You’ve seen Bud Foster yelling, punching, pointing, and jumping plenty on the sidelines over the years. This past season, though, we caught a different sight: starting with the Miami game and continuing through the Military Bowl, Foster called his plays from the booth. It was a first for the coach, initiated because of doctor’s orders for Miami and UVA, and then carried on for Marshall and Cincinnati. It was so odd that it became a trending topic of conversation among Hokie fans and a frequent press conference question. While the motivation of the switch has been the biggest point of interest, I’m going to talk about the mechanics of the switch, which haven’t been given as much attention.

There are two big reasons for coaching from the sideline. The first is that it’s faster for him to signal directly to players than it is to have his call relayed from the booth. When Foster is on the sideline, he thinks of the play he wants to call and then he gives the signal. When he’s in the booth, he thinks of the play, verbalizes it over the radio to the signal coach (Jack Tyler, in this instance), who then gives the signal to the defense. Assuming the lines of communication are clear, the booth signal should only take an instant longer than the ground-level option. But when he’s calling plays and making checks, that instant could be the difference between a prepared defense knowing the call and a confused defense having the ball snapped on them in mid-signal.

The second reason is that between series it’s easier to communicate with his players face-to-face on the sideline than it is to call down from the booth. On the leadership and motivational level, it’s impossible to equate having a coach in front of you with hearing a voice over a headset (or not hearing it if the atmosphere is rowdy.) I suppose you could wheel out a flat screen and some hefty amps for a virtual coaching experience, but again that would be hard to equate with having the man right in front of a huddled front seven hashing an adjustment on the whiteboard.

Some of this reasoning in favor of coaching from the sideline is in flux. There are a couple of developments in the game that are sort of competing against each other regarding how important fast signaling is. On the offensive side, it’s teams’ ability to accelerate the pace of the game. The hurry-up/no-huddle approach can stress defenders’ ability to align and then receive signals. There’s also the increasingly common use of single words to communicate entire plays. A quarterback might shout “Chicago,” and the offense will know formation, motion/shifts, alignment specifics, blocking schemes, routes run, run play or run action, a second and entirely different play to check into based on the defense, and the snap count just from hearing that word. And there are things like the sugar huddle (mentioned in my Cincinnati preview), sideline checks, and freeze counts which speed up offenses even more.

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