Smart Football

Smart Football has moved to smartfootball.com

2009-08-17T07:01:00.002-04:00

You read that right: I have moved the site to smartfootball.com -- tell your friends. Don't panic, don't fear, everything is staying just the same except for the new, fancier digs.

So check it out, and continue to show up, as there won't be anymore new content here on Blogspot (though all the archives will remain).

Smartfootball.com

Deconstructing the Illinois run game

2009-08-13T13:42:00.003-04:00

Over at Dr Saturday. As always, thanks to the Doc for the invite, and check out the full thing here.

How to beat press man coverage

2009-08-13T12:14:00.000-04:00

... and get off the jam, via Ron Jenkins.

A few minor coaching points:

All receivers must master -- and I mean master -- at least two of these release moves. At the NFL level, you need three if not more. But all receivers, college and high school, need to be masters of two and competent at three or four. Don't forget to use hands.
The best release move in the world is useless if you don't get back on top of the defender. The receiver wants to run his route literally behind and through the DB -- as a result he wants the DB to move his feet, so that the receiver, although making moves, more or less runs in a straight line. If the receiver has to run in or out to get into his route he's losing.
If you can stop, you can get open. All receivers must learn to stop immediately while in full speed. If you can stop in two short steps, you can always be open. On deeper routes, it might take three, but stopping -- slamming on the breaks -- is the key to cutting, breaking either direction, and just getting open generally.
Ron Jenkins doesn't really discuss it, but one imperative technique is to learn to "lean into" the defense back at the top of the routes. If you're running an out against press man, once you hit about 10-12 yards you should be "leaning into" the defensive back before you break and separate away. Somewhat counterintuitively, on some of these routes you do want to be near the defender before breaking away at the last minute, and never too early. But this lean will get the defender's center of gravity and momentum going in the wrong direction. Mike Leach is famous for this coaching point.
Some routes (and route concepts) call for sharp breaks, others for more rounded but quicker "speed cuts," which aren't quite as precise but the receiver doesn't slow down as much. Know the difference, and always know which is appropriate.

Smart Notes and Links 8/13/2009

2009-08-13T09:36:00.002-04:00

1. Advanced NFL Stats weighs in on the evaluating running backs/running games discussion, which I addressed (with assistance from some wonderful comments) here and here. Do read the whole thing, but Brian has, as always, a very interesting take. Drawing on earlier discussion about risky and conservative strategies for underdogs and favorites (see my discussion of the topic here and Brian's here), he asserts:

I want to address an age-old water cooler question that Chris discussed in his post at Smart Football. Consider two RBs, both with identical YPC averages. One however, is a boom and bust guy, like Barry Sanders, and the other is a steady plodder like Jerome Bettis. Which kind of RB would you rather have on your team?

The answer is it depends. Essentially, we have a choice between a high-variance RB and a low-variance RB. When a team is an underdog team, it wants high-variance intermediate outcomes to maximize its chances of winning. And when a team is a favorite, it wants low-variance outcomes. Whether those outcomes occur through play selection, through 4th down doctrine, or through RB style, isn't important. If you're an otherwise below-average team, you'd want the boom and bust style RB. If you're an otherwise above-average team, you'd want the steady plodder. . . .

Further, even if the high-variance RB has a lower average YPC, we'd still want him carrying the ball when we're losing. This is due to the math involved in competing probability distributions.

That's just one aspect of it. He uses a handy chart for the distribution of runs for the various backs...

...and notes how curious it is that Tomlinson's distribution looks so much like that of the rest of the NFL. (This same thing ends up holding true for most backs.) What conclusions does Burke draw? With the usual caveats,

[w]hat amazes me is how similar they all are to each other and to the league average. . . . Usually, a RB needs 4 to 5 yards to just break even in terms of his team's probability of converting a first down. What we'd want to see on a RB's distribution is as much probability mass as possible to the right of 4 yards.

So if [Jerome] Bettis' distribution looks so much like Tomlinson's, how does Bettis have a 3.9 career YPC and Tomlinson have a 4.4 career YPC? As others have noted previously, the difference among RB YPC numbers primarily come from big runs. It's the open field breakaway ability that separates the guys with big YPC stats from the other RBs. Of Tomlinson's runs, 1.5% were for 30 yards or more. Bettis' 30+ yd gains comprised only 0.46% of his carries. The other RBs and the league average are as follows:

- NFL 0.91%
- [Jamal] Lewis 0.88%
- [Brian] Westbrook 0.93%
- [Adrian] Peterson 2.20%

Adrian Peterson's 2.2% figure is exceptional. It's interesting because it really suggests that what separates Peterson as a great runner is based on only 2% or so of his runs. Otherwise, he's practically average.

2. Courtesy of Brophy, I have added video of Mike Leach's "settle & noose" drill, which, it will be recalled, is both a great warm-up drill and works on teaching receivers to find holes in the zone and quarterbacks how to deliver the ball to them.

3. Tom Brady muses on life with Bill Belichick. As he tells Details:

"You'll practice on a Wednesday, and you'll come in Thursday morning and he'll have the film up there from practice," Brady says. "Sometimes, during practice, you throw a bad ball—that's the way it goes. But the video comes up and he says, 'Brady, you can't complete a g--damn hitch.' And I'll be sitting there thinking, I'm a [expletive] nine-year veteran, I've won three ---damn Super Bowls — he can kiss my... That's what you're thinking on the inside. But on the outside I'm thinking, You know what? I'm glad he's saying that. I'm glad that's what he's expecting, you know? Because that's what I should be expecting. That's what his style is."

(Ht Shutdown Corner).

4. Bruce Feldman chats with Norm Chow, who materializes into matter from various spectral rays to participate.

5. The NY Times's The Quad Blog chats with Dan Shanoff about, what else, his Tim Teblow blog.

6. Spencer Hall/Orson Swindle to SB Nation. When you get $7 million from Comcast, you better find ways to spend it, and I can't think of a better way than for SBNation (whose official name is "Sportsblogs, Inc.") to lure Every Day Should Be Saturday's Spencer Hall over, including away from the Sporting News. I like everyone else think this is a wise move for both sides, but one underrated aspect is that Mr. Hall/Swindle (Mr. Hall-Swindle? I kind of like that) will be able to focus on just one blog (and probably a book too), which should really let him flourish.

7. Holly over at Dr Saturday remembers Northwestern's magical 1995 season, which is still the only 10 win season in school history. This was a sort of epoch-changing season for NW -- though that is a very relative statement -- in that the Wildcats' history since has been considerably better. Indeed, two years later I saw them play in the Citrus Bowl against Tennessee (this was back in the "You can't spell Citrus without UT" days). Though, most of that game was spent marveling at the show Peyton Manning put on (408 yards, 4 touchdowns, no interceptions) as I sat there telling everyone around me what Peyton Manning's audibles would be (for some reason Northwestern thought it could play man coverage against Tennessee's receivers, so he kept checking to fades and slants). In any event, it is hard to overstate how strange but wonderful that 1995 season was for Northwestern. In football, sometimes the gods are with you.

Are tight-ends an endangered species?

2009-08-12T11:45:00.000-04:00

At the NFL level, where nearly every player has already won the DNA lottery, there are plenty of candidates to be effective tight-ends who can both run block like guards and get downfield like receivers -- or at least there are enough to be a force in the league and make every other team salivate (I'm looking at you Antonio Gates). At the lower levels though, finding one of these perfect specimens isn't so easy. And, with the rise of the spread, it is no surprise that tight-ends don't take the field quite as often as they used to. But reports of the demise of the position are overstated.

As an example, one coach recently asked, "Realistically, how much of a problem does a TE as a pass blocker pose in modern football?" He went on to say, "I say this because now that everyone's trying to go to some type of spread and put as many small, quick guys on the field as possible, TEs are becoming an almost endangered species on teams who want to throw." There were other observations about the ongoing usefulness of the tight-end position. Although I agree that just holding up a freak like Antonio Gates doesn't get you far (good luck finding those), I do not think the position is so useless or impractical as some have implied. (Beware, this post is kind of wonky and technical.)

Homer Smith discussed the role of the TE/H-back as a triple threat: he can block, release vertical (in a way that a back cannot), and can block for a few counts and release on a delayed pass, and therefore make two guys cover him. Here is what Homer Smith explained:

It takes a sixth frontal player (not counting the QB) to pull an identifiable pass defender into the front and to give the blockers something to work with to keep the center off the island. It takes the sixth, just as it takes him to deal with a blitz.

Which is a better sixth [blocker, a tight-end or a runningback]? A TE is more of a threat with the delayed pass that makes the pass defender on him stay at bay while the TE blocks the rusher. I think a TE is the better.

Anyway, this is not so black and white, RB versus TE. It's all shades: imagine lining up with a FB in the I. Now the FB cheats over; he lines up in a two-point stance, behind the guard at 4 yards. Now behind the tackle at 3 yards. Now he splits the tackle with his inside leg, at about 2 yards. What is he? A FB or an H-back? He can BOB the linebacker, no? He can still kick out for power, release into the flat, maybe even take a handoff if he comes inside enough. Now he steps over maybe another foot, etc. Now suddenly he's a tight-end/h-back all the way? And all those advantages are lost?

Also don't confuse personnel with position. You can put anyone you want there. I don't see why your RB is some invaluable pass blocker, despite the fact that he has to work on carrying the ball, catching the ball, and blocking in the run game, while the TE is just helpless?

Nothing wrong in HS in having a division of labor for these positions. On most teams I've been around, the TEs spend more time practicing with the OL than they do the receivers. If you want a glorified slot guy, then sub a receiver in and go from there. Or use a FB type (if you're got one).

Bottom line: it's an exceptionally useful thing, and don't be straitjacketed by black and white conceptions. The advantage of the four wide spread was a division of labor thing -- you could put four wides out there and get mismatches against the other team's base personnel, and often get them out of their base looks. You might not have a good TE or fb, so you didn't put one out there; you looked for advantages elsewhere. Nowadays with everyone being spread, is that really the case that just going four wide gives you all these mismatches? I'm not so sure; using a TE -- or alternating between TEs, FBs, and slot receivers -- seems to me the better move.

I consider my base offense to be 3 WR, 1 QB, 1 RB, and then a hybrid H-back position. That H-back position can be a true slot receiver (routes and jet sweeps), a FB, a true TE/H-back (either as a blocker or hybrid guy, though those are quite rare), or even just a 2nd RB. Depends on the guys you have, what you're trying to accomplish, and also your depth (can do a lot of great things if you have a couple of kids who fit the above descriptions and then just sub them in and out to give different looks).

But unquestionably, TE is maybe my favorite position. True, it's not always easy to find a good one, but it helps a lot. (And the two best formations in football might be trips closed and a TE/wing set, with a TE and a wing player to one side, and either a split end and flanker or a twins look).

Finally, one of the concerns was that a tight-end is in poor position to pass protect:

To me, a RB who starts out deeper in the backfield is in much better position to pick up blitzers, chip DEs, or even take a DE 1-on-1. . . . Now, compare that to a TE, who is always on the end of the line and is really only in position to pick up somebody coming off the edge. He also has far less time and room for error in diagnosing a blitz or stunt and getting his body where he needs to be.

I disagree; it is best not to overthink this. One, if you're having that many problems you can always back the TE up to be an H-back so he can see more. Second, you can make a very simple call ("solid") if the DE lines up on or outside the TE and the LB lines up inside. If both the DE and LB come (and don't twist) the tackle takes the LB and the TE takes the DE; if the LB doesn't rush then the TE passes the DE off to the tackle before releasing. You do get into the matchup issues, but it's not so ridiculous like he can't get there or will just whiff. It's just a simple area principle.

Past is prologue: Alabama running the flexbone?

2009-08-11T11:51:00.000-04:00

Check out the highlights of the 1980 Sugar Bowl (between Bryant's Crimson Tide and Lou Holtz's Arkansas Razorbacks) for some great wishbone stuff, but, as reader Ben Smith points out, they show a decidedly "flexbone" look at the 3:16 mark.

Drew Brees is scary accurate

2009-08-10T13:28:00.000-04:00

So when I started watching this, which is one of those hokey Sports Science comparisons between a pro athlete and some rather arbitrary metric, I thought there was no way that Drew Brees was more accurate than a world-class archer. Well, I was very, very wrong. Watch below. (Brees's throwing picks up at about the 4:10 mark.)

Assorted Links - 8/10/2009

2009-08-10T10:15:00.000-04:00

1. Michigan cast off Justin Feagin was involved in some wild stuff. Mgoblog comments:

Freep FOIA findings:

Feagin told investigators that “when I first started going to (Burke’s) house he had three big jars of weed up in his room. … One day T.J. was talking to me about some illegal stuff. He was under a lot of pressure because of his financial problems.

“I told him that I knew someone who could get him some cocaine. A few days later he asked me if I had talked to the person yet. I called right then and set up a deal.”

Feagin arranged to send $600 to a friend in Florida, whom he identified only as “Tragic.” In exchange, “Tragic” would send an ounce of cocaine to Ann Arbor.

It goes on from there. No cocaine ever showed up, this Burke guy tried to scare/murder Feagin by filling a bottle with gasoline and setting it on fire outside his dorm room, etc, etc, etc. You know, typical college stuff. . . . TJ Burke does what he wants, which is apparently spend up to ten years in prison.

Feagin was a last-minute addition to Michigan's first class under Rodriguez when it became clear that Rodriguez wasn't likely to acquire a higher-rated quarterback recruit. He did not work out, obviously. The Freep article dryly notes that Feagin "struggled to learn the playbook" mere paragraphs after describing Feagin's extensive marijuana habit. . . .
But seriously: it's bad. It's also one guy that Michigan apparently didn't run as thorough of a background check on—or possibly any background check on—as they scrambled to reconfigure Rodriguez's first recruiting class. As long as the incident remains isolated, fine. . . .

2. Mark Sanchez might win the Jets' job, but is he crossing over from confident to arrogant?

3. The NY Times Fifth Down Blog remembers Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Johnson (and includes your humble blogger in its roundup).

4. The pro-football reference blog with Part III of its quest to rank the greatest QBs of all time.

5. Steve Spurrier is very upset: "We've got a lot of guys, I don't even know if they like football." (Ht Blutarsky.)

6. Saurian Sagacity looks at statistical characteristics of BCS champions. This is good and fine, but as Dr Saturday pointed out, the BCS winner hasn't always been the "best" team over time, or even in a given year. This is not a BCS knock -- and on this score I don't think a playoff would reduce the randomness of who gets crowned champion -- but it's worth remembering.

6. The end of the postal service?

7. Callers, tossers, and the odds of the flip.

8. History of the Times New Roman typeface.

Run & Shoot Series Part 4 - The "Streak"

2009-08-05T14:23:00.000-04:00

[This is Part 4 of a multi-part series on a "Simple Approach to the Run and Shoot." In one sense I mean "simplified," but the series is, more than anything else, intended to both diagnose and explicate some of the fundamental concepts behind the shoot as well as discuss how I might marry them with some passing modern ideas, all in an effort to just understand passing offense generally. You can see the full series here. Also check out Parts 1, 2, and 3.]

It's been a bit since my last installment, but I'm not quite done, as there are two concepts left in the fearsome foursome of the 'shoot. This foursome includes: go, choice, and now streak and switch.

These two plays really do not involve any new learning, and although considered separate plays, they really are two sides of the same coin: four verticals, which I analyzed recently with Dan Gonzalez. I begin with "streak." The switch will come in the next installment.

Streak

At core, streak is just what the run and shoot guys call "four verticals." And four-verticals is a very simple concept that is so powerful because well designed pass plays boil down to elementary math: geometry and arithmetic. Four receivers bolt down the field, and if they keep the proper spacing between them -- by staying on their "landmarks" -- the defense will be outnumbered and can't properly defend the play. Against Cover Two, well, the defense only has two deep (hence the name) while the offense has four receivers deep. With cover three, well the offense still has a man advantage. And, again, if the spacing is correct, the offense can even whittle it down so that they know who they are operating against, namely, the deep free safety.

But this doesn't mean that the defense is without options. They can disguise coverage, play different techniques, or quite simple play four deep -- four on four gives the advantage to the defense. (Contra Ron Jaworski, creating favorably one-on-one matchups lags far behind creating favorable numbers advantages, i.e. two on one defend.) In response, the run and shoot, as usual, gives them freedom. Hence, the "seam read" all over again.

As the diagram above shows, the four receivers all release vertically. But the coaching points are critical:

The outside receivers will release on go routes. The "frontside" one (in the diagram, the one on the offense's right) has a mandatory outside release: he will keep pushing to the defender's outside hip. That said, he still wants to keep five yards between him and the sideline, to give the quarterback a place to drop the ball into.

The slot receivers release up the seams. But they must be more precise than that: in college, they must be two yards outside the hashes; in highschool (where the hashmarks are wider), they must be on them. This spacing is the most critical element of the entire play: it is what makes it geometrically difficult for the deep secondary to cover.

The runningback might be in the protection, but if he releases he will run either a drag across the field or a little option route underneath. He looks for an open spot in the zones as an outlet if the undercoverage releases for all the receivers, and against man he will cut in or out. He should be working against a linebacker and can't let that guy cover him.

The outside receivers, if they can't get deep, will break the route down and "come down the stem" -- retrace their steps -- to get open later. The QB, if the initial reads are not there, will hitch up and throw them the ball on the outside.

But the key to this play, as it has been for all four of these "core" run and shoot plays, is the seam read. I previously described this route in detail, but in sum: against a defense with the deep middle of the field "open" (cover two), the receiver will split the two safeties on a post route; against middle of the field closed (cover 3, cover 1), with a single deep middle safety, the receiver will stay away from him and continue up the seam. In that sense the route is a lot like the divide route I've discussed before. But the route is more dynamic: if the safeties stay very deep, or any defender crosses the receiver's face, he will cut inside or underneath those defenders to get open.

Below are a few clips courtesy of Michael Drake again. In this first video the quarterback, though a bit slow, hits the seam read.

On this second video, the defense is in a blitz look. (Sort of Cover 1 with a "rat" or floater, though no deep safety.) The receiver probably should have crossed the defender's face, but they are able to complete it.

And below is a clip of four-verticals where it gets dumped off to the runningback.

Finally, below is video of Texas Tech running the play (courtesy of Trojan Football Analysis). I end with this both because Tech of course is not exactly a run & shoot team, but also because some of the variants shown on the video -- particularly the shallow cross -- are things a lot of R&S coaches have gone to, including June Jones.

How Mike Leach keeps producing prolific passers

2009-08-04T11:06:00.001-04:00

Dr Saturday recently observed that

[o]f the five starters Leach has trotted out in nine years, every one has topped 4,000 yards and 30 touchdowns in a season; even in terms of efficiency as opposed to straight cumulative totals, they've been remarkably consistent from year to year.

He also notes that it's unlikely that Texas Tech will quite reach the heights they did last year, and that "[u]nless the stars align for the new kids in some unforeseen, improbably way, even 4,200 yards and 35 touchdowns could feel like the first hints of stagnation in the success story." Quite likely. But how has Leach continued to produce such wildly successful (in terms of stats, at least) quarterback?

One answer is "the system," but let's get more specific. The Captain has frequently noted that his system is all stuff that's been done before. Indeed, what is remarkable is that guys can seem to leap off the bench and do nothing but throw completions. He had one of the great three-year runs, where, defying the common spread/passing offense wisdom of playing your younger guy so they can get some experience, he rode three fifth-year senior quarterbacks to great heights (and, again, stats).

My explanation, and I think Leach would agree with me, is how the Red Raiders practice. One, they obviously do not run the ball much so all the focus is on throwing and catching, every day. Leach also does not believe in traditional stretching; rather he begins practices with medium speed drills that work on techniques like settling in the windows between zones and dropping back and throwing. Everything is focused on throwing the ball. Bob Davie visited Texas Tech a few years ago, and was blown away by what he saw:

Last year, Tech averaged 60 passes a game so it is obviously not a balanced attack, but this actually works in their favor. In practice, they spend virtually all their time focusing on fundamentals related to the passing game. From the time they hit the practice field until they leave, the ball is in the air and the emphasis in on throwing, catching and protecting the quarterback.

It takes great confidence in your scheme to be able to take this approach, but the players appreciate it because they can focus on execution.

Practice -- What's Different

When you watch Texas Tech practice, it doesn't seem as structured as most college practices. They do not stretch as a team and unlike most practices, there is not a horn blowing every five minutes to change drills. The bottom line is that the cosmetic appearance of practice is not as important to Leach as it is to some coaches.

Although not as structured, it is impressive to watch Texas Tech practice and you quickly see why it is so successful. The ball is always in the air and what the Red Raiders practice is what you see them do in a game. They work on every phase of their package every day and in most passing drills, there are four quarterbacks throwing and every eligible receiver catching on each snap.

There is great detail given to fundamentals in all phases of the passing game. Wide receivers, for example, work every day on releases versus different coverages, ball security, scrambling drills, blocking and routes versus specific coverages.

Davie is referencing some of the specific "Airraid" passing drills -- the real secret to the scheme's success. The main drills are:

Settle-noose: This is basically a warm-up drill. The receivers begin out quarter speed and shuffle between two cones, "settling" nearer to one than the other, as if they were two zone defenders. The quarterback takes a drop -- again, reduced speed -- and throws the ball, aiming for the receiver but away from the nearer "defender." The receiver uses good catching form and bursts upfield after making the catch. You can see how this simple drill sets up the entire theory of their offense, which relies on finding seams in the zones and quarterbacks throwing between defenders. Check out the video below, courtesy of Brophy:
Pat-n-go: This is another simple drill. Most teams use a form of "route lines," or quarterbacks dropping and receivers running routes on "air" -- i.e. with no defenders. The one clever insight here is that one group of QBs and receivers lines up on opposite from another. This way they can complete a pass, have the receiver burst as if scoring, and simply get in line on the opposite side of the field, rather than have to run back through. Just another way they get more repetitions.
Routes on air: Probably their best drill. The coaches line up garbage cans or bags or whathaveyou where defenders would drop for a zone. Then all five receivers and/or runningbacks line up, and they call a play. Five quarterbacks (or four and a manager, etc) each drop back and throw the ball to a receiver. Here's the deal: if you're the QB who should throw it to the first read, you drop back and throw it to him. If you are assigned to the third read, well you drop back, look at #1, then #2, then #3 and throw it to him. Same goes for #2, #4, and even #5. Moreover, every receiver who runs the route catches a ball and practices scoring. Then the quarterbacks rotate over -- i.e. if you threw it to #2 now you throw it to #3, etc -- and a new group of receivers steps in. This way quarterbacks absolutely learn all their reads and practice it every day (how many reps like this does the third or fourth string guy at another school get?), and they also practice throwing it to all their receivers. Each time they do this
7-on-7 and man-to-man: These are what they sound like, and most do these drills. One-on-one or man-to-man involves the receivers going against press man in practice, while 7-on-7 is like a real scrimmage, minus the linemen.

Good drills, no? As the Airraid practice plan shows, they do these drills almost every day. As Davie summed up:

Tech gets an amazing amount of repetitions in practice and most importantly, it doesn't waste reps practicing things they don't do in a game.

Indeed, if you're third-string quarterback at Texas Tech, I can't imagine a program whose third-stringer gets more reps than you. Same goes for second-string, third-string, etc. Now, games are certainly different -- Tech's defense has never been confused with Texas's or Oklahoma's -- but these drills, coupled with their total commitment to throwing the ball, is a big factor in Leach's ability to churn out successful quarterbacks.

More on evaluating the run game

2009-08-02T12:15:00.001-04:00

The discussion surrounding evaluating the run game was great. I will have more to add, but I wanted to highlight some of the best commentary. First, I did want to say that my focus was generally on two aspects, and I don't think I made that clear.

One, I really am more interested in running games, or a team's ability to run, than I am in one runningback versus another. I definitely play fantasy football myself, but it's not the reason I get interested in football stats. Instead I want to know how good an offense is, and then secondarily how good a particular play is; whether Barry Sanders or Emmitt Smith is better is usually not a discussion I get into. As a result I don't mind so much that it's hard to disassociate how good a runningback is from how good the line is, or the faking, etc. From an evaluation perspective, if you can analyze one play being better than another, then you can pretty easily ask if it is scheme or execution, and thus concepts or players.

Second, I do prefer to focus on easily observable stats. Some of this is maybe my laziness, but that's one big appeal of yards per carry: I know it has little application on third down. (One yard could be a success if it converts for a first down, and eight yards could be a failure if it was third and ten -- but then what if the draw was a good call rather than an interception or a sack? I digress.) That is just mainly aimed at seemingly interesting stats that would be a practical nightmare, based on every play and then a subjective interpretation of how many guys he bounced off of or his vision and cutback versus contact, etc -- you get the idea.

Anyway, Bill Connelly of Football Outsiders (and RockMNation) had actually discussed this fairly recently:

Regular Varsity Numbers readers have probably become familiar with some of the basic VN concepts, namely PPP (Points Per Play) and the "+". PPP is a measure of explosiveness--the amount of Equivalent Points (EqPts) averaged per play. The "+" number compares an offense's output to the output expected against a given defense, and vice versa. With the "+" number, 100 is average, anything above 100 is good, and anything below 100 is bad.

Points Over Expected

Is there any way to use these concepts to come up with a good rushing measure? Of course! Meet POE (Points Over Expected), the collegiate stepchild of DYAR. Whereas a rusher's PPP+ would compare his EqPts output to what would be expected, and is therefore great for measuring an offense's overall effectiveness, POE is cumulative. It is a comparison of a rusher's total EqPts to the Expected EqPt total, subtracting the latter from the former.

POE = EqPts - Expected EqPts. . . .

Most Varsity Numbers measures, in one way or another, bounce output versus expected output. POE, a brother to PPP and cousin to S&P and S&P+, does just that. POE, which intends to both evaluate both per-play and cumulative success, could also be used to evaluate receivers and tight ends, but that will be hard without good "pass intended for _____" data (some college play-by-plays record detailed information in this regard, others do not). Right now, it is an RB-only figure, but it is a pretty good one.

Not sure I entirely buy this as the best method (requires getting into the nitty gritty of FO's methods), but overall this is a good starting spot. It tends to reward the explosive players.

Moving to the comments, a few highlights, though all were excellent. Brad said:

I don't think getting long runs is the only way a back can improve his average. He can also do so by getting less short gains.

Think of a back that gets 3 yds minimum on slightly over half of his carries and gets 6 yds on the rest. Then compare him to a back that gets loses a yard on a third of his carries gets 3 yards on a third of his carries and gains 10 yards on a third of his carries.

Both backs have a median rush of 3 yds, but the first back averages around 5 yds per carry while the second one averages only 4. However the second back clearly has more "Big play potential" because he gains 10 yards on 1/3 of his runs.

My point is that a back can improve his average vs median both by getting more long gains OR by having less short runs. Which of these two things that great backs do is a question for the data.

I should have conceptualized this better in the first place, because this helps explain why Reggie Bush has been such a mediocre rusher in the NFL. It's not his explosiveness (though he hasn't broken many very long runs), but his routine bad plays. It also is why Emmitt Smith and Barry Sanders are so hard to compare: Barry's stat line was full of negative plays and small gains, but checkered with the spectacular long runs. Emmitt Smith, the opposite. (And I don't think with Barry it was all just jump and bad blocking; it was also just his running style. Do you think he would have fit in well with the Denver Broncos "one-cut-and-go" philosophy? People say "oh, if he had played for them he would have had 3,000 yards but I'm not so sure.)

