"I can not tell kids who do not get a chance to play to go in and not try," he said. "To not get better. To not work hard."

I can't disagree with that. Too bad the other team did so poorly against backups.

There's no such thing as "running up the score." That's something losers say to excuse a horrible horrible defense.

The way this particular game fell, the 83-0 scoreline was kind of unavoidable. They were scoring off open-field runs, kick returns, punt returns, blocked punts, one pass the entire second half... I know the winning team has an obligation not to run up the score, but the losing team at least has to be able to defend enough plays to ALLOW the winning team to not run up the score.

About the only way that Chaminade-Madonna could have avoided 83-0 in this particular game was to simply take a knee for four downs and hand the ball back. And NOBODY would have liked that solution.

Gosling: I know the winning team has an obligation not to run up the score

I don't understand this obligation one bit. I think just putting in your crappiest players to get some game time and experience should suffice (which is good for your team as a whole). And there is no obligation to do that. If you want to run up the score (from the rest of your post it did not sound like they were really trying to do that) you should feel free to do so. It is a competition. Are you expected to tone down the competition when your opponent sucks ass to not overly hurt their feelings?

Precious little snowflakes need to learn to live with disappointment.

I have a friend who is a HS coach. He was up like 35-0 at halftime. He took the other coach aside before the second half started and told him he was going to run between the tackles on every play, but he couldn't tell his scrubs to stop trying. The other team stacked the box and the final score was like 49-0. It could have been much worse.

As an average suburban American male, I was involved in sports. Tee ball when I was 6, soccer from 8 to 13, wrestling/football in high school.

Guess what? Sometimes you win. Sometimes you win big. Sometimes you get your ass kicked.

I've pinned a guy in 19 seconds and gotten pinned in less than 10 seconds. I've hit a home run off of a tee and been cut from the 8th grade baseball team (as in you aren't good enough to even play). I have been on soccer teams that were 0-13 and 13-0. I've been on a football team that sucked but managed to beat the league undefeated team.

As they say, 'that's why you play the game'.

I'd like to see a Florida football team beat a Texas football team 239-0. Or the other way around.

That's why the Olympics exist. Best of the best.

If you get beat that bad, maybe the coach is the problem. Or maybe the Class of 2009 were pussies. Or maybe you had an off night, and they had an on night, on the same night.

That's why you play the game. You don't play the game to say you tried. Do not hold the coach/kids back because they succeeded at their goal.

Good to see the Lions are winning again.

I've always agreed with Spurrier on this, "It isn't my job to stop scoring. It's their job to stop me from scoring."

Running it up to be a prick is one thing, but giving everyone a chance to play and still skull dragging your opponent is another.

One question - is points scored or TD scored a tie breaker for the playoffs? Cause if it is, you have every right to run up the score.

/ Said it before annoying TV analysts did

And yet, someone can run up a score to 92-0 in college and no one says anything.

box score of butt whoopin'a> (new window)

ihatedumbpeople: And yet, someone can run up a score to 92-0 in college and no one says anything.

It's OK; they magically stop being snowflakes with fragile egos once they go to college. Right? Right?

I coach HS football and have been on both sides of that equation (never to quite that magnitude but 60's - 7).

You don't run tossback passes or double reverses, your starters are out of the game and that kid that gets his ass kicked every practice is in. You can't ask that kid to try and suck more. He's practiced, he's gotten bumps and bruises from being on the scout team against the starters all year. The kid, at the very least, deserves to run real plays and to try his best.

If the other team cant stop "off tackle right" for 5 plays in a row, when they know its coming, well then you take your epic ass-whooping and life goes on. The losers are not summarily executed at the end of the game.

The coaches know when someone is rubbing it in, and when the other coach is trying to run clock with simple plays and give your team a chance to stop a drive. You tell your kids the truth, get back to practice and get better.

b2e44: Precious little snowflakes need to learn to live with disappointment.

More like they need to light a fire under their asses. You can't stop the game over something like this, but you can learn from it.

Don't like getting beat 83-0? Don't want to feel like that again? Show up for practice. Learn to work together. Start, and commit to, a rigorous workout program. Turn disappointment into a reason not to fail again. You don't have to cheat, but get that life's more rewarding when you earn your accomplishments. Learn that kind of lesson, and it'll carry through everything else in life. THAT'S WHAT GROWING UP IS ABOUT. It's the point of having kids play sports in the first place.

In middle school, our class played softball every day during lunch. As a nerd I was a joke of a player, and was made fun of for it. One day my friend and I decided we'd had enough, and with the help of an adult friend we did BP until I literally went temporarily blind from exhaustion. The guy only told me to get the fark up. After the dizziness went away I got up and batted half-blind.

