The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Practice refs helped Bulldogs cut down on penalties
NEW HAVEN — There wasn’t a whole lot to complain about as Yale racked up victories in its first two games of the season.
If there was one issue, however, it was the amount of penalties the Bulldogs had incurred. In wins at Lehigh and against Cornell, Yale committed a combined total of 24 penalties.
With that in mind, coach Tony Reno added a new twist to practice this past week, bringing in a group of local college referees to officiate Wednesday’s practice.
Hard to argue with the results: In Yale’s 41-10 romp at Fordham on Saturday, the Bulldogs were flagged a mere three times.
“If we’re gonna achieve the level of play we want to play,” said Reno, “I think any small piece that can help us five percent, three percent, two percent — make us that much better as a team — it’s worth it. So, we were fortunate to be able to do that.”
It worked so well that Reno plans to bring that group of refs in each Wednesday for the rest of the season.
Yale will need all the help it can get heading into Saturday afternoon’s clash of unbeatens on the road against Dartmouth. Reno calls the Big Green the best team Yale will have faced so far.
“Nothing against the three teams we’ve played earlier, they’re all very good programs and I’ve got a lot of respect for all three of them,” Reno noted. “But Dartmouth’s the best we’ve played.”
Reno had been trying over the first couple of weeks to balance his team’s aggressiveness on defense — which he loves — with committing fewer penalties.
“I think that’s something that we had to look at ourselves and the defense and
say, ‘Do we want to continue to have long drives with penalties, or do we want to get off the field by rewarding ourselves with good play?’,” senior linebacker Foye Oluokun said at Tuesday’s weekly media luncheon at Mory’s Restaurant. “The first two games, we were on the field a lot of the time due to those penalties. So, we made an effort in practice to focus on that detail, whether it was offsides or knowing where to put our hands in coverage, really trying to get away from what they were throwing flags on.”
“It’s about being more intentional in technique, and attention to detail,” Reno added. “I think over the course of practice, I saw that out of them. We don’t want to take an ounce of aggressiveness away, but you just need to be more intentional in how you’re doing things.”
Reno brings the same group of officials in for Yale’s annual spring game, as well as for a few practices during the preseason. Bringing them in during the season is new to the program, but hardly new at the collegiate level: Purdue, where Reno’s brother, Domenic, is the strength coach, has been doing it for
“It’s not about who you play, it’s how you play. That’s something I was definitely impressed with on Saturday.” Yale coach Tony Reno
a while now.
“They do it every Wednesday,” Reno said. “They thought that it was very beneficial. So, we gave it a shot. It was good, because when you’re able to repeat form, technique correctly over a period of time, the chance of you doing it correctly on Saturday is much better.”
And the proof was certainly in the pudding on Saturday night at Fordham.
“I was very impressed with the team on how they responded on Saturday,” Reno said. “We started off fast. I thought they had conviction with how they played. They went into halftime with a sizable lead and were able to keep the foot on the gas for the second half.”
“It’s not about who you play,” he added, “it’s how you play. That’s something I was definitely impressed with on Saturday.”