Tom points me to another good bit from Football Outsiders, this time by Mike Tanier, quoted at length:

The 4.0-4.1 yard average is an arithmetic mean: add up all the yards, divide by the attempts. The arithmetic mean is easily skewed by extremes in data. A 75-yard run can increase a starting running back's rushing average by several tenths of a point by the end of a season. This skewing always increases rushing averages: there are several 50+ yard rushes every year, but no 50+ yard losses on running plays.

We all know that a few big plays can make a mediocre running back's rushing average look great. But how much effect do long gains have on the league rushing average? The best way to see this is to break down every running play by distance. . . . The table reveals a surprising fact: the mean carry may yield four yards, but the median carry yields only three yards, and the data distribution is centered at two yards. . . .

Over 20 percent of running plays gain zero or one yards. Factor in losses, and over one-fourth of all runs result in negative or negligible yardage. The rushing average for the plays in the -4-to-10 yard range in 2005 was 2.95 yards per attempt. Long runs make up only about nine percent of all rushing plays, but they increase the league rushing average by over 40 percent. . . .

As a way of negating the importance of team strength as well as studying the contrasts between rushing styles, let's examine a pair of teammates from 2005.

Last season, Tatum Bell gained 920 yards and averaged 5.3 yards per carry. Mike Anderson gained 1,014 yards but averaged just 4.2 yards per carry. Despite the wide disparity in yards per carry, DVOA and DPAR ranked Anderson as the better back. Anderson was 37.0 points above replacement level, Bell 16.4. Anderson was 20.3 percent better than the average back, Bell just 7.6 percent.

Bell's rushing average was inflated by several long runs: he had a 68, 67, and 55 yard run in 2005, plus several 35-yard runs. Anderson's longest carry of the season was 44 yards, and that was his only run longer than 25 yards. We all know that Bell is a "home run threat" while Anderson is more consistent. But is it really fair to downgrade Bell because of his long runs? We're inclined to downgrade Bell somewhat because so much of his value is contained in a few plays. But is that really fair? After all, gaining four yards at a time is great and all, but big plays are pretty important, too. . . .

Anderson's yardage distribution is centered in the 2-3 yard range, while Bell's is centered in the 1-2 yard range, giving Anderson a full yard-per-play advantage on carry after carry. Bell's advantage, of course, is on runs of more than 10 yards. All but 6.5 percent of Anderson's runs gain from -4 to 10 yards, while 10.5 percent of Bell's runs are outside the chart (he only lost five yards on one play last season). Give them both 200 carries, and Bell will have eight more long runs than Anderson, and those runs will be longer than what Anderson can usually muster. But Anderson will gain an extra yard that Bell couldn't on dozens of other
runs. . . .

Anderson's in-the-box mean was 3.36 yards per attempt, noting again that his "box" is larger. Bell's was just 2.67. What's interesting is that we tend to think of backs like Anderson as "ordinary" while backs with Bell's big-play potential are held in higher esteem. But Bell's rushing distribution is more in line with the league norms than Anderson's. He's very good, but his contributions are typical of what backs around the league provide. Anderson, at least in 2005, was the unique player, providing hard-to-get, down-in, down-out production.

The difference between Bell and Anderson suggests that "cloud of dust" backs are more valuable than "boom or bust" backs, but we must be careful when using cheesy labels. Our perception of a back's production profile are often way off. How would you classify Marshall Faulk in his prime? Probably as a boom-or-bust back, albeit one with lots of boom and only a little bust.

But Faulk's running distributions show that in his prime he was much more than a big-play machine. . . .

Faulk's in-the-box mean was 3.37, a very good figure. What's more, his "box" only included 86 percent of his runs. Faulk had seven 12-yard runs, six 16-yard runs, and three 18-yard runs in 2000, giving him a very high percentage of 11-20 yard runs. But what's most remarkable about his production was his ability to avoid no-gainers and his above-average totals in the 3-5 yard range. Fast, shifty Faulk was just as good at using his skills to gain a yard or two as he was at burning defenses for long gains.

By contrast, [Jonathan] Stewart's ability to avoid losses and pick up two or three yards couldn't offset his complete lack of big-play potential. At first glance, Stewart's distribution looks similar to Anderson's. But his in-the-box mean of 2.8 is over a half-yard lower. The differences are subtle -- Anderson is a little more likely to gain five or six yards and a little less likely to lose yardage -- but they add up over a few hundred carries. And Stewart, like Anderson, concentrated 95 percent of his carries in the -4-to-10 yard range, so he had few 10-20 yard bursts to increase his productivity. Stewart, like Anderson, was providing a unique skill, which is why he was able to stay in the league for several years. Unlike Anderson, he wasn't a great exemplar of that skill, and the Football Outsiders metrics took him to task for it. . . .

Teams don't generate rushing yards in three-, four-, or five-yard bursts. They gain it through punctuated equilibrium, waiting through dozens of minimal gains for a few big plays per game.

And those big plays aren't that big. We've focused on gains of ten or less in this article, ignoring the 10.5 percent or so of plays that yield more yardage. The vast majority of those runs gain 11-20 yards: 6.9 percent overall. Almost 25 percent of the rushing yardage gained in the NFL is generated on runs of 11-20 yards. There were 960 such runs last year: 30 per team, or just over two per team per game. Amazingly nearly 10 percent of all rushing yardage is generated on runs of 30 or more yards, plays which occur about four times per year for a typical team.

These distribution breakdowns are so interesting that they might seduce us into making some wacky conclusions. Keep in mind that all of these averages and distribution patterns are situation dependent. . . .

Without further study, we shouldn't leap to grand conclusions. But we know this much: if we expect to gain four or five yards on every running play, we're going to be disappointed most of the time. No wonder passing totals have been creeping up for decades. If all a handoff gets you is two yards and a cloud of dust, you might as well throw the ball.

Lots going on here, but it mostly just reinforces what we know: Backs and teams have different styles, and it is not always easy to compare them; you want a guy who (a) does not lose yardage, (b) consistently gets positive yardage, and (c) is a big-play threat. They don't always come that way, so it is interesting that Tanier and FO conclude that the consistent back is simply better than the big-play threat. I'd like to see more to support that -- i.e. that the "dozens of first downs" or extra yards Anderson might have pulled down for the team were worth more than Tatum Bell's big plays. I'm not saying I disagree, but that it is interesting. That kind of conclusion could have troubling implications for a guy like, say, Barry Sanders, or moreso Reggie Bush.

Chase of the PFR Blog points out marginal yards, and adds:

I looked at rushing yards over 3.0 yards per carry. However, as the author has implied, I've begun shifting my focus away from yards per carry.

Rushing first downs is a key part of evaluating a running game. Without play by play information, I'd want to focus on rushing first downs, rushing yards, rushing TDs and carries.

I think this is good; rushing first downs should be part of the evaluation. According to CFBStats, last season's top first-down teams in college football are an expected bunch:

1. Air Force
2. Tulsa
3. Navy
4. Nevada (tie)
4. Oklahoma State (tie)
6. Oregon
7. TCU
8. Florida
9. Oklahoma
10. Georgia Tech

As a side note, I do think yards per carry is most useful on first down, and CFB Stats (as well as the pro-football reference site), has a ready breakdown of rushing stats by down, for all teams. For example, the yards per carry of the top 5 teams in the country last year, limited solely to first down, were:

1. Nevada 6.95
2. Louisiana-Lafayette 6.77
3. Florida 6.76
4. Navy 1843 6.12
5. Oregon 1676 5.96

Each team had over 1,600 yards on first down alone (everyone bud Oregon had over 1,800, and Nevada over 2,000). And those averages -- yes I just pasted that thing from FO saying you can't solely look at averages -- indicates that these teams had a lot of favorable down and distances to convert (Louisiana-Lafayette, the one seemingly strange entry, was in the top 15 of total offense last year despite not being a great throwing team).

In the end ... I have to think about this question some more. I think we're moving in the right direction, as, again, part of my motivation is to find handy and easy to use stats (thus one reason I dislike the idea of some kind of "running back efficiency rating" like they use with quarterbacks). I agree that the debate is going to be between styles of running game (or running back), as well as situation. I would imagine that teams like Oregon or Georgia Tech are going to have much different looking rushing distributions than, say, Wisconsin. But we're on our way down the path to the end.

End note: I'll be on vacation this week. I have a couple of posts set to go up, but otherwise I'll be out of pocket until next weekend/week. Cheers.

Assorted Links

2009-07-31T10:31:00.003-04:00

1. Video of Notre Dame coach Frank Verducci coaching up the line. (H/t Blue Gray Sky)

2. Blue Gray Sky then explores the "sprint" or "stretch" run play.

3. Pro Football Reference blog compares AFL and NFL drafts.

4. New Detroit Lions' coach Jim Schwartz refuses to read books written by women. I recommend Margaret Atwood.

5. Creative types flocking to the internet, where fame can be instant but fleeting.

What is old is new again

2009-07-30T16:05:00.003-04:00

Look like the bunch formation to anyone else? That's from Percy Duncan Haughton's 1922 book, Football and How to Watch It.

H/t CoachHuey.

Breaking down the Oklahoma State offense

2009-07-30T15:29:00.001-04:00

...over at Dr Saturday. Check it out here, and feel free to ask questions either here or over there. (I am more likely to see it here, though.)

Smart Links 7/30/09

2009-07-30T09:17:00.002-04:00

1. T. Kyle King has an interesting response to my incoherent musings on business and life in college football.

2. Dan Shanoff really doesn't believe Brett Favre.

3. Blutarsky is bringing the Mummepoll back. Get ready.

4. Steve Kragthorpe is determined to purge the University of Louisville of all things Brohm.

5. Captain Leach doesn't twitter, and reiterates his support for a 64-team college football playoff. I will say this: there would be some wild football, with every game a do-or-die. Some frantic, last minute wildness, every week. It might be infeasible, but the more I hear this idea the more I think it does sound fun.

6. Best thing you'll see in awhile.

7. USC's use of coaching consultants is questioned.

8. Finally, I'll be traveling today, but check out Dr Saturday as I should have a post up there later this afternoon, fitting in with the Doc's Big 12 week.

Assorted links

2009-07-29T13:30:00.000-04:00

1. Above is Joe Paterno's diagram and coffee. Read all about it. (Ht Black Shoe Diaries.)

2. Why do players hold out of training camp? And what agency is doing all this holding out?

3. And the cat came back, thought he was a goner.

4. “No one should feel sorry for Bob,” said Kansas Coach Mark Mangino, a former assistant at Oklahoma under Stoops, “because he doesn’t feel sorry for himself.”

5. "These camps run by schools and their coaching staffs have become critical components in the recruiting process, allowing coaches to measure heights and weights, get 40-yard dash times and meet players up-close before deciding whether to offer a scholarship."

The quarterback

2009-07-29T11:24:00.000-04:00

Some things never change.

The quarter[back] is, under the captain, the director of the game. With the exception of one or two uncommon and rare plays, there is not one of any kind, his side having the ball, in which it does not pass through his hands. The importance of his work it is therefore impossible to overstate. He must be, above all the qualifications of brains and agility usually attributed to that position, of a hopeful or sanguine disposition. He must have confidence in his centre himself, and, most of all, in the man to whom he passes the ball. He should always believe that the play will be a success.

That is Walter Camp, in his 1893 book, American Football.

Saban on Tebow, the Gators' O

2009-07-29T09:50:00.001-04:00

[Excerpts from Nick Saban's transcript at the SEC media days. Thanks to deaux of CoachHuey for the pointer.]

On Tim Tebow at the next level . . .

Q. As somebody who has coached in the NFL, I was wondering what your take is on Tebow’s NFL prospects? Do you think he’s talented enough to warrant a top 10 pick?

COACH SABAN: Well, you know, I don’t think it’s fair for me to judge that because I can’t really judge who the other guys in the top 10 are. Being involved in the draft before, if you’re not involved in the total body of work, it’s very difficult to make those kind of predictions.

But I will say this: I think Tim Tebow is an outstanding quarterback, an outstanding leader. I have no questions about his ability to throw the ball. He made some outstanding throws in good coverage in critical times in our game last year in the SEC championship game. So I have a tremendous amount of respect for him as a quarterback, as a leader, as an athlete, in every regard. I think he is a winner. I think he will be a winner in the NFL.

But I think everybody needs to understand that the NFL struggles to evaluate people who don’t do in college what they look for guys to do in the pros. And I don’t think they should be criticized for that. It’s a difficult evaluation when you play a little different kind of offense. I think Florida has a great offense. I think it’s very difficult to defend. I think they do a great job of executing it and coaching it. So I’m not being critical.

But it is different. And that makes it more difficult. You know, a general manager sent me a letter saying, How are you learning all the spread quarterbacks, how the dynamics of the critical factors of the quarterback position have changed because this offense has changed, what are you doing differently to evaluate quarterbacks, because we’re having a more difficult time evaluating players that play in that offense?

It affects everyone. The quarterback, as well as the left tackle. If somebody told me we don’t know how to evaluate this guy because he’s never played in a three point stance because he always plays in a two point stance because they’re no huddle, and they’re always in a spread. So it’s every position that is different from what they would like to see because they have a defined prototype they would like to evaluate toward. When you play in a different type of offense, it makes it more difficult to evaluate.

I don’t think anybody is disrespecting him, I guess is what I’m trying to say. I think it’s just a little more difficult to try to evaluate.

On the "Spread" offense . . .

Q. Talk about the impact of the spread offense on defenses in college football.

COACH SABAN: Well, I just think that it’s very difficult to defend. I think when the quarterback’s a runner, you create another blocker, or a receiver that you have to cover. So that kind of creates another gap on defense. And I think that that’s very difficult to defend.

But I think it’s like anything else: the multiples of what you have to defend are what make it more difficult to defensive players. Just like in the old days when they used to run the wishbone. When you had to play against the wishbone, that was really different. So it was difficult to get the picture and look of what you needed to do to get your team prepared to be able to play against it.

I think to some degree the spread offense is the same way. A no huddle offense is the same way. How do you get a scout team in practice to be a no huddle team to get any kind of execution so that the defensive players start to develop the mentality they need to be able to change their routine and play without a huddle?

So I think the concept of the spread offense is outstanding because it makes the quarterback an 11th gap on defense, I always say. If you only had to defend that all the time, I think we could all get a little better at it. It’s the multiple of the different things you see throughout the season that make it more difficult.

On the disruption of an inexperienced QB . . .

Q. From a defensive point of view, when you’re facing a quarterback that doesn’t have much experience, how do you try to take advantage of that? At the same time with an inexperienced quarterback this year, how do you try to guide him through games until he gets that experience?

COACH SABAN: Well, you know, I think that everyone develops at a little different pace and rate, depending on their ability to learn the knowledge and experience, how they learn from their lessons. And I think specifically in our case Greg McElroy learns very quickly and has had some experience. But I also understand that until he makes plays in the game, he’s not gonna fully have, you know, the trust and respect of all of his teammates, even though they really, really like him and they really like him as a leader.

I think the biggest mistake you can make in development of any new player, young player, inexperienced player, is give him too many things to do, and increase the multiples of the kind of mental errors that they can make.

I think that it depends, from a defensive perspective, who the guy is that you’re trying to defend. If he’s a smart guy, if you try to pressure him, you may enhance his chances of making plays because he understands it, he sees it, and his reads actually become a little easier.

If you try to play all coverage against him and don’t pressure him and he’s a good runner, he may hurt you with his feet.

So I think to really answer that question effectively, you’d have to know the specifics of who you were trying to defend.

On the Bluegrass Miracle, I missed out on the relevance of this question . . . (Video below)

Q. Can you tell us a little bit about the 2001 game between you and Kentucky and talk about the last play specifically.

COACH SABAN: Well, what I remember, most people don’t remember the little things and the details of why things happen sometimes, but there was about a 30 mile an hour wind that day, and we were fortunate to be able to game manage to get the wind in the fourth quarter by the way the coin toss went and all that stuff. We practice these two plays every Thursday at the end of practice. I forget the exact seconds, but we ran the first play because we could stop the clock and gained about 15 or 20 yards. Hit Michael Clayton on an in route, then had to go up top.

But the ball sailed and almost went 70 yards in the air because we had a big wind. The Kentucky players actually misjudged the ball. That’s what created the tip. Devery Henderson was the key running guy that’s supposed to play the tip. And it just worked out that way.

But what I remember the most from it was not that play. I’ve always been told by mentors, that the worst thing your team can do is play poorly and win. And we played poorly that day and won. And we got our rear ends kicked in the worst defeat in all the time I was at LSU the next week because of that. That’s what I remember the most.

So you didn’t expect that answer, did you (smiling)?

Blitz-master Jim Johnson dies

2009-07-28T21:03:00.002-04:00

Jim Johnson, Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator extraordinaire, has passed away due to cancer. Johnson coached some great defenses, and of course his legacy will be carried on by guys like Steve Spagnuolo who learned under him.

Johnson was a 4-3 guy, and while his protégés took many lessons from him, he will be remember for his aggressive, blitzing defenses. Spagnuolo is more of a zone-blitz guy, but Johnson was always willing to play man defense and blitz safeties and linebackers from anywhere. Indeed, as I've mentioned before, Johnson essentially put the first nail in Steve Spurrier's coffin when his Eagles defense blitzed Spurrier's Redskins -- fresh off a thirty-point game in their opener -- into utter oblivion. From then on, every coach in the league had that tape to put in. Johnson figured out exactly what protections Spurrier was using, and dialed up the right blitzes. But Spurrier was hardly alone in being schooled by Johnson.

He will be missed.

UPDATE: Brophy passes along some great game film (below), and Rock M Nation tips me off to this.

Responses to responses about David and Goliath Strategies

2009-07-28T11:46:00.000-04:00

Tomahawk Nation responds to my earlier post on David & Goliath Strategies. See parts one and two of TN's responses. (See also my post on conservative and risky strategies and kurtosis.) Both pieces are well worth the read (I am a supporter of anything that combines football and six sigma). But a couple basic thoughts:

First, I completely agree with the idea of reducing variation, particularly negative variation. That really is the genius of Bill Walsh's passing game: what he brought to the game was a reduction of risk related to passing. Passing had been the quintessential "underdog" or David strategy; he reduced risk so much it arguably stopped being a David strategy and became a dominant one.

But I'm not sure if I agree with this:

Think of UF. To me, the Urban Meyer offense at Utah is a prime example of a David strategy. As he moved to Florida, he helped a Goliath school with Goliath resources begin to think like a David. People said that his offense would never work in the SEC, the QB would get killed, defenses were too fast, etc. But Meyer knew that his approach took advantage of a weakness in defenses, and if executed properly wouldn't be nearly as risky as people thought. Think back to the Ole Miss game from 2 years ago (the game that might have won Tim Tebow the Heisman). When the basic structures of the Meyer offense failed to work against the Ole Miss defense (Goliath being unable to hit David with his sling), and Ole Miss still allowed UF to stay in the game (Goliath managing to fight to a draw with David in a slingshot battle), UF was able to run Tim Tebow left/Tim Tebow right to win the game (Goliath is able to fall back on his superior size and strength combination to win the battle). . . .

...Gladwell highlighted the press in basketball as an example of a David strategy. Why is this a David strategy? Because Goliath doesn't focus on beating the press as much as David focuses on executing it. Because it takes Goliath out of his comfort zone. And honestly, because frequently the top point guards in the country have a certain level of confidence/cockiness in themselves that makes them want to beat the press by themselves and not rely on their teammates. The goal of the press is also to force the ball into someone's hands who is not used to handling the ball-- an inefficiency in Goliath's approach. This is how a team can use the David strategy to capitalize on an advantage. It's a risk, but if executed correctly it's not just a risk for the sake of being risky.

But is that really a David, or underdog strategy? Or is it a dominant strategy? I.e. better no matter who you are? One of the reasons I wrote my post was that I thought Gladwell confuses this point too, and I also concede at the end of the post that one conceptual difficulty is that some strategies are better for favorites (Goliaths conservative, low variance strategies), some solely for underdogs (risky David strategies), but some strategies are simply better no matter who you are (dominant), or inferior (punting on first down).

The things Tomahawk Nation is focusing on are, to me at least, dominant: better matchups, an unusual strategy the favorite is not ready for, etc. Admittedly, Gladwell confuses these two concepts -- or at least doesn't tease them out -- but I do think it's important.

To better illustrate what I mean, Advanced NFL stats showed that David strategies are often beneficial for underdogs even when they are basically inferior overall. In other words, even if a strategy would result in fewer expected points, it still would benefit the underdog because it still could get lucky. As ANFL explains:

Here’s why underdogs should play aggressive and risky gameplans. Take an example where one team is a 7-point favorite over its underdog opponent. Say the favorite would average 24 points and the underdog would average 17 points. With a SD of 10 points for each team, the underdog upsets the favorite 31.5% of the time. The favorite’s scoring distribution is blue and the underdog’s is red.

But if the underdog plays a more aggressive high-variance strategy, increasing its SD to 15 points, it would upset the favorite 35.3% of the time.

Note that I haven’t increased the underdog’s average score in any way, just its variance. The increase in its chance of winning results due to more of its probability mass moving to the right of the favorite’s mean score of 24. In fact, the higher the variance, the wider the probability mass will be spread. Consequently, more mass will be to right side of the favorite’s average score. But more mass will also be to the left, meaning there is a higher risk of an embarrassing blowout.

Even if employing a high-variance strategy is non-optimum, it can still help an underdog. In other words, even if an aggressive gameplan results in an overall reduction in average points scored, it often still results in a better chance of winning.

Yet would there be any reason for a Goliath to use this strategy? No, not at all. All it would be doing is inviting variance that would result in a few more upsets, and in fact might make the team worse (though could give the illusion of success because, again, of its high variance, resulting in a few high-scoring output games).

This is the biggest problem with the example TN uses:

Goliath University believes in the old Big Ten philosophy, 3 yards and a cloud of dust. Let's say they've even perfected their approach to the point that they can get exactly 3.3333 yards every time without ever turning the ball over. There is no risk involved and they know exactly what they are going to get with every play. Per play, they expect to get around .23 points. In true Goliath fashion, however, they run a quick, no-huddle offense in order to maximize the number of trials on the field. Over the course of the game this translates (assuming about 100 plays per game) to about 23 points and let's say a little over 30 minutes T.O.P. They'd win most of their games, but they'd lose any game where their defense gave up 24 or more due to random variation in the amount of time their opponent held the ball.

Goliath State University instead takes a more wide open approach, similar to Tulsa's offense. They throw the ball a lot more often, and go downfield more frequently as well. There is a lot more uncertainty associated with this approach, as there are many possible outcomes to their plays. However, through the strength of their preparation, they have a 50% chance of completing any given pass. Each of their 5 options (4 receivers and a QB run) has a 10% chance of success.

* If the QB runs, there is a 70% chance he will gain 4 yards, a 25% chance he will gain 14, and a 5% chance he scores
* Receiver A is running our deep fly, and there is a 50% chance he gets a 40 yard completion and a 50% chance he scores
* Receiver B is running the post, and there is a 80% chance he will get a 14 yard completion and a 20% chance he scores
* Receiver C is running the out, there is a 95% chance he gets 7 yards and a 5% chance he scores
* Receiver D is running the drag, there is a 95% chance he gets 4 yards and a 5% chance he scores

The expected point value of this play is:

.5*.1*((.7*.23+.25*1+.05*7)+(.5*3+.5*7)+(.8*1+.2*7)+(.95*.5+.05*7)+(.95*.23+.05*7)) = .468 expected points per play

Again, this is simply a better strategy, which is different than being a David strategy. Risk does not automatically equal David, and very conservative does not equal Goliath. Sometimes there is still better or worse.

To be fair, there is some indication in the TN pieces that this comes through. It repeatedly discusses the need to reduce the riskiness of these strategies "through film study, personnel decisions, and practice." Again though, I would argue that (a) these extra resources are themselves often a Goliath strategy (this becomes evident at high school for sure, but also in college with big differentials in resources, film equipment, practice materials, etc), and (b) practice and preparation is the quintessential dominant strategy -- it neither favors the underdog nor favorite, it's just a good idea!

The upshot is that these are two very good pieces, and well worth the read. I just want to emphasize my earlier point that I am using David and Goliath strategies in a very specific way, and one that differs slightly from Gladwell (it may not even be correct, it's just how I am using it). A true "David strategy" is one that, by definition, would not be good for a Goliath, because it is riskier. I used the example of extra fake punts, onside kicks, going for it on fourth, trick plays, etc. Relatedly, some Goliath strategies are low variance but that doesn't mean they have to be literally three-yards and a cloud of dust.

But the important point that TN clearly does get is that, Goliaths may nevertheless act suboptimally, and it is the underdogs and Davids that might discover the better, dominant strategies. The dominant ones will be adopted by those Goliaths (think of the spread of the spread, with its ability to push boundaries while keeping risk low), and others, though derided mightily as "gimmicks," simply might be appropriate for an underdog. It's not always easy to tell the difference, but this is an idea definitely worth continued exploration.

Smart Notes and Links 7/28/09

2009-07-28T09:52:00.000-04:00

1. Brett Favre is not happy about this and will unretire to prove it. A commemorative decoration (ht Maize 'n Brew, via sconnie.com):

2. How science can save you from choking. This new bit from Jonah Lehrer is a nice complement to my earlier post on football decision making and the brain.

Kenny Perry could taste history. He had a two-shot lead with two holes to go at the 2009 Masters - all he had to do was not make any big mistakes and he would become, at 48, the oldest Masters champion in history. For three days at Augusta, he had played the best golf of his life: on the first 70 holes, he made only four bogeys. But then, at the 71st hole, everything started to fall apart. . . .

We call such failures "choking", if only because a person frayed by pressure might as well not have oxygen. What makes choking so morbidly fascinating is that the performers are incapacitated by their own thoughts. Perry, for example, was so worried about not making a mistake on the 17th that he played a disastrous chip. His mind sabotaged itself.

Scientists have begun to uncover the causes of choking, diagnosing the particular mental differences that allow some people to succeed while others wither in the spotlight. Although it might seem like an amorphous category of failure, their work has revealed that choking is triggered by a specific mental mistake: thinking too much.

The sequence of events typically goes like this: when people get nervous about performing, they become self-conscious. They start to fixate on themselves, trying to make sure that they don't make any mistakes. This can be lethal for a performer. The bowler concentrates too much on his action and loses control of the ball. The footballer misses the penalty by a mile. In each instance, the natural fluidity of performance is lost; the grace of talent disappears.

Sian Beilock, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, has helped illuminate the anatomy of choking. She uses golf as her experimental paradigm. When people are learning how to putt, it can seem daunting. There are just so many things to think about. Golfers need to assess the lay of the green, calculate the line of the ball, and get a feel for the grain of the turf. Then they have to monitor their putting motion and make sure that they hit the ball with a smooth, straight stroke. For an inexperienced player, a golf putt can seem unbearably hard, like a life-sized trigonometry problem.

But the mental exertion pays off, at least at first. Beilock has shown that novices hit better putts when they consciously reflect on their actions. The more time they spend thinking about the putt, the more likely they are to hole the ball. By concentrating on their game, by paying attention to the mechanics of their stroke, they can avoid beginner's mistakes.

A little experience, however, changes everything.

3. "SEC offers great drama, even football." The Big 10 media day, however, does not live up to its frat-guy, party school reputation. (And this gets a link solely because of the Dr. Octagon reference.)

4. Can NCAA athletes be denied access to agents? I don't have a ready answer to this question, though read up about it here. (Ht Dr Saturday.)

