Middle School Football Trick Play Stuns America

[웃 910]

Edited November 9, 2010 by Lord Infamous

[Jenn! 918]

Haha! Clever kids!

[Deputy Purple 1,294]

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) — It's not every day a play from a middle school football game goes viral.

Driscoll Middle School in Corpus Christi, Texas, pulled it off with a trick play over the weekend that's become an Internet sensation.

Driscoll was trailing Wynn Seale 6-0 in the fourth quarter of Saturday's city championship game. Coach Art Rodriguez decided it was time to run the "penalty play."

His quarterback, Jason Garza, got Wynn Seale to jump offsides with a long snap count. T he referee marked off five yards, and that's when Rangers sprang their ruse.

An assistant coach yelled that referees needed to mark off five more yards, and he told Garza to get the ball and do it himself. Garza nonchalantly asked his center to hand him the ball over his shoulder — a legal snap. He took five casual steps through the unaware Wynn Seale defense, then sprinted for the end zone.

For all the buzz, it didn't pay off in the end. Wynn Seale won the game.

The Article

Edited November 9, 2010 by Bob 4 Anna

[slim 1,533]

A legal snap. Hmm.

I bet a few coaches were wanting to toss the challenge flag!

[thongd4me 69]

{Thinking as the quarterback}

That play took major guts on his part.

It's not just the act of coolly walking through the opposing line,

it's the ability to freeze the linemen by having the eye contact

with each of them; obviously because he was not running

they were thinking that some kind of foul had been called

at the snap. If there was one bit of fear in his eyes,

he would have been outed. The other requirement was

QB's teammates stayed still as if responding to a called foul.

I kind of doubt there could be any challenge, unless the

snap was not legal because any player can choose to

position himself or run. There is no rule saying a player

can't walk.

If there could be a challenge according to the rules

they were playing under, that would have to be invoked

by the defensive coach, as Slim said. I could only see

that as a bad snap or a bad formation.

[slim 1,533]

The only thing I was thinking was something like, "A snap must consist of the ball being passed between - and under - both of the center's legs."

If it doesn't say that in their rule book, I bet it does next year!

[Pooky 3,844]

Cool?

Ice Cold!

And they won't need to change the rules for it next year, because it's a fool me once, fool me twice kind of deal. It won't work again because everyone who can access youtube will likely have seen it by the end of the week.

[Fandango 1,440]

Cute, but a cheap play if you ask me...

[SMR 368]

I'm not a football expert, but I'm pretty sure there was a false start here. The tight end on the near side (34?) definitely breaks formation before the ball is snapped (several of the linemen might, too). While it may seem nit-picky, this is actually critical to the play. If you're on the defense, when the offense breaks formation, it's takes you off guard because, by the rules, the offense has to set for the snap. If the offense wasn't set, it wasn't a real snap. If the offense had stayed set for the snap, as the rules require, it would have looked much more structured. Of course, you should always keep playing until the whistle, but I think the whole thing was very poorly reffed.

I'm a fan of win at all costs, but it's still a game and once you get too far outside of the rules of the game it's hard to consider it a win. Trick plays involving misdirection, multiple passes, laterals, even hiding the ball are all fair game so long as both sides know they're playing. But simply convincing the other team that the game is not happening right now goes beyond that.