Annual Topic: running up the score

Depends how they scored the points. Pick sixes, kicking game, 2nds and 3rds in the game. If you do yoiur part that's all you can do.

We played a far inferior team Friday night. Halftime was 40-0. Final was 50-0. We started subbing in the second quarter. Started the starters in the 3rd (minus starting tailback and best Wr), played them two series. Didn't throw the ball in the 4th. Opposing team asked for a running clock in the second half (which I DO NOT agree with, but thats another topic). We only ran 41 plays after running 76 the previous week. Our starting tailback had 61 yards on 3 carries and never played another snap. Best Wr sat down halfway through the 2nd. Our head coach simply will not let us throw the ball with a lead like that.

In most cases I am not opposed to one team scoring 50 or 60 in a blowout, and I have been blown out many times in my career. Like phantom said, it depends on how it all transpired. This has been discussed here before and it seemed that most felt that running up the score was an overrated topic.

I dare say that kneeling early or punting early is MORE insulting that scoring again. At least that is how I would feel if I were being blown out.

I agree about the punting thing. If your running base stuff, then that's fine. Reverses and such...lame. and I hate hate hate it when varsities tee off on obvious jv players

You should never take a knee 3 times in a row and punt. You should never punt on 1st down. That's just rediculous and shows the team up more!

What you do is play all your subs and run your base run plays. If you score you score. Your JV players practice just as hard as the starters. They deserve to at least be able to run basic plays rather then take a knee and punt.

Some times there is little you can do to keep the score down. If you put in the 3rd and sometimes 4th teams and run up the middle, and are still scoring, what else can you do?

Had this happen to us two weeks ago playing the defending state champions. We are having a rough year, only dressing on average 18-19 players per game and starting mostly sophomores (9 underclassmen start on both sides of the ball) which has led to an 0-7 record and only two competitive games. Anyway they were up 48-0 with about a minute to go in the 1st half when we punt and they run a reverse on the punt with their #1 returners in the game and take it down to our 5. They score to go up 54-0 then the holder picks up the ball on the snap, not a bad snap and they run a two point play which we stop. So as we head into half-time their coach comes over toward me saying that he wanted to apologize because the players did that on their own. I just waved him off cause I feel it's my job to coach my team up to prevent that from happening. Well, he must have felt bad because when they got the ball because he had his subs kneel down two straight plays at the 50 yard line.

To me that was more humiliating than running the reverse and the two point try. I called time out and went out onto the field and basically shouted over to him to"Let your kids play. You are humiliating us more kneeling down than if you score." He let them play and they only scored one more on us with his subs running base plays. I don't have a problem with that, but I do have a problem with kneeling down and humiliating my players.

To be fair, they have another great team and will probably win the states again and could have beaten us by a much larger margin had they chosen to do so. We have a very young team that will be lucky to win a game. It was a mismatch going in, ended up a mismatch, and I wouldn't have been so upset at the end if they hadn't pulled the kneeldowns.

I have also been on the other side of the score many times and always call off the dogs and run base plays with my back-ups. I have never tried to humiliate the other teams kids. It's something I feel very strongly about.

Coach, if you had your rserves in then yes it is humiliating. I would have had no problem with your reserves scoring. They deserve to play if the game gets out of hand and it is up to my team to stop them. You scoring with reserves right before the half is not humiliating it is just football. Now if your #1s were still in it is a different story.

We are the team in our area that 'runs up the score'. It is what it is. We run our stuff, even with back ups in. If you line up in C0, we will throw a fade. If you're running the hitch/pitch, reverses, etc... we will blitz. We coach our kids to go hard. Our back ups get in the game. We expect them to go hard.

We are in a stretch of several games to be honest we should have no problem with. The problem is at the end of this stretch, we have a huge game in which starters will have to fight and scratch for 48 minutes. How is pulling the starters after the 1st series of the second quarter going to prepare them that game?

And yes, we do the fast pace pratice, SAQ, etc.... thing.

"Running the score up" is decidedly different than "scoring a lot of points."

I would define "running the score up" as continuing to play starters and / or calling plays that are outside the base structure of the offense with the intention of padding the score even though there is no chance of that team coming back and beating you.

Bottom line: the defense is responsible for stopping the offense. If they can't stop your JV guys from scoring with base plays...that's not running the score up. That's football.

If I leave my starters in and I'm throwing 5-step and playaction routes when I'm typically a 75% run team...yeah, I think that's wrong.

I like to use the statement if the shoe where on the other foot a lot so I tend to think before I act.

Many times I think people confuse running up the score with scoring points. they see a lopsided score and automatically thinking running up the score.

I think anytime you try to embarrass the other them when the score it big. It amazes me how many coaches like to try the trick plays when they are up big. I guess they think this is the best time as if it fails it is no big deal.

we had a wishbone team in a conference I used to coach in who liked to practice their passing game when they were up big.

I have been on both sides as well. I guess here are my things:

If there are some things that a team will work on for the future ie playoffs, that they have done in a regular game. When your down you become a prime candidate for that. They kick FG's, run trick plays, run special 2 Pt. Conversion Plays, or other things out of the ordinary.

Does that make it running up the score? Is that humiliating?

There have been many situations in our conference where a team has been accused of running the score up when that wasn't the case at all. It's just the reality of 8-man football; if an athlete gets out into space, you're one missed tackle away from a big gain or a score.

We lost to a team 56-35 a few weeks back and parents were hollering because they threw their starters back in late in the game. But, they failed to realize that we had scored 14 points on the varsity unit in the first half (48-14)and then another 14 (48-28) in the third quarter when they pulled a few of their studs. We weren't just moving the ball; we were ripping off big runs and scoring quickly. We traded scores late in the game to make it 56-35. They knew, that even with a running clock, we were in a position to make it a game and had to get their guys back in there. I mean, a pick-six or a big special team play would put us right back in the mix. They got really spooky when we recovered an onside kick.

We had this situation last week. Up 46-0 at the half. We started subbing not quite halfway through the 2nd quarter. Back-ups played the entire 2nd half, except for the first play. We ran iso and we went 70 yards for a TD. They scored several TDs against our 2s, 3s, and 4s. We put together a drive with our reserves. On a 3rd and long we run a pass that should hve been thrown into the flats. Instead our back up QB throws across his body towards our 4th string TE on a post. TE out jumps the DBs and scores a TD. We are still debatingabout whether or not that was running up the score.