5. Monte Kiffin would like to remind you again that he will outwork you. You know, just in case you forgot.

6. An inviting summary:

With the ESPN cameras gone and prize money drying up, the glory years of the Lumberjack world championships appear to be long over.

7. Back when I wrote this, I got a fair bit of heat and disagreement:

Hello! Plaxico Burress is going to jail. . . . [T]he NFL community -- and not just fans -- seem rather blind to the reality that Plaxico faces gun charges with a mandatory minimum sentence and the prosecutors do not appear interested in granting him grace, and so he is going to serve some real jail time. Who he signs with is rather beside the point.

Well, it appears to finally be sinking in. The NY Times reports:

Manhattan's district attorney says he wants former Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress to serve time in prison, the New York Post reported. Robert Morgenthau told the newspaper that Burress, who shot himself with an unlicensed gun in November, was willing to agree to spend a year in jail, but prosecutors insisted on two.

''We've always taken the position that he's going to have to go to jail, whether by trial or by plea,'' Morgenthau told the Post for a story in Monday's edition.

Again, remember that this gun possession charge Burress was hit with has a two-years mandatory minimum. Sure, he can plead for less, but this doesn't seem a particularly difficult charge to prove: he brought the gun into the club and shot himself. That makes this next bit a bit strange to me.

Brafman [Plaxico's lawyer] had previously said he no longer thought the matter would be resolved through a plea agreement and that prosecutors would take the case to a grand jury. He also said Burress would plead not guilty if the case went to trial.

Again, not sure what a not guilty plea would get Plax.

Smart Links and Notes 7/27/09

2009-07-27T09:32:00.002-04:00

1. ESPN's Bruce Feldman asks a panel "What makes a great college coach?" (Insider required.)

"He must be able to develop players. Good X's and O's can only put players in a position to succeed; they must also be taught the tools to actually do so. This requires that the coach be a great teacher of technique, drive, and desire (and if he is head coach he must be able to teach his players and his coaches those things as well), and to be a great teacher the players must also know that he cares before they will listen. Styles may differ -- compare Pete Carroll to Bear Bryant -- but the players must be willing to run through a wall for their coach."

That's my answer. Other contributors Feldman asked included former GA coach Jim Donnan, Rod Gilmore of ESPN, Jim Hofher Delaware's OC, and Phil Steele ("My No. 1 judge of a coach is how often they outperform my magazine's expectations."), among others.

2. Brophy chimes in with more on the "robber" coverage, as a jump-off from my recent bit on Va Tech's D for Dr Saturday. He includes some classic coaching tape of Virginia Tech vs. Syracuse in 1998 (McNabb was QB for the Orangemen).

3. The Blue-Gray Sky breaks down -- and is down on -- Notre Dame's use of the draw play. They do a nice job, but I'm confused why they are so down on the draw play. Michael points out that the play's average in 2008 was 4.9, which was down from a high of 5.3 yards per carry in 2005. That's true that it was down, but that's still a pretty good average for a team that averaged a paltry 3.27 yards per carry. (And if you take Jimmy Clausen's 54 "carries" for -74 yards out of the equation, ND still only averaged 3.92 YPC.)

Notre Dame's problems with the rush appear to be two-fold: one, they just need to get better at blocking up front, and maybe BGS is right that just committing to the inside zone or some other play will make them better; and second, the pass game is not as dangerous as it was, as in 2005 Brady Quinn averaged an impressive 8.7 yards per pass attempt (unadjusted). If I were them I would focus on a simpler base of run plays: four or five at the max. Anyway, check out the original post.

4. I agree with the Senator: The Tebow-gate vote scandal was anti-climactic (Spurrier: Uh, I didn't care enough to do it myself and someone else either got cute or lazy and I never looked. In fact, I never look.) As I take the Senator's point to be, do we care if coaches don't really bother with these things? I sure don't. I always figured the "Coaches poll" -- in its various forms -- basically just stood for "someone over there at the coaches office and/or athletic department of that school," and that was good enough for me. It's more of an issue of who else you'd want to ask.

5. File this in the category of strange ideas: Zach Zaremba wants Southern Cal to switch to the spread offense.

The Trojans have the athletes to run this prolific offense, so will they get behind the eight ball, or follow suit as so many teams have already done and install the offense of the 21st century?

Powerhouses such as Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Michigan, Virginia Tech, Penn State, Florida and West Virginia have made the switch. When will the mighty Trojans?

Uh. There's more there, but the argument seems to be that USC isn't scoring as many points as, say, Oklahoma or Florida, and they haven't won a National Title in four years. But that doesn't make much sense: USC lost to Oregon State last year, in a single defensive breakdown, and Stanford the year before, in just a fluke game (many spread offenses have had similar breakdown games). Relatedly, this really can't be an issue of being wide open enough, as USC throws the ball plenty and does -- contrary to what the article says -- use four and five receiver sets (though not with the frequency of a team like Florida).

The other reason of course that USC hasn't won a title game over the last four seasons (aside from facing Vince Young), is that the Pac-10 has let USC down: Florida, which won two of the last three titles, had a loss each season, and LSU lost two games. It's a strength of schedule thing.

Anyway I'm getting off topic. The article is weird, and based on an equally weird premise: "The spread offense is the most popular offense in football today." That, to me, is a good reason not to run the spread. Look, the issue with pro-style offenses versus spread offenses is that spread offenses, where the quarterback is a dynamic runner, can get an arithmetic advantage. But that doesn't make dropback passing obsolete; if your guy is Peyton Manning or Tom Brady -- or the college equivalent, like Leinert or Carson Palmer were -- then you are more than dynamic enough. It's not easy to find guys with that kind of passing ability, but USC definitely can.

What makes a good running back? How do you evaluate how good a team's run game is?

2009-07-24T16:08:00.004-04:00

The pro-football reference blog recently mentioned something I found fascinating:

What about rushing? . . . .In modern times, most RBs have a median carry length of three yards. I suspect that’s been the case for the majority of RBs for a long time. LenDale White and his 3.9 YPC last season? Median rush of 3 yards. Adrian Peterson and his 4.8 YPC? Median rush of 3 yards.

I think this has powerful implications. If most runningbacks tend to have the same median rush, then those who are more effective -- and hence have higher averages -- would be almost exclusively based on their big-play ability. (That big-play ability could still come in different forms, i.e. the guy who consistently can turn five yarders into 15 yarders, or the guy who can break every 10th or 15th rush into a 50 yarder.)

But this would imply that the powerback, or at least the powerback who is not considered so explosive, is overrated. (Earl Campbell could run you over and break off big gains.) The point is just that the premium would not be on the player's results on the average plays, but instead on the longer ones. Some of this too can be the surrounding cast. Indeed, as Homer Smith has said, a runningback who gets 130 yards on 20 carries plays in a better offense (either because of him or for whatever other reason) than a guy who gets 145 on 35 carries.

But this does all assume that average yards per carry is the most important stat. I'm not sure all would agree that it is. (In fact, I think the PFR Blog folks might not agree, as they ranked runningbacks and included their total carries and pure total yards as a key factor.) I'm not convinced that more carries means a better back or better running game, as that depends on the game situation (does the team get a lot of leads?) and also that the play-calling is optimal. I can also buy that on 3rd and 3, or third and goal, the point is to convert, not to help the average.

Yet then how else can we evaluate running backs, or even a running game more generally? A perusal of the best offenses and running games in college tends to show that the best all have high yards per carry; not too many BCS teams have averaged fewer than 4.5 yards per carry, and several have averaged well over five yards per rush attempt (including sacks, which count against the run game total in college).

So I'm opening the floor to better ideas. IF yards per attempt is the best metric (for either an individual back or a team's run game), and IF the median truly is right around 3 yards for great and average backs alike, then the difference between good and mediocre runningbacks and rushing teams would seem to be wholly in the explosiveness of the upper 50% of plays: a good team or player can rip off big gains, and turn big gains into touchdowns, while the average plays for both is about the same. (And maybe negative plays are overrated.)

But I'm interesting in everyone's thoughts on this question. How do you evaluate the running game?

What I'm reading

2009-07-24T09:38:00.002-04:00

1. 2009 Coach of the Year Clinic Manual. Nothing revolutionary, but some good stuff. Chip Kelly of Oregon has a good article (which is actually available here), as does Monte Kiffin, now of Tennessee (about his famous "Tampa Two," of course). Paul Johnson of Georgia Tech has a good one too, which includes this gem:

We give teams that play that kind of front [i.e. try to read the A-back's block to give them cues on what kind of blocking scheme Georgia Tech is using to block the various defenders "assigned" to the different possible ballcarriers in the option] something a little funky. When they play the eight-man front on defense, they tie the safety and outside linebacker to the release of the playside slot. They tell the linebacker if the slot runs straight up the field, the strong safety takes the quarterback and the free safety runs for the pitch. If the slot arcs, the linebacker stays outside on the slot and the safety runs the alley for the quarterback. That is not a bad way to play and is probably smart. If we find them doing that, we automatic with a safety call. We run the slot on the inside release, but he passes the linebacker and blocks the safety. [In other words he basically fakes blocking one guy and blocks a different guy, though it is subtle and designed to defeat what the defenders were taught all week to look for as a blocking tendency.] The defense has two defenders on the quarterback and no one on the pitch. We did that a bunch against Georgia in our last regular season game.

Yup. The insight here is that it's not necessarily that Georgia didn't know the option, it's that they maybe overthought the whole thing, trying to guess and calculate what was coming when. Sometimes the answer is just to keep it simple, read and react, and play football.

2. Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays, by David Foster Wallace. The guy could write.

3. Harper's Magazine. Just got a subscription.

4. The Most Of P.G. Wodehouse (Collection of P.G. Wodehouse stories). Another guy who could flat write. Many of these stories are ridiculous but that's often where their fun lies.

5. In Fed We Trust: Ben Bernanke's War on the Great Panic, by David Wessel (the Wall Street Journal's economics editor). It's not out yet, but looks good, and I will be reading it. I've avoided most of the new books on the economic collapse, but it appears this is the one to read (at least so far). I've also always enjoyed Wessel's work.

Deconstructing the Virginia Tech defense

2009-07-23T13:24:00.007-04:00

Find it all over at Dr Saturday, where I wrote another guest post. And thanks again to the Doc for the invite. I plan on putting up an expanded, more wonky version in a few days, but for now check it out.

Old school

2009-07-23T11:31:00.002-04:00

Check out the videos on the University of Minnesota Libraries' tribute to the old Memorial stadium. Besides, who says the shotgun spread is new? Watch the highlights of any of the championship teams, including the 1940 one. You'll see lots of Notre Dame Box type sets, with lots of shotgun, faking, sprint out passing from the 'gun, etc. Looks pretty similar to what I see these days.

Smart Links - July 23, 2009

2009-07-23T10:20:00.003-04:00

1. What am I missing? Everyone is obsessed with finding out who didn't vote for Tebow as first-team all-SEC. It's also a rule that you can't vote for your own guy. Then why isn't the answer that Urban Meyer voted for Jevan Snead? I mean he lost to him and is apparently barred from voting for his own guy. (I also don't know how the not-voting-for-your-own guy rule is compatible with having unanimous selections. If you think your guy is the best, do you just leave the spot blank rather than fill in someone else there?) Again, I must be missing something pretty fundamental here. [UPDATE: As several readers pointed out, "unanimous" equals everyone but your own coach, and Spurrier has admitted that he was the one who didn't. (Though he blames an assistant.)]

2. College Football Playoff Act of 2009, H.R. 390. University of Illinois law professor Christine Hurt (an alumna of Texas Tech and U. of Texas), writing on the legal blog the Conglomerate. Her post, reprinted in full:

In reading all the legislation during the 110th and 111th Congress that contain the word "windfall," (everybody needs a hobby) this definitely wins in the surprise category.

The College Football Playoff Act of 2009 was introduced by Joe Barton (TX), and it has been referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce. Now, before you start to wonder where Congress gets the power to redesign NCAA football, note how the legislation works. "A bill to prohibit, as an unfair and deceptive act or practice, the promotion, marketing, and advertising of any post-season NCAA Division I Football game as a national championship game unless such game is the culmination of a fair and equitable playoff system."

Hmmm. Next we have the MLB change the name of the World Series unless they actually invite other countries to participate.

So, where does windfall fit in here? In the findings, of course:

Congress finds that. . . the colleges and universities whose teams participate in the post-season football bowls experience significant financial windfall including increased applications for enrollment, recruiting advantages, increased alumni donations, and increased corporate sponsorship that provides s competitive advantage over universities whose teams are ineligible or statistically at a disadvantage from the BCS bowl competitions because of their conference affiliation.

Well, I'll let you quibble with this silliness, but this legislation, even if it passed (which it won't), wouldn't make the NCAA create a playoff. The BCS championship bowl would just have a different name. And it doesn't matter because Texas Tech isn't ever going to make it to the bowl no matter what the name is. You could call it "Bob" or even the "Texas Tech Red Raider Champions of the World Bowl," and Texas Tech would still never make it all the way. OK, that was an aside.

3. SEC media day. Just follow @edsbs on twitter. Thank me later.

4. ESPN will now let its reporters talk about the Ben Roethlisberger case.

5. Michael Vick, underrated? Brian Burke on the NY Times Fifth Down Blog.

6. The Senator asks: How far can the spread, spread? Good stuff, well worth it.

7. More from the NY Times on the O'Bannon vs. NCAA infringment case:

O’Bannon left U.C.L.A. in 1995. Does the N.C.A.A. have the right to continue to make money off O’Bannon and his teammates without compensation?

“Is that part of what an athlete’s grant-in-aid is about?” asked Richard M. Southall, the director of the College Sport Research Institute at the University of North Carolina. “You’ve left the plantation and now 15 years later you have a wife and children and the plantation still owns you, no matter what.”

College merchandise licensing is a $4-billion-a-year industry, and the N.C.A.A. has cornered the market. An N.C.A.A. business partner, Thought Equity Motion, has called the N.C.A.A.’s video content archive “one of the most unique and valuable content collections in the world.” . . .

The N.C.A.A. has had a sweetheart deal for years — using players’ likenesses, selling jerseys with popular players’ numbers and using athletes as uncompensated on-campus entertainment. Of course, athletes and their parents have had their own sweetheart deal, choosing colleges for sports and not for an academic fit.

There is not a lot of sympathy these days for athletes’ woes — at any level. The perception is that scholarship athletes and their families receive a pretty good deal. Yes, the hours are long and daily practices make this a rigorous part-time job.

“The general thinking among the public is that, ‘It could be a heck of a lot worse — you should be just be thankful for what the school has given you,’ ” Southall said. If that means eternal rights to your image, then so be it.

And the public does not care.

Just wait. Come September, college football stadiums from Harvard to Southern California will be filled with fans. Fans do not worry about steroids or licensing issues; they just want to be entertained.

O’Bannon’s case and the others raise an old but still unanswered question: Who protects the college athlete? In the N.F.L., a players association protects players against owners. In major league baseball and the N.B.A., unions look after the players’ interests.

Not so in college.

The N.C.A.A. describes itself as “the organization through which colleges and universities of the nation speak on athletics at the national level.” The N.C.A.A. tries to act as mother, father and paternalistic overseer who supposedly knows what’s best for the young athlete.

But don’t count on it.

Every year, beginning in their freshman season, scholarship athletes are compelled to sign mountains of forms.

How many athletes or parents or guardians read the forms? How many challenge the athletic department? College administrators and coaches pay lip service to “educating the kids,” but how many insist that their new recruits know exactly what they are signing?

More to the point, how many recruits — and parents of recruits — have the nerve to tell Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski or Tennessee’s Pat Summit that, based on a lawyer’s advice, they are not signing anything granting a release of their image.

All involved usually are too filled with gratitude and ego to consider reading between the lines.

“Until someone says something, stuff can go on,” Southall said. “Nobody wants to be the athlete who’s blackballed. Nobody wants to be the test case that’s thrown out.”

Ed O’Bannon wishes he had raised the question and resisted 15 years ago. Perhaps as a result of his suit, future athletes won’t have to.

Again, I think even if the NCAA loses they will just get the players to sign a waiver of their rights as a condition of getting the scholarship.

Is the NCAA infringing the rights of its current and former players?

2009-07-22T14:08:00.003-04:00

The plot thickens: Former UCLA basketball player Ed O'Bannon has now sued the NCAA over what he asserts is the NCAA's infringing use of his likeness in its various materials, including NCAA basketball video games. This case, unlike maybe Sam Keller's, is the real deal: Boies, Schiller & Flexner and Hausfield LLC are serious law firms, and the suit is a class-action suit, meaning that they are looking to join as many other former athletes as possible. And one twist does make this case more sympathetic, in that O'Bannon is a former player, no longer on scholarship, who continues to have his likeness used in subsequent editions of the video game through the "All-time" team features. He's not just suing about the use of his likeness when he was in college under scholarship.

Not that I'm convinced that makes any difference. The bottom line is that everyone owns their own name and likeness, and any use of that name or likeness without permission that is infringing -- particularly for commercial use -- is impermissible. Now the question is what is infringing, and the NCAA simply maintains it hasn't infringed on anyone's rights. It hasn't yet had to explain why, though frequent arguments are that the kids are already compensated with scholarships or that the likenesses in the games aren't infringing enough -- you know, that Florida QB #15 that runs like a rhino and throws 50-yard bombs could be anybody. Neither is persuasive.

The first looks just about foreclosed. Recently a federal appeals court decided that NFL Films infringed on John Facenda's distinctive voice when it used clips in advertisements for EA's Madden football. Facenda of course had that booming voice, and he had signed a contract with NFL Films. But in signing a contract didn't mean he waived all his rights for all time. Instead, as the Court said, "Facenda consented to participation in films documenting NFL games, not an advertisement for a football video game." The same might be said of the NCAA's scholarship athletes.

And the second is not how it works. You can infringe on someone's publicity rights without saying them by name; the question is basically whether the whole thing passes the smell test. For example, successful plaintiffs in publicity rights cases have included Muhammad Ali (who sued Playgirl magazine after it published a drawing of a naked guy resembling him with "The Greatest" written under it), Vanna White (an advertisement by Samsung showing a robotic blonde woman turning over a Wheel of Fortune display), George Wendt and John Ratzenberger, who played Cliff and Norm on Cheers (animatronic likenesses of Cliff and Norm were placed in airport bars). On the other hand, the unsuccessful have been Joe Montana, who sued regarding the use of his image after having won the Superbowl, as that was merely the recording of an historic fact, and baseball (again!), which sued a company that made cartoonish, spoof baseball cards. The court there ruled that the baseball cards were sufficiently a parody of the players such that a suit wasn't permissible. (No word on whether that defense would remain for players who receive absurdly low ability ratings in EA's NCAA Football.)

One irony here is that the sports leagues -- usually always on the same side -- are now put on opposing sides with the simultaneous rise of these fantasy baseball challenges. In these cases, Major League Baseball and its players union have sued proprietors of fantasy baseball leagues, arguing that a player's name followed by his historical stats constitutes an infringing of publicity rights. These suits have not fared well, but they provide a nice contrast with the NCAA's position, which is that recreating the image and likeness of current and former athletes is not infringing.

So what would happen if the courts ruled against the NCAA? I'm not sure how damages might work, but I would guess the NCAA would try to get its future players -- i.e. 17 year old kids -- to sign waivers of their publicity rights, forever. (Kind of like Facebook does for any photos you upload there.) But you also might get antitrust issues with, say, forcing all the various Universities to take on this policy, or then enforcement issues when, say, some WAC school offers its recruits the opportunity to play for them without having to sign away their publicity rights. It's an interesting mess.

That's a good trade

2009-07-22T12:28:00.002-04:00

The NY Times's Fifth Down Blog has swapped out KC Joyner for Advanced NFL Stats' Brian Burke, who will be guest-posting there this week. I'll take that bargain any day.

Q&As with spread gurus and those entrusted with stopping them

2009-07-21T16:40:00.005-04:00

ESPN is doing some kind of spread week, and they have posted a bunch of Q&As with coaches from around the country chiming in on the spread, what they do, and how to stop it. There's some chaff but also some good stuff, so I thought I'd provide the excerpted highlights (with links):

Paul Johnson on his spread-option:

How similar is what you do to what Urban Meyer and Rich Rodriquez do?

PJ: I think it's very similar. . . .
Why do you think then, that most college football fans, when they think of your offense, probably don't automatically think of what Urban Meyer and Rich Rodriquez do?

PJ: Because one is under the gun and the other is under the center.

That's it?

PJ: Yeah, and most fans, quite honestly, couldn't tell you what plays they ran out of the gun. It's like anything else -- if you're successful and you have big plays, then it's great. If you're not moving the ball and you're not scoring then it's no good. If you look at last year with what Rich did at Michigan, it's the same offense they ran at West Virginia, but it was a learning process, different personnel and they didn't have near the success. In fact they had very little success. But nobody was questioning whether it would work or not. As soon as we have one game where we don't score 30 points, boy it's like, I told you this wouldn't work, everybody figured it out. That's what drives you nuts.

Arizona's offensive coordinator Sonny Dykes (formerly of Texas Tech):

How about with receivers? Does the spread require different things out of them than if you were lining up in a pro-style set?

SD: Yeah, definitely. The quarterback and receivers have to spend a lot of time getting on the same page. If you run the ball, guys are going to try to sneak more guys in the box. When they do that, you need to find a way to get the ball on the perimeter, whether it's throwing the [bubble screens] or whatever, to try to get the ball away from the guys packing the box. When you're doing that, it looks like an easy throw, but it's something that requires quite a bit of timing and work between quarterbacks and wide receivers. If you're going to spread it out and do that, your quarterback and receivers have to spend a lot of time developing a feel for each other. . . .

One way guys recruit against spread teams is they tell recruits that if they play in a spread offense they are not going to get the respect from the NFL in the draft. What do you say to that?

SD: It's weird. Remember [the University of] Miami was one of the first teams running the one-back and running a spread offense with three receivers on the field? They were doing it with guys like Bernie Kosar and Vinny Testaverde and all of those guys were getting drafted. Back then, Miami was using it as a real advantage -- hey, we're spreading the field and throwing the ball. That's how you get into the NFL. What's happened is the spread has changed and there are a lot of different kinds of spreads. You've got what Penn State was doing last year which is more traditional type stuff. And then you've got the stuff that is way out there, the run-and-shoot stuff, what Tech's done. I think anytime a quarterback can drop back and throw the football, that's important. All that does is make him better, whether he does it under center or out of the shotgun. I don't see how a quarterback can be faulted when he takes a snap, avoids a rush, shuffles in the pocket, goes through reads, finds a receiver, throws an accurate ball and does all the things you have to do to drop back and throw. I don't see how he becomes a better quarterback by being under center and handing it to a running back. There's been a little bit of a knock, but I think that's just because of the personnel. If you're Texas Tech, you don't have to recruit 6-foot-6 quarterbacks who can stand in the pocket and throw the ball. And those are the guys the NFL is always going to like. Now, some of those guys don't work out and guys like Tom Brady do, who's not very big and doesn't have a particularly strong arm. They're just good players. Whether it's college or pro, the important thing for a quarterback is just finding a good fit.

Tulsa's offensive coordinator Herb Hand:

How hard is it for a receiver to learn a spread offense with so many different options going on?

HH: I think it's a lot simpler because what you're trying to do is you're trying to create one-on-ones. And I know that you're trying to do that in about every offense, create one-on-ones. But in the spread, because you have people spread out so much, it's a numbers game ... So, in most spread offenses, the beauty of it is that it creates a lot of one-on-one opportunities for wide receivers. That's all a guy really asks for.

Mississippi State's Dan Mullen, formerly of Florida:

What type of player are you looking for at the skill positions?
Dan Mullen: The first thing we look for is a guy who's multi-talented, a guy that can play a crossover position or hybrid position. You want a receiver who can also line up at tailback or a tailback who can flex into the slot or move up to the fullback position. Guys who have multiple skills make it hard for defenses to match up on you. . . .

When you have several of these hybrid players, why does it make it so difficult for the defense?

Dan Mullen: One thing we're hoping to get to here at Mississippi State is where you don't have to change personnel groupings very often. Everybody has the same skill set, which makes it harder for the defense to pick up on what you're doing. You don't have to substitute to run different things.

Missouri offensive coordinator David Yost:

How much has the talent you guys have accumulated over recent years provided you the opportunity to make your offense different from one season to the next?

David Yost: Coach [Gary] Pinkel is a very direct guy and he thinks things through and doesn't fly by the seat of the pants. And that's the beauty of this offense.

When we had [former Missouri quarterback] Brad [Smith] we ran him more. Then we got Chase Daniel in here who could run the football, but also could also lead us to more passing because of his talents. That helped us transform our offense into more of a passing philosophy.

At one time when we had [tight ends] Chase [Coffman] and Martin Rucker, we were running a lot of two-tight end offenses. Then we had a set of receivers, but not necessarily ones that would be as suited to running the spread. Then, we started recruiting guys like Jeremy Maclin and stopping using as much two-tight end sets.

Now, after losing Coffman and Maclin, we'll be a little thinner at wide receiver this season. Because of that, we're kind of adjusting what we're doing. We'll be using three wideouts and our tailback more as a rusher and a receiver.

We feel our offense gives us a chance to get our best 11 players on the field. And we can do things differently depending on the personnel we have on hand.

Defending the spread

Virginia Head Coach Al Groh:

How do you prepare for it and what's your philosophy in going against it?

Al Groh: . . . .One of the things we have observed is that defensive teams have to be willing to take some risks in order to take the initiative back. When you're so spread out, and one of the features of the spread, and the spread offense is just a formation. Having been in conversations with people, the two things I noticed is, last year Missouri finished fourth in the country in passing and Oregon finished fourth in running. Both are called spread offenses. The word spread is no longer associated with specific plays. It's simply a formation that spreads the defense from sideline to sideline and in doing so creates some natural spaces in the defense. It's harder to go from far away to attack the offense and you leave yourself vulnerable to certain things. By the same token, what we're observing is defense are afraid to take any risks. They just stand there and they're a standing target.

What we do like about being in the 3-4 defense is the flexibility it provides because defense, so much these days, that fourth linebacker as opposed to a fourth defensive lineman in the 4-3, gives us significantly more options. What defensive coaching is now, no matter what the system, you have to find some ways to adapt to what the other team is doing. We think this gives us the ability to adapt and react. You'd like to be on the attack defensively and set the tone, but to a degree the offensive will always control that. You have to be able to adjust and adapt.

How different is what Georgia Tech does? It's the spread option. How does that make it a little more difficult to prepare for, or does it?

AG: They are in their own way, yes, they fall under that umbrella because while the plays are different, it's out of sync with what teams face on a repetitive basis. That's the only time that most teams see that offense every year. There's no accumulated familiarity by the coaches or players going against it. That's a big part of the difficulty of playing against that or any offense that isn't common to what the defenses generally see. There's different plays, but it accomplishes similar things.

You guys beat them last year. As a coach, you get it. But how do you get your players prepared for it in what, five days, when they never see it?

AG: You're exactly right. One of the things we thought that was very important in the presentation of it was to demystify it for the players. In some cases, players can get frustrated. For example, this Wildcat formation that's gaining some notoriety. Really, in a lot of ways, it's a reduced down spread. It's spread out, but a lot of times it's with a player back there getting the direct snap who's a real good runner, but is not a passer. Actually, in talking with the Patriots last year, and all of a sudden it got sprung on them by Miami. In doing so, the unfamiliarity of it really threw them off during the course of the game and they could never quite get it back and in talking with the coaches there, they had issues during the game with getting the players settled down because there was still a mystique to what they were up against. From that point on, they had a detailed plan, and the next time they played against it from other teams as well as the second time they played Miami, they fared much better. You've got to demystify these unique offenses for the defensive players.