You don't become an athlete overnight, but the next day I lined the first pitch into right field for a double. All the jocks cackled "luck". So I did it again (hard grounder up the middle). And again (line drive right to the pitcher). The pitcher caught the last one, but they stopped making fun of my softball skills after that. Made me feel a HELL of a lot better than playing like a retard while helicopter parents squeaked "good jorb!" (My parents weren't stupid like that, thank god)

This coach needs to be fired. He should have sent in his worst players and ordered them to just stand there, not moving, and only waving their arms around once his team was up by 21 points.

pandabear: I was on the receiving end of this--little tiny private high school. Only 40 boys in my class, not all of whom played football. Good thing is, you end up playing more than one position. Almost everyone starts. Bad thing, most of your opponents have full rosters, picked from many more students. They kick your ass, mostly. They can send in rested players, who are generally bigger and stronger than your starters.

One of my favorite stories my dad told me is back before Washington (the state) divided K-12 school athletics into divisions by size (B, A, AA, AAA, etc.), a poor, tiny school (couple hundred students at most) upset a 4000-student school for the boys' basketball state title. My memory's fuzzy and he might've exaggerated somewhat, but something like this actually happened because he knew the school names (I forget them tho). The reporters asked the coach how the fark he did it, and he deadpanned: "We practice in a gym with no heat."

Generally I'm against running up the score (I understand that it's the other teams' responsibility to stop you, but sometimes that just isn't going to happen) but it sounds like the coach did everything he could to keep it within reason.

SeamusFerrell: Are you expected to tone down the competition when your opponent sucks ass to not overly hurt their feelings?

For the less altruistic, here's another reason not to run up the score: what comes around, goes around. Stay in the game long enough, and it will soon be your turn to get kicked to sleep. To wit: the 'Ol Ball Coach isn't blowing out as many teams these days, is he?

Having said that, the coach in this particular article seems to have shown good sportsmanship.

FTA: And Tyrell points out all his starters were out of the game at halftime, following a 42-point second quarter.

I didn't know Tim Tebow started for Chaminade-Madonna.

SeamusFerrell: Are you expected to tone down the competition when your opponent sucks ass to not overly hurt their feelings?

One part that and two parts 'what goes around comes around'. Unless you're the Globetrotters, one day you're going to be the team on the receiving end. If you ran up the score on the other team in the past, expect it to get done to you.

My freshman year of high school we lost a baseball game 29-0. It was so bad our coach actually quit in the middle of the game Did we complain about them running up the score? No. Were we embarrassed about it? Definitely. The next year we lost only 4-5 games and the year after that we were in the state semis.

Point is, stuff happens. You can sit back and whine about it or you can get over it and work to get better.

Another reason the coach can't tell players to let up is that in contact sports you have to remain focused or you may end up exposing yourself to injuries. A sucky player coming full speed at a better player half assing it can still do some damage. Asking players to go easy can make for a somewhat dangerous situation.

MarshHawk: For the less altruistic, here's another reason not to run up the score: what comes around, goes around. Stay in the game long enough, and it will soon be your turn to get kicked to sleep.

That still smacks of "snowflake", to me. These are kids and it's a game; there's no need for a Geneva Convention. Heck, in some cases, getting one's ass kicked is the difference between a kid with natural talent and one with a future as a pro star. Basically I'm with everyone else: If it's a blowout, pull the starters and get predictable, but keep playing hard. These are kids, not pros, so it's as much a learning experience as it is "just a game".

On the other hand, I hear people everywhere -- including Farkers -- make the same case for scholarship college athletics and pros. Give me a farking break. These are adults with money dumped into them, and they're there because it's hardcore. Stakes are higher. And I've seen baseball teams blow 12-run leads, basketball teams blow 20-point leads and football teams blow 30-point leads -- all in the last quarter of play. So, few leads are safe. In those cases, fark egos, fark learning experiences and fark the whiners. Only reason to take your foot off the guy's neck when he's down is to avoid putting too much of your playbook on videotape or to protect your starters from injury (which are actually damn good reasons, mind you). Otherwise, if the other team's gonna cry over getting blown out they should stop playing with the big boys.

The Game:
The offense tries to score.
The defense tries to stop them.
This goes on for 60 minutes of play.
Those are the rules.
If you can not stop the offense, and you can not score, you are going to get beat by 89 points.
If you can not handle that, please do not sign up to play the game.

phartnocker: Those are the rules.
If you can not stop the offense, and you can not score, you are going to get beat by 89 points.
If you can not handle that, please do not sign up to play the game.

Yeesh, you might as well have added "This isn't 'Nam" and "mark it zero".
I see no reason to protect kids from ass-kickings, but there's no reason to get militaristic about it.

A favorite ex-head coach of my university once said, "It's not my job to stop my team."

This reminds me of when WVU beat Rutgers 80-7 in 2001. WVU didn't run up the score at all. Backups were in the whole second half while completing two passes for 6 yards. When the other team lets your third string RB run off tackle for a 60 yard TD and constantly hands you the ball inside their own 20, they're going to give up points no matter what.

Sadly, I doubt I'll ever hear the cheer "We-scored eight-y *clapclap-clapclapclap* again.

