In Praise of the Quarterback Sneak

Longtime readers of this column know that I am a fan of the Montreal Alouettes. They have an interesting play in their arsenal.

Every time they have less than a yard to go for a first down, they bring in backup quarterback Marcus Brady. He plunges forward for the first down, and returns to his seat on the bench.

I've seen them do this dozens of times the last couple of years. The play never fails, and they never, ever get cute with it. Brady always stays between the tackles — between the guards, as a matter of fact.

Since they are using a particular player for this gambit, and they never get fancy with it, it pretty much means even the defense knows what's coming. And yet, they can't stop Brady from gaining two feet.

Don't get me wrong, I don't always mind when teams do get cute with 4th-and-short from time to time. Ohio State preserved their 2002 national championship season by completing a touchdown bomb on 4th-and-short. I seem to recall Texas beating Nebraska during Nebraska's dominant era that way, as well.

What I don't understand, though, is when teams will hand off to a running back and let him run up the gut and try to get the first down.

I think the reason Montreal's Brady play always works (and I mean always) is not because Montreal has some sort of invincible o-line. It's because they get the first push. It's often said that playing defense if tougher than playing offense, because the defense is forced to react to the offense. The offense knows what it's gonna try to do.

Even if going up against a bigger, stronger, defensive line, being in sync on the snap count gives Montreal a split second advantage with their surge — all they need to pick up fourth and inches.

You hand it off, though, and that advantage goes away. The offensive line has to beat the d-line straight up, and now blitzing corners and linebackers come into play, as do the disastrous prospects of missed assignments. All of these possibilities are inapplicable to a QB sneak.

And if (like Montreal) your quarterback is too much of a stiff or too precious to the coaching staff to send up the middle, let the running back, or whomever, take the snap directly.

I feel strongly about this. I get the luxury of knowing one of my favorite football teams will always convert on 4th-and-inches, and frustrated seeing the rest of my favorite teams (and the rest of the football world) not getting the memo.

Speaking of memos, my memo on Charlie Weis is that he's not the coach Tyrone Willingham was, and I say that knowing Willingham just picked up his first Pac-10 win last week. When people pointed out the similarities in the record and accomplishments of Willingham's first two seasons with Weis's, Notre Dame fans responded by digging up stats and figures demonstrating the superiority of Weis.

I agree that now, there's no comparing Weis and Willingham. Willingham didn't lose to Navy and went 6-5 in his third (and final) season.

There was quite an uproar at Notre Dame's quick trigger finger with Willingham. This is Weis's third season, so he's surely gone after this season, right? Right?! If not, then Notre Dame deserves even more of the stratospheric levels hatred and vitriol then they receive now.

I bring this up now because Notre Dame's loss to Navy was due to frankly poor coaching decisions. NBC showed some interesting side-by-side shots of the Notre Dame players against their Navy counterparts, and it was clear the Irish had a huge size advantage, particularly in their receiving corps against Navy's secondary. It goes without saying that Navy has no blue chip recruits. These are the reasons Notre Dame had beaten Navy 43 straight times.

Yet not only did Weis send in an ill-advised first quarter fake field goal on 4th-and-15, but with 45 seconds left, he chose to go for it on 4th-and-8 from the Navy 28 with the score tied. It worked out as well as the fake field goal did.

Notre Dame kicker Brandon Walker hasn't been stellar, but his long this year is 48 and this was well within his range. Weis said he had been missing those into-the-wind field goals during pre-game, but the odds still had to have been better than 4th-and-8 against a zooted Navy defense. The way to beat a less-talented team is straight-up, conventionally. It's the underdog that has to get clever.

But Weis can't do that, has to show off his fertile imagination and demonstrate his beautiful mind and leave his genius imprint on every game he coaches. We see how far it has taken the Irish.