How much has it helped you as a defensive coach to understand it and scheme for it because [new offensive coordinator] Gregg [Brandon] is on your staff now and that's the way he's thinking?

AG: Very much so. It's helped us to establish a significant period of experimentation. We put some things out there and run them, and we really haven't tried to defend our team so much as let's just run our stuff and see what we like and what we don't like. It has certainly been helpful to us in that degree. . . .

Do you think there's any benefit to preparing the guys for the NFL to run one particular offensive scheme or another?

AG: Not really. I think that if the players are well-trained fundamentally, those are the things that carry over from league to league. The fundamental skills of how to execute their job, how to defeat the player across from them. It's highly unlikely that most players are going to go - with only 32 teams in the NFL - it's highly unlikely they're going to go to a system that's exactly like the one they came from. They're going to have to make some adjustments system-wise. The big thing is they have the fundamental background that can translate to any system. If you can block guys in one system, you can block them in another. If you can beat blocks in the 3-4, you can beat blocks in the 4-3. If you get blocked in the 3-4, you're going to get blocked in the 4-3.

Makes sense. Why do you think more ACC teams haven't caught onto this?

AG: It gets trendy within leagues. What you have to go against, whether it's offense or defense, you have to prepare for those things. You kind of become influenced and spend more time looking at those things and become influenced by those things. And of course a lot of it has to do with the philosophical backgrounds and beliefs that coaches bring with them. And really your background, too. At a point, sometimes what you know how to teach best, what you know how to utilize during the course of a game is the best for a particular team as opposed to something that is intriguing, but when certain things happen during a game maybe you just don't have the wherewithal to make those in-game decisions because you don't have enough familiarity with the system. Therefore, a team would be better off with something they're really fluent in.

Do you think your players will be more comfortable playing Georgia Tech the second time around?

AG: They should have a certain element of confidence. Their circumstances should be a lot more positive than if we would have given up 40 points. Then you have to come back the next year and convince the players we can really do this. 'Well wait a second, last year we were completely bamboozled by it and we haven't played against it since.' Yeah, I think we don't have to overcome that type of situation to start with, but no matter what, they run those plays every day. Their opponents, and this is the value of being a little bit out of the norm, whether it's with your offense or defense, their opponents only practice against those plays for a week.

Cal defensive coordinator Bob Gregory:

I remember in high school preparing for wishbone teams: It was pure assignment football. Is it like that preparing for a spread-option vs. a typical pro-style, multiple offense?

BG: Yeah, it definitely is. In the old days, you had three backs in the backfield and everybody was doing option defensive assignments and concerns. It's the same kind of deal. The quarterback can carry the ball. He can hand off. He can motion a guy around to be the pitch guy. It really is the same idea. You've really got to make sure you stop all those elements. And then they throw in the no-huddle with it, which most of them have, and that can slow you down a little bit more. So we talk about that with our guys -- it's assignment football. You can't be quite as reckless, unless it's third-and-long and then you can get into your normal blitz stuff.

More than a few defensive coordinators have said that when you have a running quarterback, it stresses a defense and makes it difficult to match up. Is the spread not effective when the quarterback is not a good runner?

BG: I don't think it is as effective. I think when you've got a guy like [Jeremiah] Masoli at Oregon -- or a Dennis Dixon -- man, that makes it even harder. If a quarterback is not a great runner, you don't have to worry about him keeping it. And even if he does keep it, he's not going to gain a lot of yards. You can kind of load up in the one aspect, whether it's defending the ball inside or the pitch guy coming around, you don't have to worry about the quarterback. But if the guy can run, it adds a whole different dimension to it and makes it more difficult. . . .

How about blocking assignments: is that an adjustment also?

BG: Yeah, because so much of it is lateral. You really don't see the downhill, power running game that you see with most two-back teams -- power with pulling [linemen], lead plays, that kind of thing. So much of it is lateral, with guys moving in one direction and the back has the ability to really cut back and wind it back. You've really got to be conscious of not running so far out with the offensive line -- the term we use is "getting washed." Sometimes you see a back cutting all the way back and part of that is a defensive line over-pursuing and getting washed past the holes and the gaps up front so a back can stick it back. It's tough stuff and it is different. A good offensive line, like Oregon, that is big and strong and moves well, can really work guys past that initial point of attack and a good back can just break it back against the pursuit of the defense.

Pittsburgh defensive coordinator Phil Bennett:

First of all, what is the challenge like when you're going up against a spread offense?

Phil Bennett: I played for a guy at Texas A&M, Emory Bellard, who invented the wishbone. With option football, everybody says it's an equalizer. I think if you have that quarterback, then the spread can be an equalizer.

I think it equalizes the field. I know as a defensive coach, it can take the aggressiveness out of you, because you have to be so concerned with assignments, just like the option. I was nervous last year when we played South Florida and Matt Grothe, and then obviously West Virginia. Our ends are big get-off, speed guys, and it really makes your ends go into a different mode. I don't think with the spread, in the run game, that you ever just really have to mash a guy. If you've got a body on body, then it becomes assignment football. But then you work on it so much that it can take a little bit of aggressiveness out of you.

How do you go about avoiding that?

PB: One of the things I try to do is, I try to treat it like the option in the run game. I want obviously a guy on the outside end and an inside-out guy on the quarterback. In the passing game, the thing I think is the toughest is the play-pass, because you're geared up to stop the run. I watched West Virginia against North Carolina, and they were so geared up to stop the run that Pat (White) threw for 330 yards, and it was off of play-pass.

I go back to our disaster game last year against Rutgers, where I had our guys so steered in on the run the week before against Navy. That's the thing the spread does to you. Your front guys have to still be aggressive, and the secondary still has to play pass. I was very pleased in our last home game against West Virginia, because our secondary, instead of getting so caught up in the run (played the pass). And we let our front go. And that's the thing I think you've got to do.

And of course the other thing is down and distance. Just like against the wishbone, if you get a down and distance on a spread team where the play-pass is taken away, then you've got a great advantage. The other thing people don't talk about in college is hash marks. You look at every spread team and watch them, and they have tremendous tendencies when they're in the middle of the field and then tremendous tendencies when they're on the boundary. . . .

Do you think that, in general, defenses are catching up to the spread?

PB: You know, as soon as you say that, somebody will tear you up. Now, with the original spread teams, people are starting to say, hey we've seen this. I think we played (against) regular personnel, out of 880 snaps last year, I think we played 90 snaps. And the rest was one back and either one tight, three wides or even four wides. Everybody is so multiple and they're doing variations of the spread. Iowa came out against us, and they had two tights, two flankers, and lo and behold guess what they did? They flexed them out and ran the spread out of it.

I think the more you can focus on something, week after week, people will get better answers. The other thing is, there's a premium on skill players on offense. The thing the spread does is, it creates matchups. And if you got a 4.4 (40-yard dash) wide receiver against a 4.8 linebacker, that's a great matchup. You've got to be able to swarm the ball, and you can't have too many of those matchups.

South Carolina defensive coordinator Ellis Johnson:

There are so many versions of the spread offense. What do you think when you hear that somebody is running the spread?

Ellis Johnson: Everybody just refers to it in general as the spread, but it all starts with the quarterback and whether he's a good runner. If they run the quarterback, it's a whole different animal.

What makes it a different animal?

Ellis Johnson: If the quarterback doesn't run much and it's never more than the quarterback and the running back in the backfield at the same time, it doesn't present as many problems unless they've just got so many great athletes that you can't match up. But you've got problems with any offense that has that many great athletes. The quarterback being able to run presents that extra challenge back there that almost makes it seem like you're trying to defend a 12th man.

How have your triple-option roots at The Citadel helped you in defending the spread?

Ellis Johnson: One of the things that helps me when I'm drawing it up on the chalkboard is that everybody was running the option and the veer back in the 70s when I was coming up through coaching. I understand the loaded option with the extra blocker back there. A lot of younger coaches don't understand it, and obviously a lot of players don't. It's very difficult to get taught and understood how these things work.

How does your strategy change when you're going against a spread offense?Ellis Johnson: The thing we try to do is mix up our fronts as much as possible and keep the perimeter reasonably simple. If you blitz too much, it can be disruptive. But it's not going to be sound against option assignments. And reading linemen becomes extremely important. When they get in the shotgun and the quarterback's back there beside the running back, as the ball is traveling back to the quarterback, you really don't get any flow in the backfield, so you need to be heavily keying on the linemen.

Northwestern defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz:

How has the spread offense changed the way you put together your game plans?

Mike Hankwitz: It has changed things because in the past, you wanted to feel like you could be more proactive and try to dictate. You could stack up against the run and force teams to throw, or you could stack your coverage and dare 'em to run. The spread does literally what it says: It spreads the field, forces you to spread your defense out more and especially with the quarterbacks that can run and throw. There's all different types of blocking schemes in the spread, aside from just the zone read.

So how do you counteract all of that?

MH: We try to see what the strength of their attack is. Is it the running game? How good is the quarterback in the run game? Is he a better runner than passer? If he is, then we'll commit more to the run and try to make him beat us throwing the ball. Or if they're a better passing team, then we will play more coverages and try to make them beating us running the ball. The third element when they spread you out is the unscripted, the improvised plays with the quarterback scramble. You're spread out and you're trying to rush the passer and play coverage and all of a sudden, the quarterback that can take off and scramble, it's not easy to plan for that all the time.

How much more time do you devote to the quarterback run now versus 15 years ago?

MH: Teams ran the triple option, and you had to be sound in your schemes and then you had to have the players who had discipline to take their assignment and not let somebody run free. The passing attack off that was minimal, but now, with the spread, you have that option aspect where you have to defend the different components of the run game: the read zone with the running back, the quarterback keeping it off the read zone and then bringing a running back in the backfield and bringing him out on a pitch. The bubble is another variation of it. [The receiver] becomes the pitch man. And then you have the jail-break screens, you have draws, running back draws, quarterback draws. It's more difficult to defend all that stuff.

You mention how dictating on defense was easier before. Has the spread allowed offenses to dictate more often?

MH: It makes it a lot harder on a defense to dictate or take away certain things, just because they've spread the field and they are doing more things. The offenses are trying to keep the defense from dictating to them. And then the other big part of the spread is the audible aspect of it, the coaches changing the plays. They're going no-huddle, they have more clock to work with and then they'll go up and show a formation and go through a cadence and try to get the defense to tip its hand. Then, they'll go back and change the play and try to get in a better play from what they've seen. You used to get some of that against passing teams. They would keep you from trying to substitute, but that was still relatively one-dimensional. You had some good one-back teams that could run and pass, but you didn't have to worry about the quarterback and the option.

Texas Tech defensive coordinator Ruffin McNeil:

When you arrived in Lubbock in 2000, Leach was the only coach in the conference running the spread. Now, seven of the teams run the offense as a base set. Did you ever expect it to be this widespread?

RM: I've definitely seen things evolve. The yards per game and points all have increased. I think it's because we've seen a development in the training of quarterbacks and offensive players through seven-on-seven camps and the like -- particularly here in Texas. Now, everybody is trying to get their wide receivers and running backs into space. And we're trying to do what we can to stop them.

Because of the way scoring has mushroomed in the Big 12, are you changing the way you judge the success of your defense?

RM: You've seen things evolve. Obviously, yards per game and points have increased. It's not three yards and a cloud of dust like it was when I was playing. We all realize these quarterbacks are pretty good and these offenses can move the ball. What we have to do is be patient and innovative with how we try to counteract their schemes. Points will increase, but maybe now we need to look at stats like third-down conversions and turnovers to determine how effective a defense has really been.

How much of a philosophical change has it been after the mushrooming of these spread offenses since you started your coaching career?

RM: When I started back at East Carolina with Pat Dye, I grew up facing the wishbone all spring and all fall. That was the offense that everybody was using and that caused problems. You saw more of a power game. Then, you saw people start using the West Coast offense to try to throw the football.

I miss those days, but I know the spread defense is here to stay for a while because of the development of the athletes to fit those offenses. I know everybody in our state (high school players) is out throwing the football, so the passing quarterback is out there. The receivers are out there, too. The guys that used to play basketball are all becoming wide receivers. I think the spread will be here for awhile, so both sides will have to keep developing.

Smart Links - July 21, 2009

2009-07-21T11:37:00.002-04:00

1. Ben Cahoon gets all Tyrone Prothro on things. Great catch from the Montreal Alouettes' Ben Cahoon. Love the CFL's motion and super spread with the 12 men -- nothing like four wide while still two-backs in the shotgun. (Ht Shutdown Corner.)

2. "Out of the Blue." A documentary about the Boise State team that wound up upsetting Oklahoma. Quite good.

3. Three plays that shocked the world. Always worth a repeat view.

4. Brian Cook wants to pull his eyes out. ESPN's Lester Munson gets all hysterical and apocalyptic about the Supreme Court's upcoming decision in the American Needle case. The question involves whether the NFL -- composed of 32 different franchises under one umbrella -- should be treated as a "single-entity" for purposes of some of the anti-trust laws. If the NFL the Court deems the NFL a "single-entity" rather than a joint venture (as the lower courts did), it will be immune from some of this anti-trust liability. Munson thinks the world is ending; Cook takes a slightly more reasoned and calm approach, noting that the Supreme Court's ultimate decision is far from knowable (likely at this point even by the Justices). I'm with Brian, and for more insight check out SCOTUSBlog's explanation of the legal issues involved.

5. "A Beautiful Mind." Profile piece by Rob Moseley about Oregon's Chip Kelly. A good, thoughtful piece. Kind of buys into the "coach as genius" meme -- football is pretty simple, and players can always make you look smart -- but a good read.

6. Dutch Meyer on the spread:

In an interview Sammy Baugh gave to the Washington Post, years after he’d gone on to a Hall of Fame NFL career with the Redskins, one can even see a little of Dutch Meyer’s influence on today’s West Coast Offense:

“Dutch Meyer taught us. All the coaches I had in the pros, I didn’t learn a damn thing from any of `em compared with what Dutch Meyer taught me. He taught the short pass. The first day we go into a room and he has three S’s up on a blackboard; nobody knew what that meant. Then he gives us a little talk and he says, `This is our passing game.’ He goes up to the blackboard and he writes three words that complete the S’s: `Short, Sure and Safe.’ That was his philosophy — the short pass. “Everybody loved to throw the long pass. But the point Dutch Meyer made was, `Look at what the short pass can do for you.’ You could throw it for seven yards on first down, then run a play or two for a first down, do it all over again and control the ball. That way you could beat a better team.”

Courtesy of Richard, one of the blog readers, and I believe the write-up is by the inimical coach Hugh Wyatt.

7. Dan Shanoff on the inevitability of ESPN's taking over local sports coverage. Also check out the front-page NY Times article he addresses.

8. Why are we so fat? Elizabeth Kolbert weighs in (zing!) in the New Yorker, and Jonah Lehrer tells us that our brains are biologically wired to prefer more calories over fewer, even when the taste is the same. (P.S. That's not a good thing.)

Nevada's "Horn Play" from the pistol

2009-07-21T10:00:00.000-04:00

I wrote a brief overview of the Nevada Wolfpack's pistol offense for Dr Saturday. One interesting play that I didn't have the space to mention was their "horn" play, which is kind of like a combination between the old counter-trey and the pin-and-pull version of the outside zone.

The mechanics are fairly simple. They always run it to the tight end side. The playside of the line (the side the ball is going to) basically alternates between "down blocks" and "pull blocks": the tight-end blocks down on the defensive end, while the tackle pulls and kicks out the outside linebacker; and the playside guard blocks down on the defensive tackle or nose guard, while the center pulls and leads (called a "fold block") up to the linebacker. On the backside, the line essentially steps down and seals off the pursuit.

In the backfield, the quarterback reverses out and the runner takes a few counter or delay steps before starting to the playside.

The idea is to get some misdirection but not to use full pullers like on counter-trey; that way the linebackers freeze and don't flow so fast to where the run is going. Relatedly, they get good angles on the playside with all the "down blocks" and kickouts. The runner can either cut it inside the tackle behind the pulling center, or between the tight-end's down block and the tackle's kick out, or take it completely around end. Below is a video clip of Nevada running this play. (And check out the effort the center gives, even if he doesn't actually block anyone.)

ESPN actually does pretty decent job discussing the spread

2009-07-20T14:30:00.003-04:00

ESPN's Mark Schlabach has a piece up today on the rise and ubiquity of the spread offense, and it is probably one of the better pieces I've seen from them on it. Now, Schlabach does seem to draw a line from Mouse Davis of run & shoot fame through current spreads like Urban Meyer's, but he doesn't carry this too far:

Even now, Davis wonders why it took college football coaches so long to adopt the principles of his offense, which was predicated on spreading a defense so wide that it created vertical seams for both runs and passes.

"I think it took coaches a while to find out how really tough it is to defend four-wide and how difficult it is to defend with either run or pass," Davis said. "The spread offense is now more of an option orientation by a lot of teams. A lot of them are running our same routes, but they don't read them as much. A lot of them are more run-oriented."

In many ways, the spread offense is still evolving. Coaches often see something they like from another coach's offense, then add their own wrinkles, plays and formations.

"You steal what you steal and put your own stuff in it," Davis said. "It's all interwoven some way."

When Rich Rodriguez took his spread offense from West Virginia to Michigan, a reporter from a Detroit newspaper called Davis. Rodriguez had told the reporter that he'd stolen much of his offense from Davis.

"He didn't get his stuff from me," Davis told the reporter. "I don't know where he got it from, but he got it from somebody else."

There are plenty of versions of the spread offense to imitate. The spread offenses at schools such as Texas Tech, Missouri and Tulsa are built around high-percentage passing games and often rely on quarterbacks and coaches to make the right decisions at the line of scrimmage. Spread offenses run by teams such as Michigan and Oregon are run-oriented attacks built around slot receivers, tailbacks and dual-threat quarterbacks.

"The bottom line is every spread offense is different," Nebraska coach Bo Pelini said last year. "Florida's spread offense is different than Missouri, and Missouri's is different than what Kansas is trying to do."

I think that's right: we have had spread rumblings for at least half a century if not further back -- from Dutch Meyer's TCU spread, Tiger Ellison's and later Mouse Davis's run & shoot, the Jack Neuimeier/Jack Elway (and John Elway) one-back spread, to the Hal Mumme/Mike Leach Airraid, and the assorted spread-to-runs of Rodriguez/Meyer/Walker et al. -- but there was, for a time, an almost complete banishing of the spread from college ball, and the spread's return has resulted in the (re)birth of a thousand offenses, each with their own spin on an old concept.

And this diversity, even within the spread, is one of the reasons that college football is so fun. Texas defensive coordinator Will Muschamp echoes what said earlier when contrasting college offenses from those in the pros:

"The hardest thing for your kids is to adjust every week," Texas defensive coordinator Will Muschamp said. "Back in 1985, every team lined up with two backs. Now everybody is running something different. That's why you see a lot of points scored now."

Now, on Rodriguez and the spread

2009-07-20T13:09:00.000-04:00

Several readers (including by email) have told me they thought I was not unfair to Rich Rodriguez in my recent post about Randy Walker's effect on the rise of the spread. First, I didn't write this intending to dig Rodriguez or take anything away from him. I've written continuously about what an innovator he was (and is), and as I wrote in my piece for Michigan's Maple Street preview guide, I think Rodriguez ought to be able to turn the Wolverines around. In other words, I think he's a very good coach.

My point was simply that Walker made an important contribution. And keep in mind that the spread of the spread, so to speak, has in many ways been an interesting two-way dialogue between high schools and college -- and only now is the NFL listening too. True, when Rodriguez came out with the zone-read people came from all over to study it from, but Walker and Kevin Wilson really put their stamp on it and showed the way for coaches less inclined to be "spread guys" how to adapt their traditional offense to the new-fangled sets. And I do think it true that, until teams like Northwestern got going, Rodriguez hadn't quite focused on developing the shotgun run game into a robust "system."

At Tulane, the offense had the zone-read elements but Rodriguez and Tommy Bowden still considered themselves kind of pass-first guys; Shaun King threw for 3,495 yards and 38 touchdowns. His big innovation at the time was in throwing the 3-step quick game from the shotgun. It sounds quaint and kind of weird now, but at the time people really didn't think you could do it because of timing issues until they saw Rodriguez do it (along with Joe Tiller at Purdue). Indeed, no less a passing guru than Norm Chow, while he was still at BYU, visited Rodriguez to learn this funky technique, and for the first time in his career taught his quarterbacks to throw the three-step game from the shotgun. (And the BYU offense, which had slowly begin to wilt in the late '90s, saw a brief resurgence before Chow left for NC State and used the same techniques there with Philip Rivers.) These were heady days.

Moreover, in Bowden and Rodriguez's their first year at Clemson Woody Dantzler split time with Brandon Streeter, an incumbent fifth-year senior who was not mobile (he averaged 0.9 yards rushing on a meager 42 attempts). See the highlights below.

And in any event I wasn't saying that Clemson was some kind of disorganized mess when Rodriguez was there, just that, understandably, these were the early days of the spread, so a few big ideas were most of what you needed. As teams caught on Rodriguez stayed a step ahead, again, with the aid of Rick Trickett at West Virginia, an excellent offensive line coach. (Note that with Trickett the focus of the zone read changed from the inside zone to the outside zone, a subtle switch for the average fan that derived from the ideas and philosophy Trickett learned from Alex Gibbs, the Denver Broncos' famed line coach.)

All I was saying is that Walker played a very important role in this development. As Urban Meyer has said, back in those days the spread coaches were a small fraternity and they liked to swap notes. Rodriguez hit everybody over the head with his ideas, and then later, once guys like Meyer and Walker had put in full seasons running the stuff, they got back together and talked about what worked and what could be better. (And to one of the commenters who said that they never heard of anyone visiting Walker, that is just wrong: Meyer has said repeatedly that he visited Walker to learn what they were doing at Northwestern.)

So anyway, I don't think giving credit to one guy should be interpreted as taking anything away from another. These were some dramatic years for the spread, those years from 1997-2002 or so. A lot happened, a lot was learned, a lot was tried, and there were a handful of guys there at this birthing of a new style of offense. Rodriguez might be the father, but Walker helped pour the baptismal water.

Smart Links and Notes - July 20, 2009

2009-07-20T09:32:00.001-04:00

1. Pistol meets flexbone? Last week I wrote a guest bit for Dr Saturday on Nevada's pistol offense, and I indicated that there were a lot of ways you could go with the pistol set. Nevada's offense is generally a mix of traditional power schemes with the spread zone and veer stuff, but that's not the only option. A reader passed along some video of Muskegon HS (MI), which runs the flexbone (similar to what Paul Johnson does at Georgia Tech) from the pistol set. As a result their shotgun is a bit shorter than Nevada's and the back lines up closer -- the mesh point in the veer all happens a bit faster. Worth taking a look.

2. Tebowliscious. Tebowlitude. sporting savant Dan Shanoff has launched a new blog that will be all-Tebow, all-the-time. Introducing, the TimTeBlog. Enjoy.

3. Rules, rules, rules. I recently mused about the differences in offenses between college and the pros, and Doc Saturday also recently chimed, in wondering why more teams don't use the triple-option, following the lead of the academies. There's much more to say on those topics, but one thing I didn't hit on much is the difference in rules at the various levels. One reason that the flexbone and the option offenses have been successful in college is that, in college, you can cut block downfield. In most states, cut blocking is illegal. (Texas being a notable exception.) See the video below.

Another notable rule that, in my view, limits the incentives for pro teams to be spread is the different rule for the ability of linemen to go downfield on screens. In college and high school, linemen may go downfield and everyone, receivers included, may block defenders right away, so long as the ball is throw behind the line of scrimmage. This leads to some pretty dynamic screen games, which is one of the advantages of being a spread team: you have lots of options for throwing quick screens, jailbreak screens, bubble screens, and even your more traditional ones to the runningback often work well because the defense is expanded out -- you can turn a regular play into a kickoff return. Indeed, screens are still probably the best weapon against the zone blitz.

In the pros, however, linemen may not release downfield on any pass until the ball is caught, and receivers too may not begin blocking until then either or else they will draw a penalty. Now, some teams like the Patriots have found ways to integrate the screens, but it is pretty evident that you can't run these plays as effectively if your linemen can't get downfield quickly and your blockers have to dance and shadowbox for a few counts before they actually start blocking somebody. A play like the TD below to LSU's Early Doucet, with linemen ten yards downfield by the time he catches the ball, would be called back in the NFL.

NFL teams have learned how to push this a bit, but it is still a rather important limit.

4. Juice Williams for Heisman? Bruce Feldman recently discussed Heisman hopefuls other than the "Big Three" (Tebow, Bradford, McCoy), and one name came up that caught my eye: The Illini's Juice Williams. Now, the idea that the owner of the largest noggin in college might win its most prestigious award might sound ridiculous to anyone has, you know, actually seen him play, I have thought about this and find the Juice-for-Heisman argument a legitimate one. One, his stats last year actually were not bad: 3,173 yards, 57.5% completion percentage, and 22 TDs, to go with 719 yards rushing. He did throw 16 picks, but the other thing you notice from the stats is that they definitely trend upward; he has a chance to be decent next year. And Feldman is right that Illinois has a chance to actually upset some of the other teams in the Big 10 -- the conference does not look to have any dominant teams. And, finally, as Phil Steele pointed out, the Illini's poor record seemed somewhat out of whack in light of the stats they put up; Steele pointed out that teams in similar positions tend to bounce back the next year as their won/loss record regresses to the mean. So who knows?

5. Urban Meyer, Tebow, and film study. From an old Q&A between Pete Thamel and Tim Tebow:

Q. Let’s start from the top. How much film did you watch in high school?

A. I was blessed to be at a high school where I had a good high school coach who knew football. We did watch some teams on film. I think it gave me an advanced knowledge of coverages and stuff coming into college. Still, you’re not prepared to come in here and to be able to read defenses and watch film correctly; not just watch as a football player and be like, ‘Oh, nice play.’ But you’re looking at technique and how you would play against them and all those types of things. That’s what I didn’t know and that’s what Coach Mullen has done such a good job of teaching me. In high school I did watch film, but it wasn’t with the same knowledge and diligence that I do now. . . .

Q. Coach Mullen was saying that it’s a three-step process. He watches all the games to get a feel. Then he watches the cut-ups for specifics. Then he re-watches the games to piece it all together.

A. Yeah, most of the time I do it all with him. As far as when we’re game planning for a team like we are right now. Like he was saying he watches it. Watches games to get a feel and then you splice it up and look at all the cut-ups. Then you watch all that. Then you have a good feel for them. Then you put all that back together. Then you can say, ‘This is low defense. This is under G. This is one-hole. This is why they’re doing this, because there’s a tight end on the ball. They’re doing this because there’s an extra slot.’ You can really get a better feel for it like that. If you just start with cut-ups, you wonder how this relates to a game. He’s got a really good method of doing it, obviously, with his success over the years. I try to follow it and learn and do what he does.

And this part sounds to me like a guy who has a reasonable shot in the pros as a quarterback:

Q. I imagine the translation now compared to your freshman year is drastic in terms of how you process things in your mind.

