New interpretation closes loophole that allowed Oregon’s intentional 12-man defense

On Saturday, Oregon put 12 defensive players on the field with Ohio State trailing by 1 in the final seconds. Four days later, the officiating governing body for college football has issued a new interpretation that prevents the tactic.

Ohio State was facing a 3rd & 25 with 10 seconds remaining when Oregon deliberately placed an extra defender on the field. Ohio State got five yards for the illegal substitution penalty, but lost four precious seconds. Oregon did not commit the foul on the next play, because the defensive penalty would have extended the game by one untimed down.

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Ducks coach Dan Lanning actually said the quiet part out loud and admitted it was an intentional foul.

“It wasn’t one-on-one, we actually had a safety on-top,” Lanning said in his Monday press conference. “It’s called ‘Dog.’ He wasn’t in extremely tight coverage, but he was in Dog coverage where he had safety coverage on top of him. And, yeah, there was a timeout before that. We spend an inordinate amount of time on situations. There’s situations that don’t show up very often in college football, but this is one that obviously was something that we had worked on. So, you can see the result.”

Steve Shaw, who holds dual titles as the national coordinator of football officiating and the NCAA secretary-rules editor, issued a bulletin to conferences and officials stating a late-game 12-men on defense foul will provide an option to restore time to the clock. It is not a new rule, but a new an expanded interpretation that leverages an existing Approved Ruling. In college football, the officiating operations are overseen by College Football Officiating, which is a separate entity from the NCAA.

“This action violates a guiding principle in our football playing rules, that there should be no profit when a team fouls,” Shaw writes in the bulletin. “The goal of this [in-season] interpretation is to eliminate the clock advantage for committing a substitution foul and take away any gain for the defense if they violate the substitution rule.”

Going forward, after the 2-minute notification, an illegal substitution penalty for more than 11 defensive players in formation will give the offense the ability to reset the clock to the time at the snap. The offense does not have to accept the penalty yards to get the time added to the clock. If a 12th player is exiting the field at the time of the snap and does not affect the play, there is no clock correction, but is still subject to a yardage penalty if accepted.

Famously, NFL coach Buddy Ryan had a clock-bleeding tactic that would place as many as 15 players on punt coverage. But it wasn’t until several years later that the NFL closed that loophole. In the NFL, 12 players in formation on either side of the ball at any time in the game is a snap-killing foul.

Shaw’s bulletin is shown below.