fall back on

Important because, as an expansion club, San Diego has neither a culture to define it nor a history to fall back on.

Yet a union leader worries, "in government it's the substance and judgement that counts. You need something to fall back on, your guiding principles that help you make those judgements".

“If I needed something other than football, I was going to fall back on a good degree,” Hoecht said.

And when he stops being that, he has something to fall back on.

In the absence of such leadership, special interest groups will step in with measures that fall back on stiff punishment and mass incarceration, as Proposition 36 does.