A. Yeah, I can process things a lot more. In a situation like this, my freshman year, I’d be trying to locate. Let’s look at this. (Tebow uses the laser pointer and points to the film he’s watching.) We’ve got a shade 5-9, is it under or are they calling it over to the boundary. The Sam is here, so I know that it’s field under. I know they’re calling the strength of the field, even though it’s double tight. Now I can do it so much quicker. It’s just boom. You see it and you know. It’s quicker, you process things quicker. You don’t have to think, you can just react. Especially the teams that bring pressure a lot and disguise it well. That stuff has gotten so much easier. The teams that do it well as far as changing their calls, disguising blitzes their defenses and bluffing. That has gotten a lot easier to pick up on. You can play fast and you can make a guess and you can go with that. If it’s not there, and you make a wrong call, you still have the ability and knowledge, ‘O.K., I thought it was no-deep and made a no-deep call and they bluffed out of it, all right, where’s my check down, let me go to it now.’ That type of thing. Instead of making the wrong call, and saying, ‘Oh shoot, let me make a play panicked.’ Now I really just know where to go. That’s something I thought I did a lot better in the L.S.U. game this year. That was one of my best times doing that. When they did something like that, this is where I’m going if they come or if they don’t come. Sometimes you’re having two thoughts in your mind. Depending on what’s going to happen.

5. Quick hits. How many wins does it take to secure an NFL playoff berth? ... The Senator takes on everybody's (least) favorite columnist, Stewart Mandel ... Wages of Wins recommends Playbooks and Checkbooks: An Introduction to the Economics of Modern Sports, but Residual Prolixity is not as impressed. ... Sports is in a slump, likely due to mental fatigue ... Is new Detroit Lions' coach Jim Schwartz focusing on the wrong defensive metrics?

5. Good web hosting service? The launch of smartfootball.com is nigh, as the overhaul of the site's design is almost done, as is the transition from Blogger to Wordpress. A question for web-savvy readers, though: Can anyone recommend a good (and cheap) web hosting service? I obviously want something affordable, reliable, and steady. My traffic numbers are okay but not ESPN.com levels, though I am wary of getting only the lowest bandwidth and and crashing out on peak days. This site obviously has a lot of graphics and that tends to inflate my bandwidth as well. Any advice would be appreciated.

Of Graham Harrell and Kafka

2009-07-16T22:45:00.010-04:00

Texas Tech's Graham Harrell has signed with the Sasketchewan Roughriders. Harrell, of course, was undrafted, and had a "tryout" with the Browns that resulted in no contract being offered. He has since languished, and this seems the best bet he has. I can sum my feelings up on this, thusly: I'm not really sure I want to live in a world where Jared Lorenzen (currently of the ArenaFootball2 Lexington Horsemen) can flop around the NFL for four seasons while Graham Harrell has the door slammed in his face.

Harrell's experience here reminds me of a story by Kafka. In honor of Harrell and the Captain (who I believe is a Kafka fan), here is a very slightly paraphrased version, adapted for Harrell. (Original here.)

Before the NFL

Before the NFL sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from Texas who asks to gain entry into the NFL. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in sometime later on. “It is possible,” says the gatekeeper, “but not now.” The gate to the NFL stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walks to the side, so the man bends over in order to see through the gate into the inside. When the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says: “If it tempts you so much, try going inside in spite of my prohibition. But take note. I am powerful. And I am only the most lowly gatekeeper. But from room to room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the other. I cannot endure even one glimpse of the third.” The man from the country has not expected such difficulties: the NFL should always be accessible for someone who has thrown for over 15,000 yards and 130 touchdowns, he thinks, even if he did play in a Mike Leach system.

But as he now looks more closely at the gatekeeper in his fur coat, at his large pointed nose and his long, thin, black Tartar’s beard, he decides that it would be better to wait until he gets permission to go inside. The gatekeeper gives him a stool and allows him to sit down at the side in front of the gate. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be let in, and he wears the gatekeeper out with his requests. The gatekeeper often interrogates him briefly, questioning him about his homeland and what it was like to throw to Michael Crabtree and what it was like to beat Texas on the last play and whether Mike Leach is really that weird and many other things, but they are indifferent questions, the kind great men put, and at the end he always tells him once more that he cannot let him inside yet.

The man, who has trained vigorously for his journey, tries out with everyone to win over the gatekeeper. The latter observes it all but, as he does so, says, “I am doing this only so that you do not think you have failed to do anything.” During the many years the man observes the gatekeeper almost continuously. He forgets the other gatekeepers, and this first one seems to him the only obstacle for entry into the NFL. He curses the unlucky circumstance, in the first years thoughtlessly and out loud; later, as he grows old, he only mumbles to himself. He becomes childish and, since in the long years studying the gatekeeper he has also come to know the fleas in his fur collar, he even asks the fleas to help him persuade the gatekeeper. Finally his eyesight grows weak, and he does not know whether things are really darker around him or whether his eyes are merely deceiving him. But he recognizes now in the darkness an illumination which breaks inextinguishably out of the gateway to the NFL. Now he no longer has much time to live. Before his death he gathers in his head all his experiences of the entire time up into one question which he has not yet put to the gatekeeper. He waves to him, since he can no longer lift up his stiffening body. The gatekeeper has to bend way down to him, for the great difference has changed things considerably to the disadvantage of the man. “What do you still want to know now?” asks the gatekeeper. “You are insatiable.” “Everyone strives after the NFL,” says the man, “so how is that in these many years no one except me has requested entry?” The gatekeeper sees that the man is already dying and, in order to reach his diminishing sense of hearing, he shouts at him, “Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. I’m going now to close it.”

Former Northwestern Coach Randy Walker's effect on the spread

2009-07-16T16:00:00.003-04:00

A question so good it deserves a full-post response. From reader Tom:

Q: "[D]id [Randy] Walker run the zone-read at Miami (OH), like when he upset the Wildcats their Rose Bowl year, or was it something he introduced in Evanston?"

The short answer is no, he didn't become a "spread guy" until he was at Northwestern. But the details are the fun part. Rodriguez invented the zone-read. Some others have said they dabbled in it before he did, but all signs point to his having invented it while at Glenville State. Rodriguez had been a four-wide spread guy with the zone run game, and it just kind of happened.

Walker, by contrast, had run traditional offenses at Miami of Ohio and early in his tenure at NW. In 1999, Walker's first year with the Wildcats, the offense was bad and the team went 3-8. He, along with his longtime assistant Kevin Wilson, who is now the offensive coordinator for Oklahoma under Bob Stoops, visited Rodriguez and Tommy Bowden at Clemson and Mike Martz at the Rams. I believe they got a little bit from Martz in terms of general theory, protections, and the like, but the lasting impact was Rodriguez.

This was because what Rodriguez showed them was less a new way to attack the problem of good defenses but more just a new way to think about attacking the problem. Rodriguez showed them the shotgun and the zone read stuff they were doing at Clemson and had done at Tulane, but the reason it clicked for Wilson and Walker is that they realized that they could run all their old stuff -- the zones, the power, counter, option, etc -- all from spread sets.

And this was probably the great leap forward for the spread. Indeed, if you look at what Rodriguez was doing at Clemson, a lot of it is there in terms of the zone read, but a lot of it too was just Woody Dantzler running around. It was Walker that took the idea of "spread-to-run" and "zone-read" and systemized it. Again, Rodriguez had been a spread-to-pass guy originally, who just had this one really big idea for the run game. Walker and Wilson brought to it the traditionalist tinkerer mindset, as guys who had been coaching power, run-first football for years and were experts at blocking schemes, defensive fronts, and the like.

It was this marriage of the grand-new spread ideas with an old school attention to detail that helped Northwestern go 8-4 and beat Michigan in 2000, and it is this that guys like Urban Meyer and half the high school coaches in the country learned the bread and butter from. And Rodriguez's sharing with Walker had a kind of pay-it-forward effect to him, as he then began seeing how he could improve his spread-to-run offense, which became more solidified and systematic while he was at Clemson and particularly when he was at West Virginia, with Rick Trickett as his line coach.

This is why Walker deserves as much credit as Rodriguez for taking the spread mainstream. He showed how coaches could pretty much do what they already did -- and apply the lessons they'd already learned -- to a new environment, and to new success.

The Nevada Pistol offense over at Dr Saturday

2009-07-16T13:01:00.003-04:00

At the Good Doctor's invitation, I guest-posted today over at Dr. Saturday on the Nevada "Pistol" offense, as part of his "Mid-Major" week.

Check it out here, and enjoy.

Former NFL runningback Travis Henry gets 3 years in federal prison for drug dealing

2009-07-16T09:03:00.003-04:00

Henry's story is a tragic one:

A federal judge Wednesday sentenced former NFL player Travis Henry to three years in prison for financing a drug ring that moved cocaine between Colorado and Montana. Henry, 30, of Frostproof, Fla., was arrested by federal drug agents last October — just a few months after the running back’s release from the Denver Broncos.

He pleaded guilty in April to a single count of conspiracy to traffic cocaine. In handing down Wednesday’s sentence, U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull in Billings also gave Henry five years of probation and recommended he enter a 500-hour drug treatment program.

Completion of the treatment program could knock off up to a year from Henry’s sentence. His attorney, Harvey Steinberg, said that with additional time off for good behavior Henry could be out of prison within 16 months.

Henry has said that at the time of his arrest, he was struggling to keep up with child support payments after fathering at least nine children with nine women. But Cebull said it was Henry’s addiction to marijuana that destroyed the his career and ultimately landed him in federal court.

“This is a unique case in that you’re a unique individual. You’re a heck of a football player,” Cebull said. “You are not unique in this sense: your drug habit.” Cebull and the defense described Henry as a minor player in the Denver cocaine ring and said he had been ensnared in the conspiracy by a friend....

Defense attorney Steinberg had asked for leniency and said Henry turned to cocaine trafficking out of desperation. He said Henry went into a “downward spiral” after losing $40,000 in drug proceeds that were stolen from a house in Billings.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Thaggard argued for a sentence of at least 33 months. “Mr. Henry did have it all, in a sense, and he lost it. That’s unfortunate,” Thaggard said. “The bottom line is this was a significant conspiracy to move a substantial quantity of drugs.”

A lot of people complain about the inconsistency in these sentences between guys like Henry and Vick on the one hand, and Dante Stallworth -- who is already out of jail -- on the other, keeping in mind that only the latter recklessly killed a human, not that the other two have not committed serious crimes. But the thread is easy to explain: Henry and Vick were sentenced in federal court, where the sentences are almost uniformly harsh (think Bernie Madoff receiving a sentence four or fives times his life expectancy). And, under the advisory Guidelines, there is some, but not a ton, of wiggle room.

Stallworth on the other hand was sentenced in state court, where the rules vary and all bets can be off. Part of the chagrin by people complaining about the inconsistency is the unreasonable expectation that sentences will be consistent across the country. Yet maybe that's not so unreasonable, and our sentencing should be brought into line.

The one counterpoint is Plaxico Burress, who faces a mandatory minimum sentence of two years in a state proceeding (whether he believes it or not). But again this is just another brand of the same problem: the harsh and high mandatory minimum sentences, that themselves can create inconsistencies. Plaxico faces years of jail time for carrying a gun (something many people believe is a fundamental individual right), while Stallworth is in and out in the blink of an eye after killing someone while engaging in maybe the most fatal and reckless behavior around: drunk driving.

I note this because if there is any good that can come from these horrible stories about people like Travis Henry going from NFL player to penitentiary all-star is that maybe people can begin to understand why these strange inconsistencies exist. It took me quite some time to see them.

Fran Tarkenton on quarterbacking

2009-07-15T09:35:00.001-04:00

Click the image to enlarge it.

Courtesy of Bill Mountjoy.

Smart Notes - July 14, 2009

2009-07-14T09:12:00.004-04:00

1. More on Bill Walsh, the single-wing, and the wildcat. From ESPN the Magazine:

Howard Cosell wrote, in his 1991 book What's Wrong With Sports, "One thing I have found very interesting in my conversation with (Bill) Walsh is that he regretted he never tried the single-wing formation with the 49ers. He felt that Steve Young could have run the formation to perfection, and that the league's defenses would have had a difficult time stopping the old formation."

Walsh was most likely correct. Even the great Vince Lombardi warned of a possible single-wing resurrection.

"What would happen if someone came out with the single-wing offense?" he asked. "It would embarrass the hell out of us."

2. We want to be different, so we went to the spread? I like Dan Mullen, but isn't this a bit weird, if not, you know, anachronistic? From the Clarion-Ledger:

STARKVILLE — On the billboards that promote Mississippi State football season tickets in coach Dan Mullen and the spread offense's first year, the theme is "Spread The Fun." On the television ads, Mullen is diagramming a play on a white board when he looks over his shoulder and says, with an admirable bit of acting skill, "this is gonna be exciting."

These slogans are no accident.

And this goes beyond merely Mullen. For as much as MSU athletic director Greg Byrne was enamored with Mullen when they met last Dec. 9, there was something else at work.

In the days following Sylvester Croom's forced resignation on Nov. 29, the Mississippi State administration entertained a question bigger than just which coach they could hire. Surveying a century's worth of mostly mediocre football seasons in the ultra-competitive Southeastern Conference, they wondered how best to break the trend.

The conclusion? Be different on offense.

And then - just as much as many schools pick a coach and then learn later what offense he'll run - State all but picked an offense, then went to find a coach to run it.

"We wanted to be unique," Mississippi State athletic director Greg Byrne said. "We wanted to be something that our kids and our fan base would be excited to be a part of." . . .

"We wanted to find the right fit for Mississippi State," Byrne said. "Now, we were definitely interested in finding someone who had a very good offensive pedigree. And one that we felt would be able to highlight an area that we felt like we needed improvement." . . .

"That style of play is as much marketing as it is a concept for offensive football," Stricklin said. "When you have the choice to turn on TV and watch a game, and there's a spread team on one channel and two offenses that's more traditional on another channel, more people, if you don't have a feeling for either team, are going to watch the spread team because it's fun to watch." Later, Stricklin smiled when he admitted this: "Winning's a great marketing tool (too)." . . . .

In the meantime, before that first win or loss, State hopes that Mullen's hire is more than just a way to win games.

It hopes that it's a way to change the program's fortunes, in 2009 and beyond.

"We feel at Mississippi State, we need to be a little bit different," Byrne said. "And this gives us the opportunity to be a little bit different."

Again, I like Dan Mullen, but this is a very strange article to me. The administration basically went out to hire an offense and found a man, versus the other way around. Second, they did so as much for marketing purposes as for anything to do with the football bona fides. And third, like an investor who wanted to get into the market for "flipping houses" in 2006-2007 or into that "dotcom thing" in late 1999, their choice for "being different" was the spread, a philosophy that peaked as a way for underdogs to surprise favorites at least three or four years ago, if not further back.

I do think Mullen can be successful there, but I predict that the offense will be pretty mediocre this fall, if not bad at times. You just can't get a jump on people by being spread anymore -- it's just not that different considering what Florida, Auburn, and others around the country do -- and Mullen will have to build success the old fashioned way: by recruiting players and teaching them well. I think he can definitely do it, but I don't think there will be sudden manna from heaven in the way of fast and easy scoring this year as a byproduct from "being different."

3. More on Monte Kiffin preparing for SEC defenses, including the spread:

Monte Kiffin was watching video of prospective recruits this winter when he got an inkling of what he was up against as a college defensive coordinator. The more he watched, the better he understood why spread-option offenses have become so threatening to college defenses.

It's not just the option. It's the overhead support as well.

"I could not believe it till I started watching all the tape," said the longtime NFL defensive coordinator, who will command Tennessee's defense this fall. "The high school coaches have progressed so much in the passing game." . . . .

And as teacher and schemer:

Joe Barry knows what the rest of Tennessee’s new defensive coaches found out a few months ago: Interviewing for a job with Monte Kiffin is a unique experience to say the least.

“It was grueling,” says Barry, whose father Mike is a former offensive line coach at Tennessee. “It was like no other interview that I’ve ever been a part of.”

Kiffin put Barry in front of a dry-erase board, and then put him through the paces.

“He said, ‘OK, all that stuff that you were just going through on the grease board, how are you physically going to teach Derrick Brooks to tackle?’” Barry said. “Monte was going to be able to see, No. 1, if I knew what the hell I was talking about, but No. 2, he was going to see if I could truly coach, if I could truly teach.”

Barry passed the test and spent six seasons working for Kiffin in Tampa Bay. As it was for others who spent time working with Kiffin, Barry’s tenure in Tampa Bay was more than just a master class in coaching defense. It was a daily lesson in how to teach, something Kiffin places a premium on when it comes to assistant coaches.

“There was not one day in six years where I didn’t wake up and come to work and get better as a coach,” says Barry, who is back in Tampa Bay after a stint as the Detroit Lions’ defensive coordinator. “It’s because of Monte, obviously his knowledge, but his personality. He was very demanding. A lot of times when you say that about guys, they usually do it by being a jerk. Monte did it in such a way that you had so much fun that you didn’t know you were working harder than you’d ever worked before in your life.”

. . .

Although Kiffin downplays his role in the spread of the Cover 2 defense, many consider him to be one the best defensive minds in modern football.

“People had played Cover 2 for quite a few years,” Kiffin says, pointing out that the Minnesota Vikings ran it when Tony Dungy was defensive coordinator under head coach Dennis Green. “Tony left (Tampa Bay) and Jon Gruden came in, and we won the Super Bowl. I think that if we don’t win the Super Bowl, they probably don’t call it ‘Tampa 2.’ I didn’t invent the Cover 2. I don’t want people to think that.”

Kiffin’s wrinkle in the Cover 2 was often dropping the middle linebacker into coverage. But others aren’t as modest when it comes to Kiffin’s impact on the game.

“It’s a universal defense,” says Tampa Bay quarterbacks coach Greg Olson. “When people think of ‘Tampa 2,’ they think of Monte Kiffin. There’s very few guys in the NFL or in college football that actually have come up with a scheme that was so successful it carries over to other teams or that they actually have their name associated with it.”

In Tampa Bay, that reputation only grew. The Buccaneers finished in the top 10 in the NFL in total defense and points allowed in 11 of his 13 seasons. And in 2002, Kiffin’s defense led the league and helped the Bucs win the Super Bowl with a 48-21 victory over the Oakland Raiders, who had the league’s top offense that season.

Yet minutes before the Super Bowl kicked off, Kiffin was tweaking his gameplan, making a few minor adjustments.

That’s classic Kiffin, says Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin, who spent five seasons with Kiffin as an assistant in Tampa Bay including 2002.

“If you’re kicking the ball off at 1 o’clock on a Sunday, you’re going to be in the shower with Monte at about 10:30 thinking about potential adjustments and things you could make changes to,” Tomlin said. “His mind is always working. He’s always trying to get better. He never breathes a sigh of relief.”

(Ht RockyTopTalk.)

Jay Cutler vs. Kyle Orton vs. Rex Grossman, by the numbers

2009-07-13T13:33:00.000-04:00

KC Joyner, of Scientific Football fame and currently guest-blogging at the NY Times Fifth Down Blog, continues to ruffle feathers. He claims that former Broncos quarterback Cutler will be equally mediocre or worse than the two previous Bears QBs, Kyle Orton and Rex Grossman. Joyner:

Alex from Chicago asked how well I thought Jay Cutler would do with the Bears this year. I told him: “I’ve said it many times and I’ll say it again — Cutler will make Bears fans remember Rex Grossman. He’ll make just as many crazy passes but won’t suffer the Grossman fate because Chicago’s fan base is so in love with him that they will forgive the nutty throws he makes in ways that they never forgave Grossman.” ....

Now I understand that fan scrutiny comes with the territory, so I don’t mind that, but what I don’t understand is why those fans are treating Cutler differently than they did either Grossman or Kyle Orton.

Grossman was on fire during the first part of Chicago’s Super Bowl season, and yet as soon as he had the bad game against Miami, it seemed the entire city turned on him. It didn’t go that much differently for Orton. He had a tremendous start to the 2008 season, but when he struggled down the stretch, the populace seemed to say goodbye and good riddance without much of a second thought.

I also don’t understand why there seems to be such excitement about Cutler. Yes, he threw for over 4,500 yards last year, but that was in large part because he put the ball up a whopping 616 times. His 9.8 vertical YPA was lower than that of 19 other QBs last season, and his 4.6% bad decision rate (a bad decision being a mistake by the QB that leads to a turnover or a near turnover) was easily the worst of any QB. He was also the offensive leader for a team that blew a three-game division lead with three games to go. . . .

The only reason I can come up with as to why Bears fans are reacting like this is that the quarterback position has been such a headache for them over the years that they will do just about anything to make it go away. If that means ignoring Cutler’s shortcomings so that at least one off-season goes by without having to wonder if their quarterback’s play will measure up, they’ll do it just for the temporary peace of mind. I do admire that kind of team passion and loyalty, but I’d admire it a bit more if it were done by hoping that Cutler could improve his game rather than by backing his mixed bag of performance history.

Note that he conflates two comparisons, and it's unclear what he's saying precisely. One is that Cutler is the better quarterback, but it is Chicago and thus his success will be pretty much on par with what the other Chicago QBs did. The other is that Cutler is simply no better of a quarterback than Grossman or Orton, and it only appears that way because he threw the ball so much.

My favorite passing stat is yards per attempt, because it sweeps in both completion percentage and the yards gained on the completion; I think it reflects the trade-off between pushing the ball downfield and taking the easier completion for less yardage. I like to adjust it, however, to account for interceptions: I subtract 45 yards for every interception thrown, as that is the basic estimate of how much field position/value you lose. No stat is perfect, but I like this one a lot.

In 2008, Jay Cutler threw for 4,526 yards on 616 attempts. He also threw 18 interceptions. Together, that gives him an Adjusted Yards Per Attempt of 6.03.
In 2008, Kyle Orton threw for 2,972 yards on 465 attempts, along with 12 interceptions. Together, his Adj. YPA was 5.23.
In 2006, the year the Bears went to the Super Bowl, Rex Grossman threw for 3,193 yards on 480 pass attempts. He also threw 20 interceptions. Together, his Adj. YPA was 4.78.

Again, this is just one stat, but I think it's a pretty good indicator, and Cutler far and away scores the best. And, ironically, he does so despite so many more pass attempts: YPA tends to trend back down once a passer goes beyond being mostly a play-action type guy as a play off the ground game, like Ben Roethlisberger has been for much of his career.

Relatedly, let's take Advanced NFL Stats's "Air yards" stat, which calculates yards per attempt without reference to yards after the catch -- yards gained by receivers after they catch the ball. (This stat tends to both measure a QB's ability to complete downfield passes, as well as their propensity to check the ball down to a runningback. Young quarterbacks tend to score most poorly on the list because they struggle downfield and dump the ball off quite a bit.)

Cutler comes in at 7th in the league at 4.3 yards per attempt (again, just "Air yards"), while Orton is 29th with 3.3. In 2006, Grossman's was 3.9, and, in 2007 on much less work, it was 3.5. For comparison, Brady and Manning have spent most of the last few years hovering between 4.9-5.2 (though Peyton dipped to 4.3 this past season).

Having looked at these stats, I think the question is why does KC Joyner think Cutler will be no better than Grossman or Orton?

Smart Links and Notes - July 13, 2009

2009-07-13T09:51:00.002-04:00

1. Camera angles. Doc Saturday muses about crappy camera angles in football broadcasts. Money quote: "Video games got [it] right immediately."

2. Of video games and publicity rights. Speaking of Doc Saturday and video games, he was one of the first that I saw to publicly censure the NCAA over its chintzy policy allowing game-makers like EA Sports to include things like "Florida QB #15," complete with all the relevant physical attributes, in its NCAA Football games without compensating the players in any way. The Louisville Courier-Journal's Eric Crawford joins the debate, with what I thought was a nice anecdote:

One of my favorites is an old version of EA Sports' NCAA Football. I like to be Michael Bush, because the former University of Louisville star, in this game, is Superman.

He can do anything. Bounce off tacklers. Run over them. Run through walls of defenders.

Almost every time I play, I think about that moment when Bush went down against Kentucky in the first game of his senior season. And it occurs to me that even while the real Bush was struggling pretty seriously with recovering from that broken leg, little cyber Michael, courtesy of EA Sports, just kept running.

And then there's this: While Bush's financial future was very much in doubt as he sweated his way back through rehabilitation, little cyber Mike kept drawing royalty checks for the NCAA, which has a rights deal with EA Sports.

Fortunately Bush's bounced back (think too of Willis McGahee's horrendous injury, or, say, Tyrone Prothro). One sticking point though with the analysis. Crawford repeats a supposed "problem" with paying players a licensing fee: what to do about the best players (i.e. most highly marketable) versus the bench-warmers? Crawford offers another solution: put the money paid into a trust that is there for players who graduate. I like that idea, and I also don't see why you have to grant the licensing fees based on who is the best player or not.

Sure, EA really just wants Reggie Bush or Tebow, not the benchwarmer on USC's or Florida's roster, but the NCAA, the Universities, and EA should just negotiate a flat fee for use of the whole roster (though giving some players an opt-out, which could create issues). The important point is that the players get something, not that Tebow or Bush gets more than their backup. Plus, if you do the trust idea contingent on graduation, then the player can actually help his teammate who might not have a pro-future when the all-star goes to the NFL: his money remains in the trust, thus enlarging the share for the others.

In any event, what makes this so bizarre is that if you used literally anyone else's likeness, besides an NCAA athlete, the company would have to pay. Yes, companies would be most likely to use a famous person, but it is not permissible to use a person's likeness or identity to promote some other product without their permission. The state of the law isn't quite uniform apparently, but

The Right of Publicity prevents the unauthorized commercial use of an individual's name, likeness, or other recognizable aspects of one's persona. It gives an individual the exclusive right to license the use of their identity for commercial promotion.

Unless of course you're an NCAA athlete.

3. Football Outsiders: Contrary to popular wisdom, Rex Ryan and the Baltimore Ravens "rush" four or fewer players 64% of the time. Yet they nevertheless rushed (i.e. blitzed) five or more "far more than the average team."

4. Trojan Football Analysis continues its wonderful series on Chip Kelly's Oregon rushing attack. The series: Chip Kelly's comments on his run game, inside zone, outside zone, fly sweep, counter, and video of the counter. (Also see this three part bit on a possible midline option or "mystery play" from Oregon: one, two, and three.) For a preview of what you'll find at TFA, check out the cutups of Oregon's offense below.

5. Why is there so much holding in football? It's an issue of the risk of having a penalty called on your holding versus what you have to gain (avoiding a sack, big run play, etc). Money quote: "The bottom line is that the probability of detection at which committing holding is worthwhile is when it is about 4/5 the chance a pass rusher will get a sack if he beats his blocker."

6. Blutarsky chimes in on Spurrier, in response to my recent post on the Ol' Ball Coach. Make sure to check it out due to the good comments (no, I'm not referring to my own).

7. You're watching inferior football and you don't even know it, says Residual Prolixity. Bonus: RP reviews The Pro Football Chronicle: The Complete (Well, Almost) Record of the Best Players, the Greatest Photos, the Hardest Hits, the Biggest Scandals & the Funniest Stories in Pro Football by Dan Daly and Bob O'Donnell.

8. Rollbamaroll reviews The Junction Boys.

9. Who are the most influential sports columnists? Dan Shanoff culls the list from Mediaite's new "power grid" feature.

10. Oldie but goodie: Roger Ebert ripping Jay Mariotti for quitting his job at the Chicago Sun-Times over getting passed over for a column idea.

11. Happy birthday to Mr. Orson Swindle of the Sporting Blog and Every Day Should Be Saturday. The internet does thank you. I started blogging before EDSBS, but without Orson and several others, I might not still be doing it. (Plus go buy the Gators Gridiron 2009, of which he was the editor and I a lowly contributor.)