With my hockey team, i HATE playing against much weaker teams. We get used to that level of play, and sets us back a bit when we play a better team later on. You have to readjust your game.

wikid one: My freshman year of high school we lost a baseball game 29-0.

That's nothing. I was on a losing team that gave up 30 runs in a year. I think we lost 32-3, 30-1 and I don't remember the last one.

I pitched in a game we lost 14-2, and wasn't disappointed. We were awful.

I'm wondering how long it will take for Oakland to stop being used as the go-to-measurement for a high level of suckage.

I'm thinking this is the year.

/I say that every year

Cyberluddite: Wow. And looking at the box score, only 9 of those points were scored by the defense (one safety, and one fumble recovery run back for a TD), and none by the special teams, so that means the offense scored 83 points. They had no punts, no FG attempts, and no interceptions thrown, so aside from one lost fumble they scored a TD every time they touched the ball. Now that is an all-around, old-fashioned ass-whippin'.

I'd say 92 points on 41 offensive plays is pretty impressive.

It's tough when the opposition is just that brutal.
My hockey team beat someone 25-0 a few years ago. Intensity level dropped after the first 4 goals, made my best forwards play d after 7 goals, but there's only so much you can do. you can only play keep-away for so long before someone is standing alone in front of the net.

the rest of the league frowned on our shenanigans.

ihatedumbpeople: And yet, someone can run up a score to 92-0 in college and no one says anything.

box score of butt whoopin'a> (new window)

The 80s seem to be taboo in division 1A. Seems like every time someone scores 80+ (usually against a 1AA team) some sort of apology ends up coming. But 77 points, that seems to be fine.

And yet, someone can run up a score to 92-0 in college and no one says anything.


92. Bah.

222-0 is a real whuppin.

/Dont mess with John Heisman

Sorry but this "don't rack the score up" must be an american thing. I have rugby since I was 5. I was taught you play as hard as you can for as long as you can. If you go easy on them, you are insulting them by not giving it your best. Beating some 100-0 is just a quick way of letting people know that they are in the wrong grade. Sportsmanship never comes into it.

Personally I remeber being in a team that was beaten by 100 points (We were 13-14 years old and they were 15-16 years old and in a boys prision, it didn't scar me for life....it just showed me that if you don't tackle you getted dicked!

as long as he was going for it on every 4th down and not pulling out the razzle-dazzle plays in the 2nd half there's no problem with this. it's more disrespectful towards your opponent to stop trying. I've been on some really bad hockey teams as a goaltender and the attitude was always stop the next one.

"You mean you want me to try to coach this team so they don't score as much? That sounds like point shaving to me, and I won't have any part of that." - Billy Tubbs

Oh, hell. I guess I'll thrown in my butt whooping story too.

Little League Juniors level (grades 7-8. Normal base ball rules (steals, lead offs, pick off plays, etc. None of this "can't leave the bag till the ball crosses the plate" BS). We're down something like 12 points. Everyone including the umpires are kinda of confused because there's a mercy rule on the books, but no one really knows who has to invoke it (losing team or winning team?) and my teammates and I are kinda of getting mad that the option is on the table. Sure, we're down like 1-13, 0-12 or something like that, but we're there to play. Of course I could take solace by being the person a few years earlier who hit in the game winning runs against a team that otherwise went undefeated (19-1) that season. You win some, you lose some, but that's the game.

I was born in 1985 and I swear, starting with the kids born in 1988 or 1989 the world changed and they all had to be protected from every slight. It seems like my little generation group was the last group to know what life without computers was like (I don't count a 486-56 with a custom menu system or 486-66 with Windows 3.1 to be computers by today's standards), no cell phones, and no or limited internet (/me shutters at remembering 14.4k modems. Whippersnappers, try losing a life in an online game because your mom PICKED UP THE TELEPHONE). Our parents weren't over protected and if you lost, you lost. Get over it.

Beat Chaminade-Madonna 6-0 in the '02 state championships, so I'm getting a kick.

Anyways games like those (from TFA) were the absolute best. 2 quarters of beating the everliving snot out of the poor sod across the line from you, and then 2 quarters sitting on the sideline cheering on the freshmen.

JPINFV: I was born in 1985 and I swear, starting with the kids born in 1988 or 1989 the world changed and they all had to be protected from every slight.

That sounds about right. I was born in 1980, and it seems like once parents started hearing about a few precious snowflakes being molested by people they met online anyone with a child under 7 freaked out about how terrible the internet/world/us is, and how we have to kid glove them.

It started before that of course, but ever since I can remember parents evolved from reasonable to completely overprotective.

/had Lawn Jarts
//and a 2400 bps modem
///i have no lawn

JPINFV: I was born in 1985 and I swear, starting with the kids born in 1988 or 1989 the world changed and they all had to be protected from every slight.

I was born in '88. I never experienced anything like that. Maybe it was a '90s thing.