Is this any way to coach a football team? No punting on 4th downs?

[Dennis S]

http://highschool.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=892888

[Will Collier]

Be really interesting if one of the more nutball college coaches (yes, Mike Leach, I'm talking to YOU) were to adopt that approach one of these years.

Never happen in the No Fun League, of course...

[DRR]

Interesting read, but the coach even described his own team as having an "explosive offense." The strategy would not work for teams without one.

Of course the punt is a defensive play not an offensive play. If your offense is good enough or your defense bad enough, go for it.

This kind of craziness works in high school, and at a much lesser extent, college. It hardly works at all in the pros. Because they're pros. Look at the "wildcat." Old formation. Worked a couple of games for Miami. But guess what, teams figured it out. Same with the A11 offensive formation. Works in high school where there pretty much is no talent. Might work for a couple of plays in college. Wouldn't work in the pros. Because if it would work, they would be using it.

[Dennis S]

I have nothing to base this on, but it seems that more college and pro teams are going for it on 4th down than before. They may have access to computerized stats, now, that show the odds.

[vision63]

Dennis S wrote:
I have nothing to base this on, but it seems that more college and pro teams are going for it on 4th down than before. They may have access to computerized stats, now, that show the odds.

They must be in a sorry league. My non-computerized brain tells me that they'd fail more often than they succeeded in a real league.