12. Why aren't people complaining yet about inflated sports salaries?

13. Michael Lewis on AIG: Thank you, Joe Cassano.

14. Economic Principals: "Now We May Perhaps to Begin?"

15. A fitting end. How is it possible for a man to look perpetually uncomfortable yet still we want to hang out with him? So it goes with Mike Leach. (Ht Dawgsports.)

Monte Kiffin goes back to class

2009-07-12T15:27:00.001-04:00

To work on how to stop the spread. Sounds almost like Kiffin has been reading this site -- and it certainly sounds like David Climer, for the Tennessean has. The Climer for the Tennessean reports:

Monte Kiffin schemes to slow down Florida offense

Word has it that defensive guru Monte Kiffin is spending a few days in Tampa where he has visited with old friends and compared notes with members of the Bucs coaching staff. . . .

In particular, Kiffin continues to explore ways to counter some of the unique offenses Tennessee's Vols will face this season. Foremost among them is Florida's lethal spread, with Tim Tebow pulling the trigger.

Those who know Kiffin say he has spent considerable time analyzing ways to deal with the divide-and-conquer formation as well as the Gators' across-the-board speed. At UT, it's Job 1.

For all he has accomplished over the past 26 years in the NFL, this is a new test for Kiffin. Just because he developed the Tampa-2 scheme that is all the rage in pro football, that doesn't mean he has an answer for all the questions Florida's offense poses.

Consider this, then, the education of Monte Kiffin. By following his son, Lane, to Tennessee, he has gone to college to get his doctorate in defense.

And he appears to enjoy the challenge. There's something to be said for old coaching dogs and new tricks.

The NFL is a one-size-fits-all league. Everybody uses the same basic offensive scheme, albeit with a few variations here and there. Occasionally, somebody will come up with something new under the sun — Miami's Wildcat formation was all the rage last season — but it doesn't take long for the rest of the league to catch on.

College football is different. Florida runs the spread. Georgia uses a pro set. Vanderbilt runs some option. As a defensive coordinator, Kiffin must adjust from one week to the next. [Editor's note: Exactly!]

Like he says: "I don't think you can blink or show weakness."

The toughest thing for the 69-year-old Kiffin is to adjust his teaching style to a different classroom. In the NFL, he had unlimited access to players. He could keep them in meetings as long as he wanted. Practices were as long or as short as necessary. It's a full-time job for player and coach alike.

The college game is different. Hands-on time with players is limited. You have a 20-hour work week. And believe it or not, players actually go to class.

"You don't have as much time to work with the kids," Kiffin said.

Too, there is a disparity of talent. The NFL salary cap can level the field. In college ball, the rich get richer via superior recruiting. . . .

Thus, all the coaching expertise in the world can carry you only so far. Just because Kiffin can scheme up a way to get an outside linebacker a free shot at Tebow, that doesn't mean Tebow is going down.

In short, if your X's aren't as big and athletic as the other team's O's, you're in for a long afternoon.

This is also why, for all of Lane's insanity, Monte Kiffin remains a coaches' coach, a favorite among the cognoscenti. He was already a defensive god -- Pete Carroll said he visited him every year and that Kiffin taught him all he knew, and even high school coaches said much the same thing. He just exuded a love for football and an incredible knowledge of it.

Yet here has taken a complete switch by going to the college game, and has had to give himself a crash course in what other teams do. (I would recommend that he compare notes with people other than just the Bucs, but he'll figure it out.) Will his defense work in the SEC? Well there's lots of questions, talent foremost among them. But the point is he's eating it up. He loves the challenge. And that is fun to see.

Ht Blutarsky.

Bill Walsh (in 1984!) on the single-wing in pro-football

2009-07-11T10:53:00.004-04:00

Blutarsky nails it, per usual. He digs out an incredibly apropos quote for the times from Paul Zimmerman's New Thinking Man's Guide to Pro Football, published in 1984. The quote is relevant given the rise of the wildcat, which is itself just a variant of the old single-wing with some of the modern shotgun spread elements, including the jet sweep.

… To someone who’s never seen the single wing, believe me, it can be a thing of beauty… In college it’s been abandoned, and why I’ll never know, because it seems that some of those nifty running quarterbacks would be just right for the run-and-pass tailback duties…

In the pros, its drawbacks are obvious. Your passer couldn’t take the pounding.

“I’ve reflected on the single wing,” [Bill] Walsh says. “Those blocking schemes would just chew up NFL defenses. You could double-team every hole and trap at every hole. You’d have six men blocking three. Plus you’d have the power for the sweeps.

“Joe Montana might be able to play tailback, to run and pass, but you wouldn’t let him do it unless you had another Joe Montana to spell him…”

How friggin' smart was Walsh? His issue is he just liked passing too much to do it. And hey, people couldn't figure out his offense then; the story might be different today. Again, hat tip to Blutarsky.

Was Spurrier's offense a failure in the NFL?

2009-07-10T11:15:00.003-04:00

Or was it the man that failed?

I vote the latter. Yet, the story to this day, as reflected in some of the (very thoughtful) comments to my recent NFL Offense piece, is that Spurrier's offense failed in the NFL and that this is a significant data point in the storyline that "college offenses don't work there." But I find very little to support the broad form of this statement, and certainly I don't find it very generalizable to what people usually think of when they talk about "college offenses."

First, a modest defense of the efficacy of Spurrier's offense in the pros. He did not set any records in his two years in the NFL. His teams went 7-9 in 2002 and 5-11 in 2003, at which point he quit. His vaunted offense consistently finished in the bottom third of the league in every major category, usually ranked between 20th and 25th in categories like points, total yards per game, passing efficiency and yards per attempt, rushing yards per attempt, and so on. (Source: Pro-Football Reference.) Yet does that make his offense a complete failure? Or just merely weak? And what of the players he used?

Consider two teams whose offenses finished in this same territory in this past 2008 season, with offenses ranked in the bottom third of the league: the Pittsburgh Steelers and, lo', Washington Redskins. The Steelers were 20th in points, 22nd in total yards, and 24th in yards per play; the Redskins finished 28th in points, 19th in yards, and 23rd in yards per play. Now neither offense is considered elite, but neither offensive coordinator has been filed with the epitaph that "their system does not and will never work in this league." They just need to get better, no? (The Steelers' offensive weakness was obviously offset by a great defense, and some of it too was caused by an unexpected in the running game.)

Moreover, the NFL puts a premium on players, who did Spurrier have running his schemes in the Pros? Try these names:

Quarterback: 2002 - Shane Matthews, Danny Wuerffel, and Patrick Ramsey (rookie); 2003 - Patrick Ramsey and Tim Hasselbeck (yeah, the other Hasselbeck).

Runningback: 2002 - Stephen Davis (who missed four games) and Kenny Watson; 2003 - Trung Canidate and Rock Cartwright.

Receiver: 2002 - Rod Gardner, Derrius Thompson, Darnerian McCants, and Chris Doering; 2003 - Laveranues Coles, Rod Gardner, Darnerian McCants.

Seeing this list, wouldn't the bigger surprise be that the offense did in fact finish higher than bottom third of the league? Indeed, NFL films, in its typical chicken-salad-out-of-chicken-scraps season review tried to turn Gardner and Thompson into some kind of modern day Lynn Swann and John Stallworth, as the video below shows:

But a more realistic appraisal -- and a bit of history (Thompson was out of the league by 2004, and the other leading receiver besides Coles, Darnerian McCants, was out of it by 2005 -- reveals something altogether different. See the below "highlight" video of some of Gardner's best dropped passes:

Of course both Stephen Davis and Coles were legitimate players and did not help much (and Davis apparently felt unwanted or incorrectly used), but without a quarterback the rest is moot, and you're not going to win many games with a combinations of Matthews, Wuerffel, Ramsey, and Hasselbeck at the helm. Indeed, no one else has won with them. The problem was that Spurrier tried to.

The second point is that, even if you call Spurrier's time in the NFL a total bust, offense and all, it's just not a great example to use in the general argument about "college offenses" not working in the pros. When people have that discussion they are usually talking about why an option-based or a spread offense won't or can't work there. But what is Spurrier's offense if not pro-style? He relies exclusively on a dropback passer, he frequently uses a fullback, and the routes he uses came from the NFL. Insofar as his offense had some kind of unique element (at least for its time), it was that he let his receivers read coverages on the fly and adjust their routes accordingly -- a technique more complicated and thus more appropriate to the advanced NFL. See the below diagram of Spurrier's variation on "smash," whereby the receiver can run a curl underneath the cornerback against cover three, or will break for the corner if the cornerback stays close to the line.

Moreover, his offense was largely based on a very pro-style dichotomy: his base run play was the lead-draw, which allowed his linemen to largely pass set and his QB to get a look at the defense. The basic diagram of the play is below.

And if the defense came up on him he went to play-action off of a lead-draw look. This was ingenious, because he could both show a run play yet his linemen could pass-set and his quarterback could get a look at the defense downfield. See one of his most common plays below, where combined with the lead-draw were routes where the receivers also adjusted their patterns on the fly based on the coverage.

Focusing so heavily on the lead-draw and fake lead-draw also gave him the advantage of setting up his normal dropback plays as well. Check out the highlight video from the 1996 SEC Championship for some good examples.

And compare all this with what Urban Meyer does at Florida now. That is what people mean when they say "college offense." And if they don't mean that they mean the option of a Nebraska or what Paul Johnson does at Georgia Tech. Regardless whether you buy those arguments, the success or failure of Spurrier's drop-back and play-action pass-based offense seems wholly irrelevant to the discussion.

Then why did he fail? As I indicated at the beginning, to me, it was not the offense, it was the man as head coach. Being an NFL head coach is about many things, but calling the plays is a very small part of it, and it is a part that can be (and maybe should be) delegated to someone competent. As stated above, the talent situation was a huge mess and was in total flux, with a bunch of Florida cast-offs (I loved Chris Doering and Wuerffel in college but come on), several high-priced busts (Chad Morton?), and no quarterback to speak of. These are faults that reflect on the man, but not necessarily on the schemes. And really, the narrative is that the schemes probably got too much hype all along, as is common. (And keep in mind that Joe Gibbs won only six games in 2004 and only five in 2006.)

They were ingenious but that is different from him being a genius, and of course he had the talent at Florida to make it go. He also, it must be said, arrived at the right time in history when the spread and pro-style offenses had really just begun to supplant an older, earlier way of thinking, especially in the SEC. But in addition to the lack of institutional advantages for Spurrier in the Pros as opposed to his time at Florida, he also lacked the preparation to make it go. I don't know about discipline and all that, but there were enough stories of the franchise's disorganization to affirm that he did not have a handle on the bundle of intense personalities that makes up any NFL team, and certainly did and continues to make up the Washington Redskins in particular.

Yet there was one scheme criticism that got much play that was in fact true: his inability to gameplan pass protection. Spurrier won his first NFL game against the Arizona Cardinals where his offense scored 31 points, but in his second, against the Philadelphia Eagles and blitz-happy defensive coordinator Jim Johnson, he was fundamentally outcoached on the way to a 37-7 blowout. And that was the beginning of the end.

But he was not outcoached in some fundamental "college offense won't work in pros so there" way, but instead he fell victim to the 80/20 principle I talked about: Spurrier ran a pro-style system, and if you're going to do that in the pros you better be ready for the meat grinder that is their film study. Johnson, a wily guy who has been around the block a few times, devised one blitz after another that got to the core of Spurrier's protections and never let him out. (Incidentally, this gets to one of the common criticisms of my NFL bit, which was that I couldn't be serious saying that the NFL wasn't complex. But I never said that; I said it was bland yet, within that blandness was incredible complexity on the micro scale. A lot of college guys have said if you introduced more macro variation you could reduce the micro complexity -- i.e. a million blitzes you have to gameplan for -- but that's something for later.)

So what's the verdict? Spurrier failed, but it was not his "college offense" that let him down, it was the man, his overall lack of control of players, his roster management, and his own coaches, and in no small part the inadequate planning that went into his "pro-style attack."

The NFL Offense: What is it? Why does every team use it? And how does it differ from college?

2009-07-07T15:42:00.007-04:00

I am frequently asked why I don't more often discuss NFL offenses. Haven't many of these college gurus been chewed up by the NFL? Didn't the NFL "prove" that the run & shoot can't work? Isn't the NFL football's highest level, and doesn't it therefore have the most money and resources, the best people, and shouldn't the result then be that NFL football is the most strategically interesting?

Yes and no. There's several reasons why I devote less space here to what NFL teams do than for college teams. Far and away the most significant reason though, is that, somewhat counterintuitively, NFL offenses are surprisingly bland and homogenized. Not entirely, but as a rule of thumb, 80% of what NFL teams do on offense (or defense, really too) is extremely straightforward to the point where every team runs the same stuff. And the list is not that long. In an appendix at the bottom, I have cataloged basically the entire set. Most notably, the whole NFL's entire run game amounts to about four or five plays: the inside zone (also known as the "tight zone"), the outside zone (also known as the "stretch play" or the "wide zone"), power, counter, and some kind of draw, particularly the lead draw. No matter what cosmetic deceptions you see when you watch an NFL game (and remember, these cosmetics are supposed to be good enough to fool the opposing coaches who have studied film all week), you're seeing the same plays over, and over, and over again. There is some admitted monotony to this. Indeed, after today, having sketched out a great deal of this 80% of the NFL's offense, there won't be much need for me to come back to what a specific NFL teams do.

But what of all those stories of Jon Gruden or Andy Reid getting only 45 minutes of sleep a night (and of course sleeping in their offices), and all the film study, 500 page NFL playbooks, and lengthy gameplans buttressed by exhaustive statistical analyses. This is the other 20%, which often is interesting. But it is interesting in a very specific way -- within the framework of the basic, repetitive concepts that compose the other 80%. NFL coaches are understandably obsessed with "matchups," a word favored by every football talking head. The coaches spend an incredible amount of time focused on how to get this receiver to go against that safety, this blitzing linebacker against that tight-end, or this pulling tackle against that defensive end. It's an evolving, repetitive, circular, intensive battle.

Yet is of limited ongoing or generalizable significance. Let's say an NFL coach wants to run the counter trey, which is a run play where one lineman pulls and traps (i.e. blocks from the inside out), and another blocker (either lineman or tight-end) leads (i.e. goes up into the crease and looks to hit a linebacker). He might alter the assignments, or use a particular motion or shift or formation, because he wants the kick-out block to go against a certain guy and the lead against another. And, if successful, you, as spectator, probably won't notice what he did: the coach wasn't looking for a pancake block, just "success," which might be as simple as the blocker's getting in the way enough that the runner could get four yards. This "matchup" isn't always as dramatic as you might think. This does not demean its importance, but, from my perspective, does not always lend itself to lengthy, repeated examples.

Moreover, getting into this minutiae requires a great deal of digging and backstory. What have these teams done in the past? Who is injured this week? What is the history between the opposing coaches? I have discussed some of this type of thing before, for example, here. But again, this great complexity ironically flows from a rather bland and homogenous set. The NFL appears populated by eternal, diligent tinkerers rather than broad thinkers.

Television's role

There's a final reason, however, that I don't routinely get into detail with NFL offenses: I'm not convinced the NFL wants anyone to. Whether a marketing decision or one to placate paranoid franchises --word is guys like Mangini are exceptionally controlling of the flow of info, including requiring people to burn and destroy film or handouts -- NFL films does not actually make this footage available, and most of what it shows are such extreme close-ups that it is impenetrable from a strategy perspective. Part of the theory is undoubtedly the desire to overcome the fact that it is marketing a sport where all the players wear masks, something the NBA and golf and most other sports don't have to deal with.

Unfortunately, the result is that it's impossible to get a sense of what is going on during a play: the quarterback releases the ball, the ball floats magically in the air, and the receiver appears like an apparition out of nowhere to catch it. And the practical questions remain. What coverage were they in? What route did the receiver run? What complementary routes did the other receiver run? Who rushed the quarterback? Who picked up those rushers? It's impossible to tell. Take the clip below of the 49ers's dramatic, waning minutes victory over the Bengals in Super Bowl XXIII.

There's a couple of times where you can get a sense of a route or two, but there's not one play where I could (a) diagram the play in its entirety, i.e. all the receivers, or (b) more importantly, tell you what exactly the defense was doing, particularly the secondary. On the big pass to Jerry Rice over the middle, it's clear he ran a dig route, but it's not clear why he was so open. And then the voice-over goes so far as to tell you the actual name of the game winning touchdown play, yet could you tell me what any of the receivers besides John Taylor did on the play? Wouldn't the coverage on Jerry Rice, who would up MVP of the game, have been relevant as to why Taylor was so open? (Both Bill Walsh and Joe Montana later diagrammed the play in their books; there was actually a problem with the playcall as meshing with the formation.)

Fine, that's NFL Films. But what about watching the game on television? Yes, you get some replays, but generally it is not much better. You're lucky if you see the linebackers. Homer Smith once gave advice to people who watch football on television: Don't watch the ball, watch the defense -- you'll never miss where the ball winds up going. Yet he admits that with modern angles this advice is often impracticable. Ironically, too, the NFL, with more money (and likely its intent to market personalities) affixes its camera angles tighter than do college broadcasts My sense is that many college games can only afford a couple of cameras, so they pick a couple that can get a flavor for more of the field. The NFL instead overdoes it.

Why so simple?

That 80% of every NFL teams' offense consists of the same bunch of plays run over and over, combined with the inadequate broadcast techniques that robs the viewer of the ability to decipher the minute game-within-a-game adjustments that are going on, helps explain why it is not always worth it for me to discuss with great specificity what each NFL team does. But that still doesn't answer why NFL offenses are like this. (Defenses have the same issue of 80/20 blandness, though they will sometimes give incredibly exotic looks solely due to the freakish nature of some of the players. NFL cornerbacks can constantly play "press-bail" -- meaning they can show bump and run and yet be able to "bail" and play deep if necessary -- because they are so athletic, and I've seen guys like Ravens safety Ed Reed do miraculous things like line up directly on the line of scrimmage over a tight-end and then at the snap retreat and play deep half-field safety on the opposite side of the field. Other than the kind of stuff that you can only do if you've won the DNA lottery, NFL defenses all tend to be the same as well.)

Theories abound to explain the phenomena. Ones often trotted out: NFL coaches are closed minded; they don't understand the option/spread/wishbone/etc; the speed of the game is much greater than it is college; it's all some sort of conspiracy; and, finally, we have it all backwards, and this NFL-homogenity is actually somehow better, we're just missing it.

These can be dealt with in short order. The NFL has the most money and pressure at stake, and coaches have little job security. There is no reason for them to be so closed minded. And they certainly do understand the option. Many have coached at other levels before, and, though they might not be experts, it doesn't take long to explain how the option and the spread work and why they have been effective. The conspiracy stuff is bunk, and I think it can't be argued that the NFL is not homogeneous or monotonous, and, in theory at least, more diversity would be better, no? Most of the NFL offense defenders argue that the players make it worthwhile to do this, or the passing game is what makes it all necessary, or there is some hidden meaning we're all missing. (This argument is more common than might be initially guessed, and usually takes the following form: "The NFL is better because all that stuff is just a bunch of gimmicks," with "gimmick" being the derogative catch-all term for anything that breaks out of the 80% mold delineated in full below. As described below, one unfortunate plank of this argument is the reliance on the idea of "ideal" football.)

The speed argument is more difficult to discard, though I think for now we can ignore it. On the one hand, the idea that the defense is faster suddenly dooms all these schemes common to college seems bizarre considering that the offensive guys are (or should be?) faster too. Thus, relatively, there is no speed advantage. On the other hand, if NFL players are all both bigger and faster, then in practical terms the field itself has shrunk, even if the players are relatively the same. Yet on the other, other, hand, with more straight ahead speed and better quarterbacking, teams can better stretch the field vertically. On the whole, unless someone wants to do some real studies, I find this rather inconclusive.

There are three arguments that I think do help explain the NFL 80/20 blandness. Note however that not included in this list is the meme popular among the NFL itself (and those announcers!) that what they do is simply "better." The problem with this idea is that "better" begs too many questions: Better than what? Better how? Better as a professional offense with professional players, or better for high school players too? What is better considering that there is time to integrate any concept you want into your playbook? Isn't the "better" thing then just the more time and resources you have? So I leave this aside.

The three are:

Coaching incest. The NFL fraternity is too incestuous, and thus they don't get out of their comfort zone enough and don't seriously engage with what is going on elsewhere.
Lack of incentive to experiment.Related to above, but the idea is that, post free-agency, there is little reason for NFL coaches to "think outside the box," and when they do and fail, they will be ridiculed and fired. For example, Marv Levy famously went to the Wing-T offense with the Kansas City Chiefs in the late 70s and early 80s, and was promptly fired.)
The quarterback obsession. The money and necessity involved with NFL quarterbacks has so come to dominate the thinking and strategy behind the sport that it hampers both experimentation but literally what they have time to do. If you ask an NFL coach what he spends his time on, or why they don't use more run plays, and he will likely tell you that they spend all their time on pass protection and protection schemes, and this cuts down on what else they can do.

I think all three of those ideas have some merit. The incest idea sounds a little odd, but then you remember that the vaunted "Wildcat" offense was brought to the NFL by David Lee, former quarterbacks coach at Arkansas.

The second I think is underrated but important. Lost in the debate about who is more innovative, the NFL or college or high schools, is their institutional capacities. It doesn't surprise me that the most sophisticated zone blocking techniques or pass protection schemes -- or even five or seven-step drop pass patterns -- are usually developed in the NFL. The margins are quite thin there because the personnel is so good and every team has a salary cap. This stuff is their bread and butter, and they will constantly tinker with it.

But what incentive does an NFL team have to just say "screw it, I'm going to do something weird." Very little. Even the moribund Detroit Lions don't really have this need; the Miami Dolphins went from worst-to-playoffs, though with a little help by being different. Different helps but we're not talking about extremes.

In college or high school, however, you have teams that are completely downtrodden, as in winless in years downtrodden. There is no reason in these scenarios not to experiment. Of course, everyone knows that Rich Rodriguez's "zone read" offense was born at Glenville State where he said his entire goal was "just to get a first down." There are a lot of really bad Division I programs, but even more bad or obscure small colleges, and thousands more high schools. Indeed, for all the talk of the "Wildcat" as a "college thing," it really was a high school thing. Gus Malzahn ran some similar stuff while a high school coach, and insofar as Houston Nutt and others had their input the shotgun jet-sweep offense which the Wildcat is but one strand of is something that has exploded at high school level but hasn't really made its way to major college football. NFL coaches would do well to keep their eye on the lower levels to see what broad, new, general ideas spring forth. (A final X factor is the issue of practice time: Major D-1 colleges have just about the least practice time at any level, and high schools of course have to spend so much time teaching fundamentals that strategy is secondary. As a result there is what I call variation by hedgehog, meaning that you get variety by having a bunch of teams focus on one or two things they do really well, compared with the NFL where teams try to do a bit of everything.)

Finally, this third issue cannot be discounted. Bruce Arians, now offensive coordinator for the Pittsburgh Steelers and former quarterback coach for the Indianapolis Colts, once did a bit on defeating the zone-blitz. His basic thought was about protecting the passer: the importance of planning for the zone-blitz and protecting the quarterback at all costs. Then, at the end he wrote: "P.S. If your quarterback doesn't make $48 million then don't forget the lead option."

Coming from an NFL guy, that's damn near heresy. Of course the quarterback he was referring to was Peyton Manning (though I haven't seen Roethlisberger run any option either), but here's the thought, expanded out. Yes, quarterbacks are incredibly important, and must be protected. You have to spend a lot of time focusing on this protection, getting it right, and calibrating your matchups on top of it all when you have freaks of nature as pass rushers. (I wrote a lengthy article about pass protection here.) That's fine, do what you have to do to protect those guys.

But what Arians hinted at is something a lot of coaches believe: instead of focusing all your energy on trying to scheme your way out of all that crazy, myriad blitzing from everywhere that causes you to drop everything week to week and focus solely on that to the detriment of the run game, then why not focus on what might deter that kind of blitzing in the first place? Like option, or certain spread sets, or other things that college teams do a pretty solid job of right now. Sometimes, rather than bang your head against the wall, there's a better way.

Now this gets into the question about letting some team hit your quarterback, and involves other questions beyond the scope of this article. No one thinks running the option with Manning or Brady is a good idea, and their passing skills are so good that it probably wouldn't be worth it anyway. But is great passing ability exclusive of great running ability? And if it is not, then does running the option significantly increase the risk of injury? How much worse can it be than David Carr being sacked countless times in a season, mostly by being hit from the blindside mid-throwing motion? I'd probably rather be hit while running the ball than like that.

The wildcat and beyond

This is where the wildcat stuff becomes intriguing. The theme for this offseason seems to be that every team is studying the wildcat or looking to install it. There's strategic reasons for this and there's practical ones.

The strategic reason is that the arithmetic doesn't lie: When you run the ball and your quarterback stands there just watching the play, his defensive counterpart can assault the runner. And even if his counterpart holds back, the runner's counterpart remains unblocked; you win games by getting the defense to commit two players to one of yours and thus gain an advantage. The wildcat -- as with the triple option or shotgun spread offense where the quarterback is a run threat -- does this. That's why I predicted back in September 2008 that the wildcat would not be "gone within a week" as several commentators so confidently explained. Indeed, it appears to be gaining momentum.

The second reason is practical. The colleges the NFL drafts from are producing these kinds of multi-skilled players, and NFL teams ought to be able to employ some of them in these schemes without having to risk their $48 million quarterbacks as the bait. E.g., Pat White. That's why this concept has potential for growth, and NFL coaches seem to embrace it now. (How bizarre though that they seem to be embracing this one rather specific branch off what is a much wider and older tree of single-wing/spread/option football. Maybe its apparent newness allows them plausible deniability about having ignored what has been put to good use for decades.)

I will have a future post delineating how I think the wildcat will be used and expanded upon this fall. Unfortunately, I don't see the storyline being quite so rosy as the NFL finally breaking down and going all out with Eric Crouch types at quarterback. I can safely predict that some of the teams that are discussing their wildcat will be completely inept with it: they will do things like going five-wide with their quarterback split out, their runningback or wideout alone in the backfield, call for no motion or faking, and then expect him to plunge into the line for some kind of great effect. That team, its coaches and its fans, will declare the Wildcat a bust. Some other team, maybe the Dolphins again, will expand the package and see success with it. But then what? The worst case -- though possibly the most likely -- will be this:

The offense will fade from prominence, and will be relegated to NFL Films productions about the "WACKY WILDCAT" days of yore, where they will show somebody running free downfield while they speed up the footage and play Benny Hill music. Then they will show a clip of someone stuffing a particular play, and the voice-over will announce that the Wildcat, like all other gimmicks, was figured out and defeated. The NFL types will nevertheless congratulate themselves for having discovered it in the first place. Someone will be called on air to talk about how it was a travesty of the game, in some bizarre platonic ideal sense.

But there is a slight counter narrative. One is that the wildcat, as some kind of hype-machine and maybe even explicit look will die down, but the concepts will infiltrate the NFL and it will finally, and slowly, co-opt ideas that have been successful in every level of football elsewhere. Some will still deride the flashes as gimmicky, but seeing as that most didn't understand it to begin with, most probably won't even notice. Take a look at the clip below: the Ravens, using Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith ran the zone-read, and the highlight guys began a small war on what to call it. (Smith also takes a rather bizarre inside angle with his run.)

