Every College Football season brings some new rules, and as we move close to this College Football season SEC Coordinator of Officials, John McDaid, explains why the new no blocking below the waist rule will be the biggest difference to not only players and coaches, but fans as well.
John caught up with Chris Goforth during day two of SEC Media Days, and when Chris asked him what we will see on the field and what will be different this year for fans when they watch the games, John had this to say “The big that is going to be different is the blocking below the waist rules.”
Now, how will this affect the team's scheme and offensive gameplan? Well, John believes that it all depends on how the teams adapt saying “If the teams do a really good job of understanding the new rules scheming offensively such that they are no longer blocking low illegally maybe you don’t see anything, but perhaps when we get out of the gate Labor Day weekend, and we have those first few games in September teams are going to have to get used to that.”
John goes on to fully break down the rule saying “They can no longer block legally below the waist outside of the tackle box, so think about offensive lineman going to the second level, think about screen and stretch plays where the blocks are outside of the tackle box, they need to be at the waist or higher.
Now, any team that runs an option based offense wouldn’t be too happy about this, but most SEC teams don’t run that kind of offense. However all College Football teams run screens and stretch plays, and that is mainly where we will see the biggest adjustment need to be made by players and coaches. No more offensive lineman diving at defenders legs when they are out in space.
This will affect most and maybe all SEC teams early on, and while this rule could be like any new rule that is put in place where it is enforced a lot at the beginning of the season, but ends up not being called as strictly during the beginning of the season, this also could be a rule that sticks around and ends up being a game changer.
Time will tell what teams it will affect the most but the best teams will adapt and work around this rule just like any other new rules put in place.