Lots of misconceptions and misnomers going on here. This was not a fumblerooskie. (skip to the 0:50 mark) is a fumblerooskie. It was also not a fake kneel. In college rules, a fake kneel counts as an actual kneel anyway by rule and causes the play to be dead instantly. Tech did use the "RB lining up 10 yards back" to make it look like a victory formation to add to the "wtf are they doing" uncertainty and provoke more hesitation from the D, but the play was not a fake kneel. The play was the same one that, as far as I know, was first run by Arkansas on October 7, 2006, in an upset of #2 Auburn, where they hid 5'6" Reggie Fish behind a tightly-bunched OL. May not have been the actual invention of that play, but I at least had never seen nor heard of that type of trick play in college or the pros before. And I also remember everyone was talking about that play for quite some time as if it was something new. As far as I know it doesn't really have a name. It was "woody" in their playbook and sometimes gets called "Hide the midget". Interestingly, Texas tried it all of 2 weeks later (against Nebraska, in the Ryan Bailey game), with Shipley, and predictably the defense saw it coming. There's even an old Hogville thread about it I found where some of their fans detailed exactly why the Mack/Greg version failed (besides that the play was so famous and so recent that NU wasn't likely to be fooled) where the Malzhan version succeeded. Wise words for a Hog. Note that Tech fulfilled all 3 parts of the criteria to a T. The diversion part was why people are calling it a fake knee or getting pissed that our defensive players are, supposedly, so stupid that they genuinely thought Tech was going to try and kneel the clock out when there was obviously too much time. It's highly unlikely the D thought that - the issue is there were so many odd factors to consider that they didn't know what they should think. It only takes a split second of doubt. "Ok, they can't be kneeling here, but what is that guy doing then, and why are they using that formation and what are they running from there?" Then the ball was snapped before anyone could figure out what was going on, or who had the ball. In fact, it was snapped too quickly. Tech's rightmost guy hadn't been set long enough when it was snapped, which should have been a penalty. Not that the blown call was the issue for Texas - if anything it gave us a chance to come back and score quickly, as opposed to Tech running the entire rest of the clock out. We did get fooled, but not in the way people say we did, and that play isn't why we lost the game. But credit to the Tech staff for picking the right time to run the play and for figuring out why and how that play works when it does.
I haven't seen the reply of the game since, but at the time I didn't think everyone was set long enough but that may have just been the amount off consumption at the time......
Since it works only once per year, Texas should use it in its opener against ND in 2016 before anyone else does. Dang, it is out of the bag now. Do we have anyone small enough to hide behind the line? Possible recruiting target.