Conclusion

Time will tell where all this goes. For now, however, I expect the NFL Offense to remain as indicated, with just a flew flashes of the wildcat and other similar elements. But maybe with more, and cheaper, players who can execute these schemes the NFL will be forced to adapt them to its own ends. And maybe that will even help protect its quarterbacks.

APPENDIX - The NFL Offense

Formations may differ, as will motions and a few little quirks, but basically this is what every single NFL team does. They might have a wrinkle or two per week; they might adjust the formations so they get their Pro-Bowl receiver running the route they want; they might run each play from everything from a three tight-end set to a spread formation; but it is all there. It is a partial sketch below. There are some I have diagrams, and with others I have links to old articles either instead of or to supplement the diagrams.

(1) Run game

- Inside Zone, a.k.a. "tight zone"

- Outside zone, a.k.a. "wide zone" or "stretch" (either regular blocking (shown below, diagram courtesy of Trojan Football Analysis) or "pin and pull")

- Counter

- Power

- Lead draw (draw play with a lead back)

(2) Quick passes

- Hitch

- Fade/stop, fade with an out, and double slants

- Stick (more to come on this concept)

- Spacing

(3) Dropback passes (including play-action)

- Curl routes

- Smash

- Post/Dig, a.k.a. "NCAA Pass"

- Flood/sail

- Four verticals (trips and regular), also lots of deep comebacks off the four verticals to the outside guys (either by call or read)

- Levels

- Three-verticals (either with corner routes or go routes)

- "Mills," a.k.a. Cover 4 beater

- Shallow series (for more on the drag and drive series, see here, and for a comprehensive look at the shallow stuff Mike Martz ran with the Rams, see here)

- Seam and square-in/other downfield passes like double-post

(4) Movement passes

- Bootleg. Everybody runs the same bootleg passes, one with the fullback faking the counter and running to the opposite flat, and the other the basic one with one guy to the flat after a count as a blocker and another dragging behind him.

(5) Screens

- Slow screen to RB and TE. Also will use double-screens or read-screens with the slow screen combined with either a sail or drag type route

Happy Fourth

2009-07-04T11:50:00.006-04:00

Happy Fourth of July to all. Football might be America's game, but that presumes the existence, and continuity, of these United States.

The Declaration that this day commemorates swiftly and elegantly set forth this country's promise. On its fiftieth anniversary, two signatories, Adams and Jefferson, died quietly in their homes, their lives forever exemplifying our country's both great and contradictory narrative. (See this recent NY Times "picture essay" of Jefferson.) The Declaration of course begins:

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

This luminous promise has not always been kept. That is one reason why I always think it best to, whenever we think on the Fourth and the great Declaration, consider Lincoln's words about this promise from the vantage point of "four score and seven years" later:

. . . . [O]ur fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

. . . . It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Happy Fourth.

Football, decisionmaking, and the brain

2009-07-02T12:50:00.002-04:00

One of the many reasons that football is the greatest of all games is that it encompasses every type of decision we humans are capable of. There are the carefully planned decisions coaches make leading up to a game: Who should start? What will our opening plays look like? How can we defend against this scheme? There are snap, in-the-moment athletic judgments: Who has the ball? Is the receiver open? Is the hole inside the guard or outside it, where will the running crease be? And there are what I call "golf swing decisions," which combine the reflective moment with the snap-athletic judgment: When should I snap the ball to time up with the motion man, while still getting off a good snap? I need to blitz through the A gap between guard and center, but what if they are in a slide or gap protection scheme and close that off? Should I try a rip or swim type move? I'm receiver and need to run an out route, but when if the cornerback comes up and jams me and I need to run a go route, how should I use my hands, eyes, etc?

Football shares the need for snap, athletic judgments with most other sports, like basketball or soccer. But it is unique in that every four-to-six second contest is preceded by a complete stop where everyone has some time to collect their thoughts -- or to heighten their anxieties. Baseball has some of this, insofar as pitchers have to think about the type of pitch they want to throw and where, but even if batters could get a handle on the pitchers' rhythm, the human brain cannot rationally break down what a throw is when it is coming in at 90 miles per hour -- it must be an instinctual swing-or-don't-swing response.

In a later post I plan to break down more of the cold, rational, time-intensive decisions and where those decisions break down. I'm interest in which decisions are "predictably irrational," and can they be fixed? Also, what heuristics do coaches and sometimes players use that correctly and incorrectly inform them? But today I limit myself to the raw, instinctual, athletic intelligence that football players must possess or be gone.

Athletic intelligence

Very rarely does a football player use their "rational brain" during a game the way solving a math problem would. Jonah Lehrer, in his book How We Decide, tells a story about Tom Brady. He describes Brady's mindset as an elite quarterback in the pocket which -- especially considering that quarterback is considered maybe the "most intellectually demanding" of all sports positions -- is surprisingly instinctual and unthinking. He drops back and scans his receivers. He gets to one and simply lets the ball go. Brady is asked: "Why did you throw it to that guy?" He replies: "I just felt like he was open." That's it. That's it?

Yes. There really can't be much to it than that. A QB might have an idea of where he might throw it, as his rational brain can do some early legwork, but the ultimate decision is by the emotional, reactive parts of his brain. (Lehrer and others get into the neuroscience of this, which I am not equipped to discuss.) The brain, getting some kind of positive feedback, tells the muscles to release the ball. And how could it be otherwise? These decisions happen much too fast for any person to coldly and rationally walk their way through it. The quarterback must simply know.

(Note that this is not saying that emotional or instinctual intelligence is better than rational intelligence, or vice versa. It is that some situations call for different types of decisionmaking. Indeed, my general assumption is that attempts atrational decisionmaking is usually better (which is in fact not always true), but many times, including in sports, there is no time for some sort of reasoned analysis. Contra this post then with Gladwell's Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.)

This need for amazing decisionmaking that is nevertheless largely reactive is one reason why it is so difficult to evaluate quarterbacks -- or any player. You only get so far by asking Tom Brady "why did you throw it to him" when his answer is "I felt like he was open." And that's with quarterbacks: obviously safeties on defense, or linebackers, or linemen, runningbacks, all rely more or less on this raw emotional intelligence rather than something coolly rational. How do you measure that kind of instictive, non-descriptive intelligence? Yet if a guy doesn't have it, he'll just kill your team with bad "decisions."

Yet what does the NFL use to evaluate its players' intelligences? The Wonderlic Test. Having just seen the above discussion, where not even Tom Brady's athletic intelligence is necessarily rational or describable in the way a mathematician's or philosopher's is, how useful can this test be? Yes, it can help eliminate some total knuckleheads, in that NFL players must learn large playbooks (and in college must be able to stay eligible lest the idea of student-athlete be completely severed), but most of what makes them elite or not is based on how they react.

When a linebacker just knows that a play-action fake is indeed a fake, or that the runningback still has the ball after misdirection from a wide-receiver faking a reverse, he uses very little if any of the skills tested by the Wonderlic. Yet I do sympathize with the NFL: how else can you test this stuff? But what if having a really high rational intelligence not only didn't help or didn't test what made a player good or great, what if a heightened analytical ability made a player worse?

Eli and Peyton Manning and David Foster Wallace

This is where the "golf swing" intelligence can come in; it's also often called "paralysis by analysis." Think about getting ready to swing a golf club while a friend or pro tries to coach you up. "Keep your arms straight." "Turn your hips." "Keep your head down." "Keep the club face square." "Choke down on the club." "Loosen your grip." "Bring your arms through before you start moving your shoulders, but keep your head down." "Keep the club face square but also rotate your wrists so that you finish with a good rotation." Etc. A friend of mine told me that he had one such session, where a pro told him about ten things to do before he swung the club, and then just sat there a minute before swinging. The pro said, "What are you thinking about?" His reply, "All the stuff you just told me."

Now here's a fact you may not know.

Question: Which Manning brother had the higher Wonderlic score?

Answer: Eli. By a long shot.

Peyton's score was perfectly respectable: a 28, higher than average for his position in fact. Eli? A 39, which put him in the 99th percentile of all NFL players -- as well as the 99th percentile of all two-million test takers. As Charlie Wonderlic said of Eli's score, "There's not a job on the planet that requires a person to score at that level." But who would you rather have making decisions for you on gameday? I thought so. Of course, Eli has improved, but there's no question that Peyton is the more consistent decisionmaker. Indeed, all too often Eli looks uncomfortable, like he has overthought the whole process of "just throw the football to the open guy." (Tom Brady, who scored a 33, is also not known as a hyper-analytical guy, though some of that is hearsay.)

And again, this is quarterback, supposedly the marquee thinking-man's position in all of sports. Obviously defensive backs and tight-ends don't need the same level of analytical ability as quarterbacks do. And yet, after games, what kind of questions do reporters ask? You got it: "What were you thinking out there?" "What did it feel like?" And the answers are almost always completely banal (and where they are not they are probably fake): "I just take it one play at a time. Keep doing my best. Focus on the basics, you know." "I'm just really happy. It feels great to contribute. We've all worked really hard."* Really, of what use is it to ask Santonio Holmes what was going through his mind when he leaked out to the corner of the end zone and made a miraculous, extended catch to win the game? "You know, I had been thinking about this great Henry James novel most of the time, but I regained focus when I saw the ball's trajectory and calculated that, based on its particular rotation speed -- as far as I could detect -- I should place my hands in a particular way and I also calibrated my feet so as to minimize the chance that if I slipped I might get any white ink on my shoes so that the ref might call me out." Uh. Holmes was plenty eloquent after the game, but the bottom line is: the ball was in the air and he made a fantastically athletic play. Any analysis might have been counter productive.

The late David Foster Wallace discussed this in a review he did of a biography about tennis prodigy Tracy Austin. I think it well sums up the dilemma that players, coaches and fans have in trying to understand athletic genius, which not only might be distinct from rational genius, it might be the antithesis of it.

It remains very hard for me to reconcile the vapidity of [an athlete's] narrative mind, on the one hand, with the extraordinary mental powers that are required by world-class tennis, on the other. Anyone who buys into the idea that great athletes are dim should have a close look at an NFL playbook, or at a basketball coach's diagram of a 3-2 zone trap . . . or at an archival film of Ms. Tracy Austin repeatedly putting a ball in a court's corner at high speed fro seventy-eight feet away with huge sums of money at stake and enormous crowds of people watching her do it. Ever try to concentrate on doing something difficult with a crowd of people watching? . . . .

It is not an accident that great athletes are often called "naturals," because they can, in performance, be totally present: they can proceed on instinct and muscle-memory and autonomic will such that agent and action are one. . . . They can withstand forces of distraction that would break a mind prone to self-conscious fear in two.

The real secret behind top athletes' genius, then, may be as esoteric and obvious and dull and profound as silence itself. The real, many-veiled answer to the question of just what goes through a great player's mind as he stands at the center of hostile crowd-noise and lines up the free-throw that will decide the game might well be: nothing at all. . . .

This is, for me, the real mystery -- whether such a person is an idiot or a mystic or both and/or neither. The only certainty seems to be that such a person does not produce a very good prose memoir [or descriptive post-game interview]. . . . It may be that we spectators, who are not divinely gifted as athletes, are the only ones able truly to see, articulate, and animate the experience of the gift we are denied. And that those who receive and act out the gift of athletic genius must, perforce, be blind and dumb about it -- and not because blindness and dumbness are the price of the gift, but because they are its essence.

This seems backed up by experience. Great players do not always make great coaches (or announcers), and often the "smartest" kids are "dumb" athletes. I will finish (for now) with a quote from a friend who is a high school coach, which I think for now provides about as good a summation as any of the awkward interplay between thinking and doing, "such that agent and action are one":

Give me the 2.5 GPA kids. I'll take them all day, everyday. Smart enough to know what's going on, too dumb to know when something is going to hurt, and not smart enough to remember what hurt last time.

*FN: These quotes are also roughly paraphrased from Wallace's fantastic essay, but since it's all so common anyone who has ever seen a post-game interview could fill these in.

Why you can't just play "assignment football" against the flexbone/triple-option

2009-06-30T10:38:00.002-04:00

The Navy blog "The Birddog" has a great post breaking down elements of Paul Johnson's flexbone offense. The videos he culls exhibit something I've tried to explain about defending Johnson's offense: you can't just play "assignment football." That term gets thrown around by announcers a lot, with the implication being that all you have to do is "assign" one guy to the dive back, one to the quarterback, and one to the pitch back. The problem is that Johnson will figure out your assignments and change his blocking schemes accordingly. For example, compare the two videos below, again, both courtesy of The Birddog.

Okay, so the safety ends up making the tackle on the pitch back, while the cornerback forced the pitch by taking on the quarterback. Johnson saw that, and on the very next play, called the same play to the other side, but with one important difference: the near slotback blocked the safety -- i.e. the guy responsible for the pitch back. So who now has the pitch back? Let's find out:

Answer: No one. That Paul Johnson, he's crafty. This is basically what happened when those Georgia Tech teams put it together last season and whupped up on teams. Indeed, his offense had a rather high degree of variance, considering that in some games against weak opponents it did little but in others, including against Miami and Georgia, the second half was defensive armageddon. I think the Miami game in particular was an example of a defense that had a plan for the flexbone going into the game, a decent one, but Johnson figured it out about halfway through and Miami lacked the ever important counter-to-his-counter. And once Johnson started messing with UM's defensive assignments, the defense got stretched out, and then plays like these happened:

(Ht Dr Saturday.) I will have more to say about Johnson's flexbone before the season begins, including some thoughts on defending it.(Preview question: how do you deal with the flexbone's triple scheme -- which can easily outflank the defense to one side of the field -- with the flexbone's immediate pre-snap threat of four-verticals? Keep in mind that adding another defender to the box tends to force you into a single-safety defense, which is precisely what four verticals is designed for. More on this later.)

But for now, savor last season's mutlifarious brilliance of option football writ BCS. The flexbone-triple:

End note: As a final bonus, it appears the good people at EA Sports have added more passing to the flexbone. In the video below, the old run and shoot "choice" route is shown. (Ht EDSBS.)

I'd like to think they got this from me, but all of us like to tout our self-importance, no?

Repost: Preview of Nick Saban's Alabama defense

2009-06-29T05:51:00.002-04:00

[Ed. Note: This was originally posted last season as part of an Alabama - Clemson "coaching preview." I thought that now, in the doldrums before the season, the portion dedicated to Nick Saban could be reposted.]

Nick Saban: Still Billy’s Boy

Saban has been coaching defense – and coaching it quite well – for decades. But there is no question that the defining period of his coaching career was 1991-1994, when he was Bill Belichick’s defensive coordinator with the Cleveland Browns. Just knowing that tells you a great deal about Saban’s defense: he (primarily) uses the 3-4; he’s very aggressive, especially on passing downs; he wants to stop the run on first and second down; he’s not afraid to mix up schemes, coverages, blitzes, and looks of all kinds; and, most importantly, he is intense and attentive to detail, which is the hallmark of any great defensive coach.

Let's allow Saban to explain his defensive philosophy in his own words. From one of his LSU defensive playbooks:

“[Our] philosophy on first and second down is to stop the run and play good zone pass defense. We will occasionally play man-to-man and blitz in this situation. On third down, we will primarily play man-to-man and mix-in some zone and blitzes. We will rush four or more players versus the pass about ninety-percent of the time.

“In all situations, we will defend the inside or middle of the field first – defend inside to outside. Against the run, we will not allow the ball to be run inside. We want to force the ball outside. Against the pass, we will not allow the ball to be thrown deep down the middle or inside. We want to force the ball to be thrown short and/or outside.

“… Finally, our job is to take the ball away from the opponents’ offense and score or set up good field position for our offense. We must knock the ball loose, force mistakes, and cause turnovers. Turnovers and making big plays win games. We will be alert and aggressive and take advantage of every opportunity to come up with the ball . . . . The trademark of our defense will be effort, toughness, and no mental mistakes regarding score or situation in any game.”

None of this is revolutionary and much of it is coach-patois (there is another section in his playbook where every position is required to put in “super human effort” or else they are deemed to have failed), but it’s a good place to start. Most good defenses begin with the premise that, to be successful, they must stop the run on first and second down to force known passing situations on 3rd down. (Which is one reason why Bill Walsh – in words far too often unheeded – advocated doing much of your dropback passing on first down.) Indeed, the book on Bob Stoops’s defense is known to everyone: first and second down expect an eight-man front and on third down you will see some kind of base or nickel personnel zone-blitz. No mystery there. A final brief prefatory note is that while Saban bases out of a 3-4, he quite commonly has one of his linebackers put their hand down and line up as would a 4-3 defensive end.

So let’s get a bit more specific. First I’ll discuss what is maybe Saban’s most common defense, Cover 1 Robber. Second, when Saban does use zones on known passing situations he likes the overload blitz and the common 3-3 zone blitz behind it, so I’ll show a basic example of what this might look like. And finally, I’ll discuss a couple coverage techniques that Saban likes to use.

Cover 1 “Robber”

Cover 1 is maybe the most common defense in the SEC. (Though “Cover 2” is close if you lump together all its variants.) Base Cover 1 is quite simple: the “1” refers to a deep safety who aligns down the middle, while all the offense’s skill guys are covered man to man. This doesn’t necessarily mean it is bump and run – it could be loose coverage – but it often is bump and run. The defense needs a great centerfielder back at Free Safety who can stop the deep ball and cover sideline to sideline.

The nice thing about this defense is it is simple and, once you’ve locked in five guys in man and a free safety, you can do whatever you want with the other five. And, maybe most importantly, with just one free-safety deep, the defense can get in a lot of eight-man fronts. On passing downs, the defense can find ways to creatively blitz five guys, have a deep safety, and all the while still account for all five of the offense’s receivers. The defense cannot really outnumber the pass protectors, but it can still collapse the pocket. That’s base Cover 1.

Cover 1 “Robber” works the same, except there are only four rushers and, along with the deep middle safety, another defender comes down to an intermediate level to read the QB’s eyes and “rob” any pass routes over the middle, like curls, in routes, and crossing routes. “Robber” is the most popular term for this technique but Saban’s is “Rat.” (I was always partial to Homer Smith’s term, “floaters,” which is the most descriptive.) There’s nothing magic about this coverage; every NFL team and most BCS college teams use it. Indeed, despite all the bluster about the Indianapolis Colts being a “Cover 2 team,” on first and second down you see lots of Cover 1 and Cover 1 robber from them, except they use their strong safety, Bob Sanders, as the “floater.” The key is for the floater to be able to read run, screen, or pass, and to use his eyes to get to the receiver and the ball. It’s particularly effective nowadays with the increased use of spread formations which most offenses use to open up passing lanes over the middle. Floaters or rat players can stop these inside passes and make game-changing interceptions. Below are some diagrams, and I expect to see Saban use this coverage a lot this season. (As a final note, Cover 1 Robber is useful against spread offense teams with mobile QB’s because the floater’s job becomes to not only read the QB’s eyes on passing downs but also to watch him for scrambles and to simply mirror the him on run plays like the option and the zone read.)

Base Zone Blitz

I won’t say too much because I’ve written extensively on pass protection and the zone-blitz here. But Saban will go to the zone-blitz in some passing situations and also when he feels like he can use the blitz in a way to attack an expected run and still play zone behind it. For example, if a team likes to run off tackle to the TE side on a particular down and distance, he might call a blitz that attacks that area and the zone blitz lets him still play sound coverage behind it. And like most modern defenses, Saban’s most common coverage behind a zone-blitz is a 3-3 or three-deep and three-intermediate defense with five rushers. Cover two behind a zone blitz is often dangerous because of the added uncovered deep seams, but most defenses feel comfortable with the 3-3. Below is a good example of an overload zone-blitz Saban uses to the open side of a one-back formation.

The thing to remember is that for years, when a team blitzed it was playing either Cover 1 or Cover 0 man (or simply left holes in its zone), and quarterbacks were coached to throw the ball where the blitzer had come from. Nowadays, there’s a common perception that a zone-blitz works because a defensive linemen gets in the throwing lane – no. What the dropping defensive end in the diagram above does is allow the defense as a whole to stay in zone coverage, and further notice who is covering the area where the blitzers came from: the strong safety, who is usually an effective pass defender, certainly moreso than a defensive end. That is how zone-blitzes cause confusion.

Other Techniques - Cornerback Leverage and Pattern Reading

Finally, let’s discuss some coverage techniques. The first is that Saban likes to have his cornerbacks adjust their “leverage” on a receiver based on the receiver’s split from the tackle and sideline. The theory is that if the wide receiver has cut his split down he has done one of two things: (a) given himself more room to run an out breaking route, or (b) cheated in to run a crossing or deep in-breaking route. So if the receiver cheats his split in, Saban has his cornerbacks align outside the receiver to defend the out-breaking route, because if he runs the in-breaking route the corner has help from the linebackers and safeties. Similarly, if the receiver lines up very wide (bottom of the numbers, let’s say), he has given himself room to run an in-breaking route like a slant. So the cornerback will align inside the receiver to take that route away and on the belief that an out-cut from that wide will be very difficult for the quarterback. To coach this Saban uses a “divider” line where they believe the receiver’s tendencies change to reflect one of the above two strategies. Nevertheless, the defensive back still must defend the route the receiver actually runs and maintain proper technique, but this is an important starting point.

More significant, however, is that Saban heavily coaches up “pattern reading” within his zone drops. The two zone-dropping schools of thought are to teach “spot-drops” or “pattern-reading.” One can overemphasize the distinction, but generally spot-dropping is easier to teach and was the traditional approach. For example, if your outside linebacker is responsible for the weak-flat, he will take his read steps and, upon reading pass, will drop to a spot and then react to the QB’s eyes. A big advantage with spot-dropping is simply that it is easy to teach to, say, a run-stuffing inside linebacker who spends most of his time on run game pursuit and shedding blocks. But the weakness is that well coached receivers – who have enough time – can become excellent at settling in the “zone holes” between defenders. And, with good receivers and good QBs, offenses have become more and more adept and finding and exploiting these zone holes.

Pattern-reading, on the other hand, is much like a matchup-zone in basketball. Defenders are responsible for zones but they basically play man on the receivers who come into their zones. Moreover, pattern-read teams begin by immediately coaching their defenders on how to recognize popular pass combinations (and indeed, the very concept of pass-combinations themselves), and each week zero in on the 5-15 most common pass concepts they will see from that opponent. When done correctly, pattern-reading defenders know exactly how to cover receivers in their zones and seamlessly (in a quite literal sense) pass the receivers onto other defenders as they run their routes. One thing that distinguishes Saban is that he uses pattern-reading in almost all of his coverages, including the traditional Cover 3, whereas many coaches only let certain defenders pattern read or only use it with certain defenses like Cover 4. Sounds a lot like Belichick, no?

Urban Meyer Q&A on his offense

2009-06-25T22:07:00.002-04:00

The Orlando Sentinel's Chris Harry has a great Q&A with Urban Meyer. I hope I don't get in trouble for this but it's basically all worth reading. See the original link here:

HARRY: You hear a lot in the offseason about coaches going to visit different schools and exchanging ideas with other coaches for the sake of the program and professional development. How's that work here?

MEYER: "That's a big part of what we do. For example, our strength coach and my administrative assistant, every year -- and they have no choice -- have to get on a plane and go visit the best places in America and find out if we're doing the right stuff. I've always encouraged our trainers, our academic people. It's the ones who sit around and do nothing. At some point, [everybody's] going to catch you. No, that is a must. You are graded on your professional development. That's part of your evaluation. And we don't want to be frivolous. We run a certain style, so we don't want to waste time. Go see your buddy? We don't want to do that. There has to be a reason. [The concept] is kind of amazing. I tell people, I'm sure Pepsi doesn't visit Coca-Cola and figure out how to make pop"

HARRY: Where do you draw the line?

MEYER: "It's hard. We've drawn it more. It got out of control a little bit. You have so much work to do. All of a sudden, people are walking in saying, 'Hey coach, you got three hours?' No. You just don't have time. So the last few years we've kind of made it off limits. We do allow some in. If Jon Gruden calls? Absolutely. Bill Belichick comes down every year. We're certainly not going to say no to them. So we handpick who we allow to come in."

HARRY: A guy like Gruden, you never know. He could be standing across from you on a sideline one day.

MEYER: "True. But you have to get something. This is a two-way street. For Jon Gruden to come in and just take? We're not going to do that. We're not into supplying information. We're into exchanging information. A guy like Bill Belichick? I get 10 times more than what he gets from us. Same for Jon Gruden. . . . I could go on and on and on. [California's] Jeff Tedford. He's one of my great friends. We always do it. Rich Rodriguez? We used to do it all the time [when he was at West Virginia], but now he's at Michigan and a competitor in recruiting so we don't anymore. [Rutgers'] Greg Schiano. I could go on and on. Mike Leach at Texas Tech. We often have conversation. [Utah's] Kyle Willingham and I talk twice a week."

HARRY: Give me an example of something Bill Belichick could share with you.

MEYER: "Where do I start? I am amazed at the how he handles elite athletes. You never hear about issues with off-the-field stuff. I am amazed to the point that I got on a plane and I went up and watched over three days and saw how he handled these, um, some of these elite guys. For some reason, the Patriots do this, but you hear about the Cowboys and these other teams just falling apart because of chemistry issues. And then there's Bill Belichick. Our whole program is based on what we learned from him; the core of the team has to be strong."

HARRY: When was the last time you saw a play or a formation where you went, "Wow! I've never seen that before."

MEYER: "Forty-five minutes ago. I've been watching Oklahoma tape all morning."

HARRY: Really? You often hear coaches say that nothing is new; that everything has been used before. Yet when the Wildcat showed up in Miami last year, it was like the NFL freaked out. But it was old-time single-wing football, which is lot of what you do here. What was the genesis of your offense?

MEYER: Part of it is single wing, yeah. I would say there's a spread element and a single-wing element. We've combined them both. We want to have a run component. At any time, anybody can stop the run. It's just taking one more defender than you can block and putting him right there [on the line]. Unless that guy is not very good and you have a great running back, like a lot of the Big Ten teams when I was growing up. Everybody would say, 'BYOB: Bring Your Own Blocker.' He's on scholarship too, and you have to run him over sometime. That's OK. But to simply say we're going to do that all the time and score points, I can't disagree with that more. So how do you take advantage of the guy that's the extra defender? There's two ways to do it. One: you run a single-wing offense, which means you spread a guy out so that [extra defender] has to go cover him. Two: you spread out and throw the ball. We're going to do both."

HARRY: What about the single wing has given it the staying power?

MEYER: "The fact you can run the ball when everybody is blocked. You'll hear a saying around here: 'Never run the ball against an unblocked defender.' Never do it! And I'm kind of giving you everything we do here." (The next few minutes involved some scribbling and lots of X's and O's, the bulk of which, without the diagrams, doesn't translate very well in print. I can promise you, though, it was as interesting as it was informative.) [Ed. Note: Darn! I guess this is why my site exists.]

HARRY: Option football has universally been written off as something that cannot work in the NFL. There are other offenses people say, flat-out, can't work in the NFL.

MEYER: "If you know me, you know I think any offense can work if you have the right personnel back. Offenses are overrated. People are not. The NFL will take a quarterback and put him on a very bad team and call him a bust. Never mind that the defense ranks last in the league and there's no offensive line. Chris Leak [in 2005] had about as bad a three-game [stretch] as we've had at Florida that I've ever had as a coach and it just so happened that Bubba Caldwell broke his leg, Jermaine Cornelius sprained his ankle, Chad Jackson had a bad hamstring and Dallas Baker broke his ribs. And so Chris Leak struggled the next three games when we're playing LSU, Georgia. It doesn't matter what you run. It's personnel based."

