Now, on Rodriguez and the spread

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 Notes - Feb. 22, 2009

1. How sophisticated is Michigan's spread? It is now apparent that the Michigan Wolverines will have to start a freshman quarterback -- one or another -- in 2009. Despite their inexperience, these guys seem, at first glance, to be a better fit with Rodriguez's vaunted spread-to-run offense simply because they are more athletic than anyone Michigan had last year. The idea is that Rich Rod needs to find the next Pat White (or at least the next Woody Dantzler). And maybe so.

But, as I have discussed previously, if Rodriguez wants his offense to be truly elite again, it's the passing game that has to be the source of innovation. The run game tools are largely in place. There's some room for improvement all around, but, last season with general inexperience -- and without a legitimate running threat at quarterback -- the lack of a viable downfield passing attack worked to help cripple the Rodriguez offense. But the fact that this aspect never developed over the course of the season was what really troubled me.

There's much more to say on this topic, but for now suffice to say that Rodriguez is in danger of falling behind in the spread offense arms race in terms of sophistication. I discussed that phenomena with Purdue as a pass-first spread team over the last decade, but it's of a slightly different order with Michigan. In the spread's nascent days, the spread-to-run innovators included Rodriguez and Kevin Wilson and Randy Walker at Northwestern, with Urban Meyer following shortly after. Wilson is now at OU and of course Meyer is at Florida. Compare their offenses with Rodriguez's: there's not much difference from a run-game standpoint (though Meyer and OU mix up their sets a bit more and use more tight-ends now), but the passing games have seen a wide departure. Wilson now uses what Chuck Long put in at OU, with some schematic residue lingering from Mike Leach and Mark Mangino, while Meyer, along with Dan Mullen and Mike Sanford, assembled a pro-style one-back approach gleaned from John L. Smith and Scott Linehan from Louisville and Joe Tiller and Jim Chaney from Purdue. I can't say I'm a huge fan of Meyer's passing game, but it's definitely more sophisticated than what Rodriguez has going on.

But Rodriguez is a bright guy and his passing game originally derived from (though is a long way now) the old run and shoot. So you'd think he could remedy this. Yet with nothing but true freshman, that evolution will have to wait. The longer they wait, however, the farther behind they fall. The only hope is the increased athleticism masks these deficiencies.

On a related note, below are some cut-ups of Oklahoma and Oregon, two of the better spread teams.





UPDATE: Brian Cook of mgoblog chimes in with thoughts here. Also, it's worth pointing out that I don't mean to say that the sophistication of Rich Rod's passing game (and by "sophistication" I mean efficacy -- i.e. how well the passing schemes fit with the protection, reads, and quarterback actions to actually get guys open on rhythm) was the sine qua non of increased success at UM, talent, fit, and techniques all be damned. Instead, it is just one more piece of the puzzle for Michigan to eventually get back to being a National Championship type team. Nevertheless, stagnant schematics and gameplanning is among the many issues inherent in (a) taking over a new program, and then (b) starting a true freshman quarterback, and a serious one, though at the margins behind the more obvious areas where Michigan must clearly improve.

2. Football pet peeves from Pro-football Reference Blog. Check it out here. A couple of the best ones:

JKL: Also, timeouts called to determine whether to challenge. I’m pretty sure I have seen Herm Edwards do this. Nothing quite as gut-wrenching and mind numbing as watching your coach burn two timeouts in a row.

...

JKL: Announcers who refer to how costly an intentional grounding penalty is, because of the loss of down. Hello! If he had simply held the ball and taken the sack, he risks a fumble and a sack also results in a “loss of down”. It’s actually one of the smarter penalties a player can risk taking. Rarely does a QB do it without a sack being eminent. At least half the time, they can convince the ref that they were trying to throw it to someone and got it close. And when they don’t, they don’t lose anything except the same result as a sack.

3. NCAA as cartel.

4. Coffee fix. Those who know me know that coffee is often my favorite reason for getting up on a given day. So I was happy to stumble on this new blog, Manhattan Roasts.