Calling off the Dogs

I think it depends on the strengths of both your team and your opponent, to a degree. Some teams may be incompetent on defense, but can light it up on offense. There was a small school team in Alabama a few years ago who were winning their games with scores like 80-60. Playing them, my threshold for 'calling off the dogs' might be a bit different than playing another team who is in the habit of playing 14-10 type ballgames.

So, we don't have a hard and fast rule, but I think BLB's maxim is a good one as a guideline.

The latter.

dduck, I think it's important that you get the younger backups the experience. Also it's real classless IMO if a coach on the losing end starts to try and pummell the other teams backups. Prime example, we were up around 5 scores in a blowout during the fourth quarter, so it was time to give some of our younger JV players experience. It was also a time to reward those kids who are really hard working, but just don't have the DNA to be a starter.

What does our opponent do? They see we have a 5-4 backup kid in there at corner so they start to throw deep fades to their best receiver on consecutive plays. Here we were trying to do the classy thing and our opponnent acted in a classless manner.

I think the toughest call for a coach on the winning end is how to keep those backups from scoring. I've never been in this position before, but how do you tell a kid that's waited for his opportunity not to score.

Also, I've found that some coaches are stuck when they have a good running game. Logic tells you to run the ball to keep from "running the score up" but what if your backups are good enough to break a couple? Do you throw the ball & risk looking like a jerk even though you know why your doing it?

If I were up to me, I think I would get the backups in for the 4th quarter and work on one or two plays that we may need work on. Definitely would not want to run up the score on anyone...I have been on that side of it & it feels awful when you have to watch the morale of your team go down the drain b/c of some egotistical jacka-- who wants to break records.

Had a game two years ago with a D1 RB...we were up 49-0 at halftime and it wasn't that close.

HC made what was in my opinion a mistake and called the dogs at the half. Sent in the JV (we don't really have "2's" per se...only at a couple positions).

To make a very long story short, the other team's HC left his starters in the whole game (it was the second game of the season) and at one point the game was 49-35 with them onside kicking. Our header then sent BACK out the starting offense (starting defense had been in for the last score) which I worry will get kids hurt having been essentially standing on the sidelines for two quarters. (We had a bad injury earlier in the 3rd...ambulance and such...more standing around..starters were cold.)

We ended up winning the game 55-41, after the game their kids and HC were all like "Aw man, we almost got you guys!" Ticked me off.

If your backups can score then they should score. If they can't stop your 2nds and JVs that's not your problem if you're just running base plays.

Problems I have when calling off the dogs.


We are a run heavy team, the backups really only run our core plays and are pretty good at it. They almost always tack one more on which I hate, but love to see the second team have success.

Crushing a team who's coach you are good friends with. Very uncomfortable. College teammates or guys I have befriended over many years of coaching.

Teams that score against our second defense with their starters then go crazy when they do. That bugs me more than anything.

The absolute worst thing that can happen is calling the dogs off too early and let them back in the game. I had a buddy that had this happened to him. He had to put the starters back in to preserve the win.

I call off the dogs on offense first up by three scores in the late third or fourth quarter. I will not change my defense until they put their second team offense on the field. Unless it really gets ugly.

This is a consideration. You do have to do what's good for your team in the long run. If a blowout is an isolated case then taking the starters out- so that they're not exposed to the risk of injury-and getting reps for the young kids is best for you. If you have a few blowouts in a row you may need to keep the starters in late into the game. You shouldn't be throwing deep and running trick plays but the starters have to get used to playing a full game.

I would have to disagree...basketball teams do it...even some baseball team will do it by bringing in an outfielder to pitch sometimes. Football is definitly the place you see coaches doing the mass subs the most because honestly it is the most violent of the major sports. I know someone is going to bring up hockey or rugby or some other sport but that does not take away from the fact that as a coach if you are up big in the 4th and still ha ve starters on the field and one gets injured....what will your community/boosters say?

Our starters play the first half. That's pretty much our rule on blow outs, now there is that rare just God awful team you may run into that you start pulling guys early but that is how we approach it. Some times we leave them in for parts of the third but usually if it's a blow out our guys are done at the half, esp with a running clock situation.

On a side note I do not believe in the kicking on 1st down or taking a knee stuff in blow outs. Our back ups work hard and deserve to have some fun so I am not gonna send them out there to punt on 1st. If the other team has their scaboogies in when we have ours in to I have no problem blitzing on D but we will never throw the ball when we are up big.

We have very few numbers, usually 16 varsity players, and the rule we live by is to play our starters until we get the running clock. We don't have enough for a complete second team and want to shorten the game as much as possible to try and avoid a key player being injured when the game is out of hand.

This is a very valid point and many of us have no doubt had similar experiences.

However, once the game is decided, I still feel it's necessary to give our backups reward for practice effort and experience for their opportunity to contribute when game is on the line comes.

I'd have a tough time looking into their faces after a game and explaining that they didn't get in (more) because the "other coach didn't substitute" - not to mention their parents and our administrators-board members.

What's the difference if you win by one TD or five, so long as you win?

The next time we're up by a lot and the other team makes wholesale substitutions will be the first.

We have running time if a team is ahead by 35 or more points at any point after halftime. Our only cut and dry rule is after running time, all starters come out. Anything before that we try to evaluate on a game-by-game basis. I agree with what phantom said, its usually tell if another team is trying to run up the score and usually if you use common sense you can avoid any kind of problems but there is always a chance things can turn ugly with one wrong play.

The worst I've been involved in happened last year during the last JV game. Near the end of the game, up by 35 and its 4th down. We line up to punt and the other team leaves both our "gunners" uncovered when they split out. Our punter (and backup QB to make things worse) is taught all year long to throw to any uncovered gunner and not thinking about the score he goes ahead and puts up a fade. Thankfully the gunner didn't expect it but the damage was already done. The opposing coach just wouldn't accept that the kid made a mistake and it wasn't a fake punt called. Things got so bad that two days later when the varsity teams played things nearly got out of hand with a lot of pushing and shoving and players needing to be separated more than a few times. It turned an exhibition Thanksgiving Day game into a real bad experience.