In 2024 Oregon head coach Dan Lanning seemed to have broken football. He found ways to exploit rules to his advantage, and the result was not one but two B1G blue bloods going down to the new blood Ducks. While one of these exploits got the most media attention as it resulted in a one-point win over the eventual National Champions, the Ohio State Buckeyes, Lanning was happy to exploit a special teams rule as well.
In my previous article reviewing the new rules to college football, I intentionally left two of the new rules out — both of which concerned our own Coach Lanning. These two rules will receive a rating from a 1 if it is an awful rule change and negatively impacts the game to a 5 if it helps improve the overall game experience. Mr. FishDuck took a break from his fun at Aviator gaming, as he was enjoying how the Duck HC is making an impact.
The Lanning Rule Gets Fine Tuned
Lanning’s brilliance against Ohio State forced a rule change mid season last year. His use of 12 men on the field to trade yards for clock was essential to Oregon’s victory. This new rule solidifies Lanning’s lasting legacy to the sport in its own right, as this new rule effectively fine tunes the old one. However, this rule is not necessary for college football. As I outlined in my earlier article concerning the Mad Man there are already two ways to counter 12 men on the field.
One is simply letting the play clock expire, as the offense can refuse to snap the ball with too many players on the field. Or two, call a time out where a coach can inform officials that there are too many players on the field. In this second case, the time out would be refunded. Both counters to this play were already in the rule book and the Buckeyes failed to use them. Instead either Ohio State (or just as likely, highly influential Ohio State fans) pushed the powers that be for a mid-season rule change.
What this refined version of the rule does is, after the two minute time out, if the defense commits a 12 men on the field penalty, the offense has the choice to reset the game clock.
However, if the 12th defensive player is actively trying to get off the field and has no impact on the play, then the clock is not reset and the defense incurs a five-yard penalty.
Will Howard falls to the ground to try and save clock, but he is too late.
(Photo By Eric Becker)
So there is a way to use the Lanning rule in a similar situation, but part of what made the Lanning rule brilliant was that he used 12 players to ensure the offense couldn’t move the ball during the play, where this version means 11 players need to square up and stop the opponent straight up. There is no benefit to having 12 players on the field in a fringe situation.
Rule Ruling: 1 – This rule didn’t need to exist and is rewarding those who whine about being outsmarted.
Scrimmage Kick Formation
This final rule change has three parts to it and I will break down each part.
Part 1: “No offensive player can be in the direct line of the snap to the potential kicker or within the frame of the snapper on punts for the formation to qualify as a scrimmage kick formation.”
This first part is rather straightforward. If the kicking team is going to punt the ball, there can’t be a player behind the snapper taking a direct snap. This is probably put in place to stop a team from running a player in motion and taking a direct snap from under center at the last moment. However, this rule change should not affect a play we saw the Ducks run earlier this year when Lanning called for a fake punt against Maryland, as seen below.
This fake punt formation should still be legal with this rule update as Jordan Burch ran for a first down.
(Screenshot from YouTube Fox Sports Media)
Critically here, there is no one lined up directly behind the snapper, besides the kicker who is more than 10 yards back. Instead the long snapper snapped the ball to Jordan Burch who was part of a legal protection formation.
Part 2: “If a team is not in scrimmage kick formation, it must have five players numbered 50 through 79 on the line of scrimmage.”
This second part is the hardest part of this new rule to break down and in truth I had to have multiple conversations with a coworker and Franklin High School’s Offensive Line and Assistant Head Coach Grady Holt-Seavy. Our determination is that if you are not in a legal kick formation, then you are in a typical offensive formation which requires offensive linemen to line up on the line of scrimmage.
After doing some additional research, I have been unable to find much of an explanation besides that.
Part 3: “Additionally, if the snapper is on the end of the line by formation, the snapper will lose scrimmage kick protection, and the opposition can line a player over the snapper.”
Now we finally get to the new Lanning rule. To quickly summarize this rule, if the snapper is not lined up at the center of the line in a kick formation he loses his kick protection. This means a defensive lineman is allowed to line up right over the ball instead of needing to line up with the snapper’s shoulder.
This precise thing came up when the Ducks played the Michigan Wolverines last season on a fourth down play.
In the screenshot below, it is clear that the snapper (red circle) is isolated and technically on the end of formation on the line of scrimmage (yellow rectangle).
Oregon lined up in a strange formation against Michigan and forced a penalty on fourth down, giving them a fresh set of downs.
(Screen Shot from YouTube CBS Sports)
At first glance this rule didn’t seem like that major of a change, and in truth it isn’t. However, digging deeper into this rule, it has become clear that Lanning exploited another rule in the book last season to his benefit. He confused the Michigan special teams enough that they misaligned one of their players and it resulted in the Ducks getting a free first down. The punt off this play, by the way, was a decent punt as it resulted in a touchback, so there really wasn’t any significant risk to Lanning for giving this a try.
Rule Ruling: 2 – This is not an egregious new addition to the rule book, but it doesn’t feel necessary either.
There are clearly two new rules added to the college football rulebook for 2025 that were influenced by the shenanigans of Dan Lanning. Take pride in this, Oregon fans; it shows our coach is innovative and is happy to bend the rules to win. In Year 3 Lanning is changing the way the game of football is being played, and isn’t that what we like to see out of a head coach at Oregon?
David Marsh
Portland, Oregon
Top Photo By Eric Becker
Natalie Liebhaber, the FishDuck.com Volunteer Editor for this article, works in technology in SLC, Utah.
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David Marsh is a high school social studies teacher in Portland, Oregon. As a teacher he is known for telling puns to his students who sometimes laugh out of sympathy, and being both eccentric about history and the Ducks.
David graduated from the University of Oregon in 2012 with Majors in: Medieval Studies, Religious Studies, and Geography. David began following Ducks Football after being in a car accident in 2012; finding football something new and exciting to learn about during this difficult time in his life. Now, he cannot see life without Oregon football.