USD Football 1994

Fans Love the Drama of the Two-Point Conversion, But How Do Coaches Feel About It?

- \

j two is better than one, and zero is

years. His first five seasons (1968-72) were spent at Iowa State, where, during his final season, what should have been a stunning upset of Nebraska ended in a heartbreaking tic when the Cyclones kicker shanked the extra point attempt late in the game. Majors also spent four seasons at Pitt, where he inherited a

always worse than one. But is a tie always better than a loss? Suppose the game you're watching today comes down to the final minute, and your team is trailing by six points and driv- ing for a touchdown. You're already thinking, go for two. It's always easier to make decisions

when you don't have to answer for the conse- quences. Espe- cially when you haven't been elec- ted or hired to make them. One of the great beauties of college football in recent decades has been the two- point conversion play. Without any suddendeath over- time period, tics become less like- ly, as the coach who goes against popular opinion, who fails to roll the dice by kick- ing the almost· certainextra point, thus ensuring a

team that had gone 1-10 in 1972, and trans- formed it into a national cham- pionship squad in 1976. Sixteen seasons at his alma mater, Ten- nessee, produced many highs a nd afew lows, before Majors returned to Pittsburgh in 1993 to attempt to revitalize a football program that had once again fallen upon hard times. Majors knows about the hopes and expecta- tions of fans- particularly when the game

"Going for two is always the bold, macho thing to do, but after it's all over, and you didn't make it, it's still a loss, and a tie is much better because it counts less against the percentages."

JOHN MAJORS, HEAD COACH, UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH

final tie score, risks public (and even internal)scorn and ridicule from the thousands of arm-chair quarterbacks who think they know more about thegame than the men on the sidelines. John Majors has been coach-

is on the line and people arc clamoring for the coach to "go for two! 11 "Overall, football is a game of mistakes, and the team that makes the fewest amount of mistakes will beat the other

Pitt Head Coach John Majors believes the two-point conversion "is a call and a play where you're working against the percentages."

continued