A hurry up offense in football is an offensive strategy that involves taking as little time as possible between plays. Usually, this means the offense will not huddle before the play instead of going straight to the line of scrimmage.
In most cases, teams are going to run the hurry up offense when looking to score in a limited amount of time.
When a player is tackled in bounds in football the clock will continue to run until the next play starts. If a team huddles and takes their time before starting the play a total of fourty seconds can be burned off the clock.
For this reason, teams will employ the hurry up offense to get to the next play started in as little time as possible. This makes the hurry up offense quite similar to most no huddle offenses in football.
Additionally, some teams prefer to run a hurry up offense even when they are not facing any issues with time. These teams often find that using this style of offense keeps the defense on their heels.
Advantages Of The Hurry Up Offense
Now that you understand what a hurry up offense is in football it’s time to break down how this offense can benefit your team.
Tiring Out Defenders
One benefit of running the hurry up offense is that you are going to tire out the opposing teams defenders.
One great example of this is the defensive line. These players are in incredible shape but a few pass rushes against top tier offensive lineman is going to tire anyone out.
As the offense marches down the field the defensive line will get more and more tired. This results in much more time for the quarterback to throw the ball.
During this time the defense may attempt to substitute defensive lineman but due to the speed of the hurry-up offense this is difficult as well.
Cornerbacks are another position that may find themselves tired on defense. A receiver creating separation due to being covered by an exhausted corner can result in a huge play for the offense.
Dictating The Pace
Another benefit of running the hurry up offense is that you are able to dictate the pace. The hurry up offense generally moves quickly but some teams have multiple speeds in the hurry up offense.
The Oregon Ducks coached by Chip Kelly used to run a hurry up offense with several different speeds.
In this offense the team had three different speeds the offense could run at. This would allow them to dictate the pace of their offense throughout the game.
Whenever the defense felt like they had a grasp on the rhythm of the game the offense would change to a different speed.
This can be incredibly difficult for a defense as they will struggle to feel comfortable. It will also make it more difficult for them to change their personnel on defense.
Great For Conserving Time
The final advantage we are going to cover regarding hurry-up offenses in football is their ability to conserve time. If you are trying to stage a comeback late in a game the hurry up is going to be the best way to do it.
Running this offense is going to save you a ton of time in between plays. Additionally, if a team has timeouts or is willing to spike the ball then they will be able to stop the clock on big gains.
Even with a hurry up getting your offense down the field to snap the ball can take some time. If a team uses time outs in these situations and uses hurry up on most plays they will be running an incredibly fast-moving offense.
That’s all on hurry-up offenses in football learn about the dinking and dunking offense or the smashmouth offense to understand other offensive strategies football teams may use.
