Come game days, every professional, college and high school head coach or offensive coordinator in America has some form of a two-point chart handy going into a game. The chart's purpose is to guide you when making the tough decision in a high pressure moment and to take the emotion out of the decision.
There always happens to be a lot of discussion on social media every weekend about coaching decisions and when to go for two. Every situation is unique, and Zach recently took a look at when to go for two when down 15. According to the chart we carry as coaches, it says to kick the extra point. But Zach makes a case for why coaches should go for two in that situation, like Mike McCarthy did a few weeks ago.
Like a lot of other coaches, Urban largely believes in sticking to the handy chart, but he noted on Fox College Football this past weekend that there are some exceptions to that.
Here are Urban's four reasons to deviate from that chart:
- Prior to the 4th quarter"I'm an offensive coach, I expect to score a lot of points. I don't want to get in one of those chasing points situations."
- Injuries and / or fatigue
- Home or AwayI did that in 2001 at Northwestern. Big crowd. We're down. We said, 'Let's try to end this thing immediately,' because the crowd keeps getting involved and at some point you're going to lose the game.
- Talent differential"This is the biggest one. When you're facing a team that you know, your players know, everyone knows that they are better than you. They have better talent than you. The longer the game goes, the most talented team is going to win."
To prove that last point, Urban then turns to a clip of the 2013 game against Michigan where Brady Hoke decided to go for two in Ann Arbor against Meyer's very talented Buckeyes squad.
As far as what plays he would carry into a have-to-have-it two-point situation, knowing that you don't have the luxury of putting the defense in a horizontal stretch type of situation with the ball on the 3-yard line, Urban shared that they'd carry their best run, their best pass, and always have one trick play as well.
See the full segment, with some great input from Brady Quinn on how analytics are changing some of the key two-point decisions, in the clip.
https://youtu.be/ibvt_XlGL_Y