HARRY: You kind of just told the Alex Smith story. Your guy at Utah. No. 1 overall pick just four years ago. Goes to a bad team. A lot of folks already have written him off as a bust already.

MEYER: "I don't want to give you names, but I can list 10 other quarterbacks who aren't doing great, too. They're West Coast [offense] quarterbacks. It's about who's on the team."

HARRY: It seems what's happened with Alex is held up as the standard for spread quarterbacks projecting to the NFL. Obviously, you've heard that rap with regard to Tim Tebow's future there, and heading into the draft people were wondering if Percy Harvin's three years of running bubble screens meant he couldn't run a simple dig and the rest of the routes on the passing tree.

MEYER: He can run it better than most; and if someone is paying him $20 million, he'll run a great dig route. It's interesting that you say that. I don't hear it a lot, maybe in recruiting once in a while, but I did hear a NFL coach saying something about that. I like to do my homework. I went and checked the record of that coach and the guy barely had a .500 record. [Ed Note: Reminds me of what Mike Leach said about Mangini.] There are certain people I'll have a discussions with. And if I hear something like that, that's not a person I want to have a discussion with. That's nonsense. That's someone putting too much value on scheme rather than personnel."

HARRY: Is your offense easy to teach?

MEYER: "Again, it's based on people. I keep going back to that, but if you have really good players, it's really easy. If you don't, it's really hard. Is the West Coast offense easy to teach? If Joe Montana is throwing to Jerry Rice, yeah, Daffy Duck can teach it. I don't want to de-value teaching. It's absolutely critical, but I'm still going to go back to personnel."

HARRY: Are you a NFL fan?

MEYER: "I'm a fan of some players, some coaches, not necessarily teams. I try to watch the Patriots, but Sundays are such a busy day. Maybe on bye weeks."

HARRY: But you study some teams during offseason, I'll bet. That constitutes professional development, right?

MEYER: "Absolutely. Every year I go to a camp or two. I've already been up to Jacksonville. Spent five hours with Jack Del Rio. Phenomenal coach. I like this new guy [Raheem Morris] in Tampa Bay. I've been invited down there. And I'll get up to New England again."

Copyright © 2009, Orlando Sentinel

How to take a team to the woodshed with your spread offense

2009-06-25T09:45:00.003-04:00

The spread may not always be the answer to everything, but if you can do what this team does, you don't need anything else. (Warning: This video contains images of putrid tackling, and may not be suitable for public consumption.)

(Ht HueyBoard).

Incidentally, though I generally agree with Dr Saturday that the spread isn't (and need not be) the sine qua non of someone's offense to the exclusion of everything else, practice time must be considered: Division I football teams have a fraction of the practice time allowed in the NFL, but even many high schools have more practice time, counting in summer passing leagues, spring football, and all that. And, with limited practice time, there can be benefits to being a hedgehog like Florida or TTech, and doing one thing extremely well, rather than going for mystical universality by being "pro-style, whereby the players are overloaded.

Steve Logan on the shallow cross and blitz-control

2009-06-23T09:43:00.001-04:00

Steve Logan, currently with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and formerly the offensive coordinator for Boston College and head coach of East Carolina, has a nice presentation on using "hot" routes in the dropback game. This is a nice companion to my recent discussion on the "shallow," "drive," and "drag" concepts. (I also recently linked to Logan discussing four-verticals.)

Assorted links

2009-06-22T12:31:00.002-04:00

1. Malzahn follow-on. Lots of follow-ups on the Malzahn post I had last week.

Jerry at the Joe Cribbs Car Wash weighs in with his take.
Fields of Donahue, too.
Roll Bama Roll takes the slightly more cynical view (not surprising, though check out the comments for some great discussion). Only thing I will say about the Malzahn versus Franklin "we've heard it all before" debate is that all sides now admit that there were serious behind the scenes issues at Auburn last year -- regardless of whoever was at fault -- that would contribute to making any offense dysfunctional. And, of course, Auburn's offense ramained poor even after Franklin left. So continuity and support alone ought to make Auburn's offense at least a little better.
Blutarsky feels deja vu but also does a little SEC predictin'.

2. Mike High Report on my post about Brandon Marshall's "trade value."

3. mgoblog in a post that should be titled "How to Blog."

4. TeamSpeedKills on why there is no Platonic Ideal "Urban Meyer offense," and why Meyer is more on the "Just win, baby," side of things.

5. Kansas State might be, well, corrupt: "A scathing audit of Kansas State University reveals a pattern of undisclosed payments, conflicts of interest, poor accounting and possible tax problems for the school, several of its former employees and its athletic department. The audit, released by the Kansas Board of Regents on Friday, describes thousands of dollars paid to companies owned by current and former university employees. They include head football coach Bill Snyder; former athletic director Tim Weiser; and Bob Krause, a former vice president for institutional advancement and former athletic director." (Ht Dr Saturday.)

6. Dan Le Betard meets up with now bankrupt ex-football star Bernie Kosar, and it is...interesting:

[Kosar] just learned the other day, after much trying and failing, how to make his own coffee. This is a man who owned his own jet and helped found companies, plural. But when his new girlfriend came over recently and found him trying to cook with his daughters, she couldn't believe what was on the kitchen island to cut the French bread. A saw.
''I was 25 and everyone was telling me that I was the smartest; now I'm 45 and realize I'm an idiot,'' he says. "I'm 45 and immature. I don't like being 45."

(Ht, again, Dr Saturday.) (Le Batard has kind of a buffoonish persona, but he always seems to snare good quotes from people. Last week he had this colloquoy with Jimmy Johnson: "Will you go days without putting on pants, Jimmy? ''Days?'' he says. ``Weeks! . . . ."

7. The Quad previews the Hawai'i Warriors. My take? They had an identity crisis last year while trying to inject more running into their run and shoot offense. The report is that this year they are getting back to basics, and, for a team like this, that should be a good thing.

8. Image of the week, courtesy of Eleven Warriors. (Ht mgoblog.)

The Gus Malzahn/Auburn Tigers run game

2009-06-18T15:27:00.003-04:00

In a conference full of coaches with championship rings (Urban Meyer, Steve Spurrier, Nick Saban, Les Miles, etc), and another who no one can stop talking about, a former high school coach continues to receive his fair share of scrutiny. And he's not even the head coach: enter Gus Malzahn, new Auburn offensive coordinator. Malzahn has been asked to deliver on the promise that Tommy Tuberville and Tony Franklin failed to; namely, a "spread" offense that actually produces.

When Auburn hired Malzahn I described his philosophy, which can be easily gleaned from the forthright title of his book, The Hurry-Up, No-Huddle: An Offensive Philosophy. As I said before, he is overall less concerned with the specific Xs and Os in employ than with the speed at which the offense goes:

There are a few differences here between Malzahn's offense and what Franklin and Tuberville tried to do (or said they were trying to do). The biggest, I'd say, is that Malzahn's spread is not exactly like other spreads, whether pass-first ones like the Airraid or run-heavy spreads like Urban Meyer's or Rich Rodriguez's. That's because the schemes are simple - very, very simple - and the core of the offense is not even about schemes: it's about tempo. . . .

[N]obody does what Malzahn does. If some no-huddle teams, like Franklin's, are light-speed, then Malzahn wants to spend the entire game in something akin to "ludicrous speed."

This past spring, Malzahn installed his offense with signs of progress, though he has yet to get everyone up to his preferred "ludicrous speed" yet. That will come. With talk about his overarching philosophy out of the way, however, it's still worth asking what his Xs and Os will actually look like. And, if spring practice is any indication, we know the answer: a lot like they did at Tulsa.

At Tulsa, Malzahn, with co-offensive coordinator Herb Hand (who deserves as much credit as Malzahn), blew the doors off just about everyone they played. In 2007, they were: sixth in scoring (41.1 per game), first in yards (543.9 per game), and third in yards per play (6.8). In 2008, after losing their quarterback Paul Smith -- who had thrown for 47 touchdowns the year before -- the offense actually improved: second in scoring (47.2 points per game), first in yards (569.9 per game), and yards per play (7.3). Much of that improvement came from the running game, which jumped from 172.93 yards per game in 2007 to 268.00 in 2008.

Indeed, Malzahn actually predicted this improvement via run game back then. After his first season at Tulsa, he did in an interview with ESPN:

Q: What makes your spread offense potent as compared to say, a Texas Tech or Missouri or a team like that?

Gus Malzahn: We're a run, play-action team. A lot of spread teams are pass first, run second. But we're a run, play-action team. As a matter of fact, I think we ran the ball one more time than we threw it last year, which a lot of people don't know. We like to be 50-50 and be able to do both well.

All that said, you can still consider me slightly skeptical of his claim to being a smashmouth guy. Back in his high school days, and even during his time at Arkansas, those around Gus always said if he had his way he would have thrown it about as much as was humanly possible. We're talking Mike Leach, June Jones stuff. But, people change, and his experience with Coaches Graham and Hand at Tulsa (much moreso than his experience with Nutt at Arkansas) appears to have heavily influenced him. Hand, a Rich Rodriguez disciple, not only helped implement many of Malzahn's ideas, he also brought many of his own to the table, particularly regarding the spread run game.

But the proof is in the pudding. I am familiar with what Tulsa did, and I finally have been able to see what Auburn implemented during spring practice. And it is much as I expected: it is a smash-mouth spread operation. Indeed, the spring offense was notable for quarterback inconsistency, yes, but also for big, big plays from the running game.

As a preview for this upcoming season I will describe three plays Malzahn can be expected to use at Auburn, none of them particularly revolutionary: the counter, the zone-read with bubble screens as a read, and the power. Each has old roots, though Malzahn will do his best to aid their effectiveness through lots of motions, fakes, and shifts. Expect the tight-ends or H-backs to play a big role in the offense in making key blocks, and also expect to see lots of wide receiver motion, with their either getting the ball on reverses or as pitch men on the option, or merely faking so.

Counter play

The counter play is age-old, though was popularized and made famous by Joe Gibbs's Redskins, though he admits to stealing it from Tom Osborne's Nebraska teams. On the "counter trey," the playside (the side the run is eventually going to) "down" blocks, leaving the defensive end unblocked. They work together to double-team defensive linemen on their way to the linebackers. From the backside, one linemen, usually the backside guard, pulls and kicks out the defensive end or outside linebacker; it is actually a "trap" block. The other component of the blocking is that another player from the backside, sometimes the backside tackle and other times a full-back or H-back, will pull and "lead" into the hole, blocking the first linebacker he sees. The runningback takes a counter step or two, and then simply follows the pulling blocker's block, and cuts off of it. Below is a diagram of how the play has traditionally been run, from the I-formation, courtesy of Trojan Football Analysis. (The diagram is of Nebraska, and see this post for a great breakdown of how the great Husker teams of the 90s ran the play.)

So what does it look like when Malzahn uses it? Well it's basically the same, except he might show a few different things before the snap. Specifically, he might use an H-back or fullback type player who comes from the backside to be the "puller" who leads into the hole, and that player might begin the play split out wide and motion in across the formation. Or, the runningback himself might motion into the backfield. There's lots of options. Below, however, is a diagram of what Malzahn did in the spring game; the play went for a long touchdown twice in the spring game (thanks to good blocking and some weak angles by the defense).

To take one of the examples before getting to the film clips, the offense lined up in a basic shotgun set, with one runningback, one H-back, and three receivers.

I have only drawn paths for two players: the backside guard pulls and kicks out the defensive end, while the H-back pulls and leads into the hole (and eventually also kicks out the linebacker, though he could have just as easily "hooked" him inside, had the linebacker stepped that way). The rest of the line just blocks down, and the runningback takes his slight counter steps and explodes into the hole, following the H-back's block. To see it all in action, check out the film clips from the spring game this past year.

If all this looks familiar, even from a spread set, it should. Compare what Malzahn is doing above with what Urban Meyer does at Florida. First a diagram, then basically the exact same play run with Percy Harvin. There are differences, but most of them are cosmetic.

Same play. Auburn is just hoping it works as well for them as it has for Florida.

Zone-read with bubble screen

I won't get too far into the basics of the zone read; I have both discussed it previously and also plan to go more in depth in the future as teams defend it differently nowadays. What you can expect from Malzahn and Auburn is much in the mainstream in terms of the play. The line will zone block, and the runningback will look for a vertical crease. The quarterback will read the backside end to determine where or not to give the ball to the back or keep it himself. The one wrinkle Malzahn brings -- which again, is something Rich Rodriguez has been doing for some time -- is to build the bubble screen on the backside in. Basically, if the backside pursuit cheats in too much, Auburn has its constraint play built in: the quarterback can always pull the ball and throw the bubble. Below is a diagram and a video of Auburn running the zone with the bubble on the backside, though the quarterback just gives it to the runner.

Power

The "power" run is another that has ancient, "power football" roots but has been adapted to the spread. And it, again, is very simple: the line essentially "down" blocks, meaning they block the men over them or to their inside, and will use teamwork to combination block the defensive linemen until one releases to hit the linebackers. The exception is the defensive end or other outside, on the line of scrimmage defender. (Aptly referred to as the EMLOS -- "end man on the line of scrimmage.") The fullback -- or H-back, or someone -- plows at him to kick him out, thus opening a crease.

The crease becomes a hole, however, because the backside guard pulls and "leads" into it to block the linebacker, or other first threatening defender. In this way the blocking works much as it does on "counter," but with more of a frontside attack. Below is a diagram of how an NFL team runs the play; it is in every NFL team's playbook. (Click on the diagram to make it larger.)

And below is a common look Malzahn ran "power" from while at Tulsa, using the "pistol" (short shotgun with the runningback directly behind the quarterback) and a cross between an H-back and a fullback. See below.

This will be a common set for Auburn. Malzahn likes lining up with three wide receivers, but then also likes the versatility of the H-back/tight-end/fullback type as a blocker in a variety of directions. Again, compare his straight ahead blocking on "power" with his about face to the opposite side on "counter." (And with the pistol set the runningback could go either direction.)

Conclusion

So this is about what you can expect: some basic plays -- including power plays -- from spread sets with lots of shifts and motion, all at a top speed. Malzahn will try to go for some play-action and big plays off of this; I may diagram some of those later. How well it all works will depend on execution, particularly by the quarterbacks. Time will tell.

But a final thought. Another thing to expect from Auburn's offense this year will be lots of motion from the wide receivers and their use as a threat to run as well as catch. Now, all of these "versatility" roles -- H-backs and receivers as running threats -- depends on depth and skill at those positions (easier if you have Percy Harvin), but Malzahn likes to to give the look so as to at least present the problem to the defense. From the "power" look above, Malzahn likes to motion an outside wide receiver completely behind the runningback, and he then gets into a pitch relationship with the quarterback for an option. This way Malzahn can fake the power play and run the speed option with the quarterback (Kodi Burns?) with the receiver as a pitch man. It's fun stuff, at least when it works. Once he has done that, the very fact of the receiver in motion tends to help draw defenders when they do simply hand it off to the runningback on the power play.

Will it work in the SEC? I don't know, but if it does, expect plays like the one in the video below to be on all the highlight reels. Notice how the motion by one receiver sets up the sweep in the opposite direction by the other. With Malzahn's offense, don't just try to watch the ball, because that will rarely ever tell you where it actually is.

Some cut-ups of Tulsa's offense:

Sentences to ponder

2009-06-18T13:07:00.000-04:00

Definitions:

Academe, n. An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught.

Academy, n. A modern school where football is taught.

From Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary.

Deal or No Deal and incoherent views of "trade value"

2009-06-17T17:00:00.003-04:00

Apparently, Broncos receiver Brandon Marshall is on the trade block, according to Shutdown Corner. The headline of his piece is called "You just cannot get equal trade value for Brandon Marshall." That's not a per se inaccurate statement, but it presumes you know what "trade value" is. Presumably, by the way it is used in the post, "trade value" equals the value of the productivity or talent the player is capable of. But we all know that a player's "value" is influenced by many factors aside from their raw talent, including his salary, his adaptability to what other teams do, and, particularly in Marshall's case, the likelihood that he will be around to perform and not caught up in the legal system. Shutdown Corner:

Look at it this way: If the Broncos pay Marshall and hang onto him, one of two things happens: He either stays healthy and out of handcuffs and is an extremely productive player, or he ends up suspended or in court again, in which case, the Broncos don't get the value they should.

If the Broncos trade Marshall, though, they also don't get the value they should. Period.

So the only possible way to maximize what you get from him is to roll the dice, keep him around, and hope you get the best out of him. In any other scenario, the Broncos lose.

The italicized conclusion does not follow from the premises, and largely contradicts #1, that they keep him and "he ends up suspended or in court again." The key issue is that there is something they "should" get. Should Marshall be "worth" more, based solely on his talent? Yes, but the fact that he isn't is due solely to himself; it is not something the Broncos have any control over. They must take their troubled receiver as they find him.

Indeed, while value of a player is some estimate of their probable production, that value is a calculation their talent and capability multipled by their risk of injury, off the field trouble, discontent, etc. You don't produce if you're not on the field, and we've seen otherwise talented players be traded for peanuts or released because they weren't "worth" what they were being paid. See Terrell Owens.

Trade or No Trade? The upshot is that SD's conclusion -- that the Broncos must keep Marshall -- doesn't follow, because it confuses "maximizing" expected gain with maximizing the possible gain, two very different things. This is a common cognitive defect, particularly after someone experiences a setback or dramatic loss in value, much like the Broncos just have as their star receiver has been in increasing amounts of legal trouble.

The show Deal or No Deal provides a great example. Much has been written about the show from a behavioral economics perspective. I will assume people are familiar with the show's basic premise that someone selects a case, and then takes other cases off the board which whittles down the possibilities of what are in his case. Throughout the show, a "banker" offers the player a certain amount of money to walk away, based on what possible values remain in play.

Let's say our contestant -- let's call him Sonny Chiba -- has four cases left, with possible values of $10, $100, $500, and $50,000. The case he just chose took $100,000 off the board, so he is reeling a bit and is no doubt upset about the money he just saw evaporate. The banker gives him a new offer: $16,000, significantly down from the previous one.

What should Sonny do? Take it of course. The expected value from the four cases is only $12,652.50, and moreover he has only a 1/4 or 25% chance of having more than $16,000 in his case. In the actual game, this is not an uncommon circumstance at all; the banker is usually generous after a big blow late in the game. But you know what the studies show? After a big loss that dramatically cuts the contestant's expected value and, in turn, the banker's offer (even if it is in fact still a generous one given the circumstances), contestants repeatedly reject the offer. Why? Because all they can think about is that big $50,000 maximum, and how it will compensate them for what they lost. Nevermind that it is unlikely, and that they are staring down a better offer. (I ignore here the fact that $16,000 might be too paltry for some players. Fine, repeat the scenario with 10, 500, 1,000 and 250,000, where the player has just had 500,000 taken off the board.)

Denver's Choice. No offense to SD (who I very much like as a blogger, and I am merely nitpicking out one random statement in a blog post), but his rationale seems to be that the Broncos must keep Marshall because there's a chance it might all work out and he'll be a pro-bowler. That is the same trap that our contestant fell into in our Deal or No Deal example.

Now, this doesn't mean the Broncos must trade him either; we don't know the corresponding offers with as much certainty as Deal or No Deal, either. And he's right that the Broncos probably won't get a fantastic offer because of Marshall's off-the-field problems, but that's to be expected. If believed, SD's logic would be to expect other teams to have traded for Mike Vick or Plaxico simply because of their immense talents without regard to the probability of their spending all or part of the season in jail, or otherwise or caught up in the legal system.

The upshot is that "trade value" should not be confused with the maximum possible upside. Yes, Marshall has big upside, but all the risks surrounding him bring that value down, just as it does for Plaxico, Pacman Jones, Vick, T.O., or even guys on the total straight and narrow who are an injury risk. Just because a player might be great, or has the potential to be great, does not necessarily make their trade value better than another player. There's a difference between upside and realistic expectation.

What it means is that the Broncos -- or another team that might trade for Marshall -- must understand not only what he is capable of but what baggage and risks are attendant as well. In other words, if the Broncos get what they think is a good deal, they should take it. And if Marshall winds up making the pro-bowl elsewhere, then they can (or at least should) be able to safely say that they made the best decision they could under the information they had.

Sonny Chiba could say the same thing if, after he took the banker's offer of $16,000, Howie Mandel opened his case to reveal $50,000. That's just how the game goes. It doesn't change the fact that his decision was undoubtedly the correct one.

The shallow cross, drag, and drive in the west coast and spread offenses

2009-06-17T14:04:00.003-04:00

The shallow cross route is not a new topic for this site. Just the other day, in discussing Trojan Football Analysis's great breakdown of how Georgia's Mark Richt runs the route, I mentioned some of my previous discussions of the route itself as well as some of its common combinations. Those links can be found here, here, here, and here. Also check out the "jerk-route" variant. When teams began to go to the spread years ago by replacing tight-ends and fullbacks with wide receivers, they needed something to do with those wideouts. The shallow became an obvious answer for several reasons: (a) with fewer pass protectors, a quick breaking built-in "hot" route (over the middle no less) is exceptionally useful, particularly since the receiver breaks right in front of the quarterback for an easy throw, (b) the shallow keeps consistency with route concepts designed for two-back sets because the receiver simply replaces the runningback's role as an underneath outlet in the progression, and (c) especially in the spread's early days, defenses tended to cover these extra receivers with linebackers who were ill equipped to chase a receiver for twenty or thirty yards, even if the direction was lateral and not vertical. (The route has some limits: it gives easy cues for pattern reading by the defense.)

There's a couple variations in how the shallow is used. Typically, a shallow route is combined with some kind of ten to twelve yard square-in route behind it. The question is from which side does the square-in break from: is he coming from the same side as the shallow -- i.e. trailing him? Or is he crossing over the top? This matters because it makes a big difference between what kind of flow you're looking for from the linebackers and where the windows in the zone will be. The Airraid guys tend to have the two guys cross and head in opposite directions. the diagram below.

(Image courtesy of Bruce Eien; check out more notes on their version here.) For clips of this version of the concept try here and here. It's a great concept: the shallow pulls the linebackers while the square-in -- aptly known in Airraid terminology as a "hunt route" because the receiver "hunts himself a good place to settle down" -- find the void between defenders.

I am concerned in this post, however, with an older version of the shallow. This is the "drive" concept, made popular by Bill Walsh as a way to get his flanker or "Z" receiver (Jerry Rice, hello!) the ball running full speed across the formation. Secondarily, if they covered Rice there was usually a big window in which to throw the ball to the tight-end. Below is a diagram of how Walsh ran the play from several different sets, straight from an old 49ers playbook.

First, a few features of Walsh's version. Keep in mind a very basic fact that many NFL announcers do not understand: The slant and the shallow are not the same play. On the slant, the receiver takes between two and four steps upfield (I prefer three, beginning with the outside foot back) and then a 45 degree break. The quarterback takes a three-step drop and delivers it quickly. The shallow, on the other hand, takes awhile to develop. The quarterback takes a full five-step drop (and sometimes seven, or five from shotgun) and waits for the receiver to at least cross the centerline. Again, it was Walsh that helped systematize these plays, though they preexisted him.

Anyway, his "drive" route, as he called it, begins with the shallow. Walsh often motioned his flanker towards the formation to enable him to explode through all that man-traffic so he would hopefully emerge free and clear on the backside. If the defense was in was man-to-man -- especially loose man-to-man -- the cornerback usually had a hell of a time trying to catch up with the receiver. But if the defense did cover that route, the tight-end was responsible for finding the void in the zone. The final read was the runningback as an outlet.

But, before getting to those routes, the quarterback always retained the option to throw deep to the corner route or the "go" route on the backside; typically this was the case if the defense was in man to man and he saw a matchup he liked. Note how Walsh sometimes had the corner route run by the halfback in the backfield -- think of Roger Craig or Ricky Watters with a linebacker assigned to him. Alternatively, sometimes the cornerback and near safety were so concerned with the flanker and tight-end that they collapsed down, leaving the runningback or slot man to break wide open on the corner. Nowadays, many modern teams send the runningback on a "wheel" route -- i.e. begin the route like you are running to the flat on a "shoot" and then turn and "wheel" it up the sideline. Below is a variant Bobby Petrino has used in the past at Louisville, the Pros, and now Arkansas.

So where are we now with the play? There have been a few changes in how most teams use the route and concept, especially since now that so few teams base out of two-back sets. As a result, the shallow is seen more as a route for inside receivers than a way to throw it short to your flanker. Below is a diagram of one of the modern versions (as you can see, quite similar), explicated in rich detail in Dan Gonzalez's book, Concept Passing: Teaching the Modern Passing Game. Gonzalez calls his route concept "drag."

So the basic route structure is the same as Walsh's drive. The major differences are that interior players are used, that the outside receiver to the trips side is given a post route to exploit a safety who might play the square-in too aggressively, and on the backside the X is a greater part of the play.

The quarterback isn't always told to read the comeback, but if he does he keys the outside linebacker to that side. See the diagram below, the man circled in blue. If the linebacker drifts where he is or takes the shallow coming to him, the quarterback can drill the ball to the comeback on the outside. If the linebacker heads quickly to the flat to take away the comeback, the shallow route should come wide open in the void he has vacated.

The rest of the play works just like Walsh's drive: either the shallow or the square-in should come open depending on who the linebackers pay attention to, and if neither is open the runningback should be open. Below is footage of the play, thanks to Dan Gonzalez and Mav (first clip), and Bruce Eien (second clip). Bruce's differs slightly but is similar enough to be grouped into the same family.

and

The film by Eien, directly above, is basically a cross between the true, old school "drive" and the Mark Richt/Florida State version, which again is the same "drive" concept but applied to a more two-by-two setting. For more on Richt's version, check out Trojan Football Analysis. Below is a diagram and cutups of the concept as another comparison.

Conclusion

As evidenced by my old post on how Mike Martz used the route, the shallow's usage is limited only by the imagination. It can be the primary route, the hot route, or a secondary route for the quarterback to come to late in his progression. It can be run by any receiver, and can be part of a main concept or used in some auxilliary way. But however it is run, it is still one of the best ways to get the ball to a playmaker -- speed in space -- and so long as teams keep spreading their formations, they will keep using the shallow cross.

Bonus - Video below of Mike White, then head coach of Illinois, explaining the now-Airraid version of the shallow cross. His quarterback at the time was Jack Trudeau. After diagramming the play White shows the square-in or "hunt" going for a big touchdown against one of Bo Schembechler's Michigan teams.

[Ed. Note: Extra thanks to the guys at the Huey Board for some of the diagrams and info, in particular Mav.]

The most famous "smash" of all?

2009-06-17T10:01:00.000-04:00

I've previously deliberated on the "smash" concept at length; it's one of the best passing plays, a staple of every modern passing game, and was in many ways one of the transition concepts from the dark ages to today's sophisticated passing attacks. The basic concept is a simple one: an outside receiver runs to about five yards and basically turns around, while an inside receiver runs to about ten yards and breaks for the corner. The idea is for the outside receiver to hold the cornerback shallow while the corner route breaks open behind him. See the diagram below.

I had long remembered this play, but I was delighted when I saw that Every Day Should Be Saturday tracked down the famous use of the "smash" concept by Auburn (then coached by Terry Bowden) to beat Florida. The video below is self-explanatory; the smash concept could not be demonstrated more clearly.

Darrell Royal on tackling

2009-06-16T13:02:00.001-04:00

Old school. Part I

and II