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There’s nothing quite like playing football on Saturdays in the SEC. It’s by far the hardest and greatest conference in football.
Playing on the road in the SEC is even more brutal because the fans of the SEC are by far the most passionate in the nation. The energy they give to the stadium is palpable. I swear it is.
There’s no question that while playing on the road, communications are often messed up. That’s one of the main reasons teams are going to the no huddle and using signs rather than actual words. I was part of the last “huddle up” system at South Carolina and I remember distinctly how difficult it was to communicate with the other 10 guys in that small huddle.
Playing at Georgia, Florida, Alabama, it was brutal. I would wake up Sunday morning completely hoarse from shouting at the top of my lungs trying to communicate the play call, protection, and the cadence itself. It was very challenging and I would often have to repeat myself several times because a couple guys couldn’t hear the call. I’m getting jacked up right now just remembering how awesome it was!
Once the no-huddle systems started becoming popular, we quickly adopted the concept. It makes a lot more sense and sort of takes the noise out of the equation. If you pay attention, you’ll see the guard actually let the center know when to snap it when playing on the road. They do that so that the center doesn’t have to look back and can keep his head up during the entire cadence. It really does make a huge difference and makes his job a lot easier.
We all have seen the picture boards that assistants and graduate assistants use during the game. They typically show a picture of something completely unrelated to football. We never did that at SC and I’m not entirely sure what the motive is there, but my feeling is that it’s just to throw the other team off from trying to steal signals.
The no-huddle systems that a lot of college teams are starting to use are there for that specific reason: to reduce risk of miscommunication and to counter the noise of being on the road. Pretty soon, I think just about every team will be using this method. It makes sense.
The Man. The Myth. The Legend.