentionally and Coach Dan Lenning did not say.

I wrote about this strategy in my Infield Fly Rule book, identifying it as a play requiring a limiting rule a la the IFR. The Giants unintentionally achieved the same effect at the end of Super Bowl XLVI, incurring a penalty when a twelfth defender was unable to leave the field (although he was not involved in the play) but gaining a time advantage that kept the Patriots from scoring the winning touchdown. Buddy Ryan designed this as "Polish Goal Line Defense," featuring three extra defenders to stop a goal-line play. I argue in the book that cost-benefit exchange on this play is not entirely one-sided (as with the IFR)--the disadvantaged team gains the benefit of five yards and the infringing team gains the benefit of lapsed time. But in this game situation, the former benefit is meaningless while the latter is overwhelming, effectively creating a one-sided exchange.

The NFL addressed this about a decade ago (following SB XLVI), introducing a dead-ball infraction for having too many players in formation (that is, ready to be involved in the play); the play is whistled dead and no time runs off the clock when officials identify the extra defender. This removes the incentive to intentionally incur the penalty by removing the time benefit. College football does not have this infraction, so the refs could not call the penalty until after the play. See if the NCAA makes this change after the season.