There’s another far more intelligent reason why coaches should never let off the accelerator. College football is not a “team” game. It’s a “program” game. A coach’s job is working at constant dual purposes, winning in the here and now while simultaneously planning for the future. That’s why Pinkel kept inserting a kid named Chase Daniel into games three seasons ago, when he was a freshman understudy to Brad Smith. Daniel would come into games at critical times, and he was allowed to run the offense at high throttle. He played in 10 games, completed nearly 60 percent of his pass attempts (38 of 66 for 347 yards, 1 TD and 2 INTs), and led the Tigers on a fourth-quarter comeback when Smith was injured against Iowa State.

So now Daniel is a senior, and there’s another freshman QB phenom named Blaine Gabbert on the team. This year’s squad is far more advanced than the one that Daniel played on as a freshman, which means that so far, Gabbert hasn’t had much chance to come into games in critical, competitive moments. By the time he has come into the last two contests, the games were already over. But what sort of learning experience will Gabbert get by coming into these blowouts and running a scaled back game plan that goes against everything he will be expected to do next year when he’s supposed to step in as Daniel’s heir?

What benefit does Gabbert get by getting game experience where his primary directive is “keep it close and don’t score”?

So for that matter, what benefit do any of the backups from all of the top-ranked programs get by coming into games and being instructed to take it easy?

The answer is nothing.

That’s not how to build a program.

So that’s why I am constantly amazed when I hear people grumbling or scratching their heads when they see their highly ranked team “running it up” (particularly when not so long ago, some of those highly-ranked team used to be on the wrong side of those butt whippings).

It’s not running it up that’s a crime.

The crime is not giving the next generation a chance to run the offense, period.

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