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.
Loved that fake punt at the 4:40 mark.
ReplyDeleteChris I also suspect if there is any footage of Francis Schmidts' OSU teams you'll see a lot of the same theory in play.
ReplyDelete"Shut the gates of mercy"....
C15
Obviously the best part was the the drop kicks...
ReplyDeleteAccording to Doctor Z (still the only person worthy of the title of "football historian" imo), who researched the papers of Amos Alonzo Stagg, Stagg experimented with the four wide look before the legalization of the forward pass.
ReplyDeleteNow that's old school.
"Doctor Z (still the only person worthy of the title of "football historian" imo)"
ReplyDeleteRay Didinger is excellent, he just doesn't get the exposure that Z does.
A couple of things stand out from the 1940 season long reel:
ReplyDelete1. The staggered backs in the backfield. This allows the center to snap to any one of 3 guys, who are positioned at 3 different depths. I like the flexibility this offers, especially for spread passing teams that struggle near the goal line. You can snap it to the short guy and run a QB sneak or you can snap it to the medium or long guys and run your normal stuff, including all kinds of misdirection. It's a cool concept that I think could find application to many teams today.
2. Quick shifting just before the snap. They start off in a wacky formation with linemen stacked on top of each other, then quickly shift into the formation from which they're going to run their play. This seems like it would work well in a system like Gus Malzahn's, where the idea is to get to the line quickly and confuse and/or outflank the defense.