Why is it considered negative to 'run up the score'?

[Parrhesia]

I hear a lot of people, chiefly Americans (not bias, but I genuinely think it's only considered negative there) frown on 'running up the score'.

Point A)

Point B) Why is this considered a bad thing?

Point C) What exactly are the better team meant to do?

Point D) Because if they're sitting in the middle of the pitch in possession, not even refusing to try anymore, surely that is more disrespectful?

By way of example. The Confederations Cup is a casual-but-important international football tournament, wherein the World Champions, I believe the World Cup hosts and the champions of each of the continents basically fight it out. Now, New Zealand is the best team in Oceania by a mile, but they got hungover and lost to New Caledonia which I'm not even making up. End result is Tahiti was the champion of Oceania, beating New Caledonia in the final.

The entire country of Tahiti had one professional player. He was a 33-year old reserve striker for some second-tier club in the Greek leagues. The side had to endure conditioning to withstand the sheer crowd noise. But they went out and fought with honour.

They were drawn against Spain, Nigeria and Uruguay.

All three of these sides treated them with the respect they deserved - and Tahiti managed to score a goal in a 6-1 defeat to Nigeria (Uruguay beat them 8-0, Spain 10-0). All swapped shirts with them, all treated with as equals... and surely that means more than just stopping trying to play the game at four-nil?

[Tryhard]

Funny, because whenever bragging about scores against your rivals, people pick the biggest wins that they had over the club in their history, even if it's no longer relevant.

Though I don't think, in basketball or american football at least, that this would be looked down upon, really.

[peener weener]

'making time' is considered disrespectful, and will get you shouted at for being a fuccboi

[jiodi]

It seems like a bigger deal to Americans because we're known for enjoying higher-scoring games (basketball and american football -- 6 points for a touchdown is lol. love the sport, but it caters to our need for big numbers so much). Generally speaking, when a win is absolutely obvious it's no really in good taste to continue to beat your opponent down.

The two sports I mentioned above also have some clock manipulation crap teams do to get as much time as they can. If you are trying to stretch the game clock out while being up by a zillion points you're being a bad sport. It also just doesn't make any sense. While the losing team will run out of bounds or save timeouts and whatnot to save precious clock time, a winning team will run the clock out and not try and make any stupid mistakes to potentially lose to some crazy miracle.

From a strictly strategic standpoint, nobody wants to be the guy on the team that was winning by insane numbers and somehow managed to blow it trying to make another big play, setting the stage for an [insane number] - [insane number + 1] loss.

Personally, I believe in winning with grace as much as losing with grace. If I'm playing some dude at MTG at an FNM and I'm decimating him I'm not going to draw the game out for more turns just so I can swing for 500 instead of swinging for lethal and letting the poor sap move on to his next round.

In the case of your video the team just giving up is ridiculously annoying.

I don't consider this particular video a case of one team running up the score to be jackasses. They're just playing the game. Football (real football, as much as I hate to call it that :P) doesn't seem to be the same kind of game as what us Americans were born and raised on. No matter what, if the losing team gives up like that you WANT the winning team to run up the score. Being a sore loser during a game is probably worse than being an ungraceful winner.

[Lord Raven]

When I think of running up the score I think of these guys. On average outscored the opposition 37-17 during the regular season (playoffs were different). And most of those teams were actually dangerous teams - they faced probably the toughest strength of schedule in a looooooong time, and I don't think many teams had a tougher schedule than them. And the record of the teams they beat don't do justice to how good some of those teams were. Those teams had the potential to come back against the Patriots that year. But by decimating them they prevented all hope of a comeback.

They were really shit on for running up the score - and I hated the shit they got for it. I hate the Patriots but there's more reason to hate them (especially if you're in the AFC) than they run up the score. If you make a lead so insurmountable that the opposition has a very tiny chance of coming back, then you've done your job. The purpose is to win and if you're not putting everything into a win then what the fuck are you doing? You don't want to see ridiculous comebacks like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC0XruxqQjQ

If you keep running up the score you prevent that. (Also adjustments are a thing and for some reason the Oilers forgot to run the ball -_-). And even just now in the NFL playoffs we saw the Colts recover from a 28 point deficit 2 minutes into the second half and come back to win it 45-44, and the Chiefs only scored 6 in the second half. Hell, Super Bowl 47 was 28-6 going into the half and the Ravens almost shot themselves in the foot because they only won by 3 (really 5 due to the Safety) when all was said and done (we won 34-31, with 2 of those points coming from Koch making an intentional safety in the endzone to burn the clock out). And the Ravens in the season opener were on the verge of a comeback, only 15 points down with 6 or so minutes left, and a Broncos touchdown sealed the game forcing us to score 3 TDs and convert a 2 PC to win the game. In other words, an insurmountable lead.

Now, once again I can only speak in terms of American football, but running up the score isn't always ideal because of what it takes sometimes to do it. You don't want to go deep when you're ahead; often times you want to run the ball and make some very low risk moves so you can burn clock and march down the field to score. Time also makes a lead insurmountable, but other teams don't have that kind of run game or defense and need to run up the score to sustain a lead. This is basically how the Chargers beat the Broncos on TNF this year, because they could get a small lead and burn the clock. In some cases the preferred action is not to run up the score but to burn the clock, which is why some people may look down on it - a difference of philosophy, but casual fans are considerably less reasonable.

To some it can be seen as stat-padding and glory-hogging though. Some Dolphins fans believe the reason Marino is ringless has to do with this idea.

Edited April 8, 2014 by Lord Raven

[peener weener]

Ah so you guys call it burning the clock. That's what i was talking about. Burning the clock is absolutely the most fuccboi tactic you can adopt once you're in the lead. Holding the ball and making zero risk zero reward plays is absolutely disrespectful to the sport, the spectators, and the opponent team. If you're up, and youre dancing around th field waiting as the clock ticks, youre a fucking asshole. have the common decency to go at it full force and give them something of a fighting chance. If one team is getting demolished and you stop scoring cause you think youll hurt their feelings if you stop is kind of like spit in the face. I honestly had never heard of something like that.

[Lord Raven]

That's not quite why some teams burn the clock. Burning the clock and keeping possession keeps the opponent from making a comeback and it's a very low risk way of keeping the lead. Especially when the tactic you're using to do so is working.

I can go into specifics as to why burning the clock and keeping the ball away from the other offense (and in all reality in was in fear of a comeback, not to be respectful about the score) was the preferred strategy over scoring more and more points but you seem pretty set on your own opinion.

It's hardly disrespect to fear the other team because their offense has the potential to torch your defense if given more opportunity. Which is why that's a tactic that's adopted for certain coaches. As I said, the teams above could have prevent huge comebacks by either scoring more or running out the clock. Neither team that allowed comebacks even tried to do either thing.

Edited April 8, 2014 by Lord Raven

[Tryhard]

Running down the clock or stalling is so prevalent in football, keeping the ball in the corner and shielding it, taking ages to substitute, etc.

It's always something that annoyed me, but it is pretty much a tactic. A tactic that makes for shit viewing, but a tactic nonetheless.

[Lord Raven]

I find it incredibly interesting myself if you continue to run out the clock... It's what the Broncos did to the Patriots in the AFCCG. I just really appreciate a long and sustained drive.

EDIT: And some teams base their gameplan around running the ball (running plays take more time to execute and they don't require any fancy defensive readings most of the time) so that they can send their defense out fresh. Defenses get tired when they're on the field for a while (especially since they're reactive by nature so they're prone to getting burned pretty often). This ensures they don't and that they keep the ball on the field a while.

Other teams have fast paced offenses that don't really take pauses between plays (after one play is over they rush and try to get the next play in as soon as possible) and these are more easily shut down by this kind of time-chewing offense. Prevents them from getting into a rhythm and gives them very few chances to score - these offenses are generally efficient when they're on the field but they take a little bit of time to get going. (See: Broncos - Chargers this year).

Some teams change into a different defense later which allows completions and short plays, but forces the other offense to take forever to march down the field and score (which causes them to drain the clock). This is called a "Prevent defense" and it works very often.

Many teams are criticized for not employing tactics like the above. It's one of the reasons for those 32 and 28 point comebacks you see above. Someone crunched the math and said that if they changed their strategies to employ the above tactics instead of trying to run up the score (and fail at it because teams adjusted to their high power offenses in the second half) then they would have won the game.

Edited April 9, 2014 by Lord Raven

[Superbus]

There are a few reasons for this:

1) There's a difference between winning big and running up the score. As a coach, if I'm winning big, I'm putting in my lower units; I coached hockey, so that'd basically be my third and fourth lines. "Running up the score" is leaving the starters in, and letting them run roughshod in a game that's already decided. It's disrespectful. In football (soccer), the story's different, because you only get three subs and goal differential is often used as a tiebreaker.

2) If someone's running up the score on me, and being a dick about it, when I played, there was a very real, visceral possibility for violence. Some knucklehead thinking "oh, you just celebrated your fifth goal? Ok, let's see what happens when you turn your back". It gets people hurt. By the way: when I played, I was that knucklehead.

3) Some leagues actually have rules against running up the score. In Connecticut, every game where one team wins by 50 or more points in American Football gets the coach suspended the next game unless it can be definitively proven that the points were accidental (I.E.; on a safety, or some other mishap). That has unintended consequences of its own.