Excellent article on the rise and dominance of the Spread Offense
Bill Connelly takes you through the evolution of the modern spread from the Air Raids and Spread to Shred of 1997 to the dominance of LSU in 2019 (and KC in the NFL).
I thought this was going to be about herd immunity.
Thank god we finally moved into a modern offense. Outside of the run game ineptness of the first half of last season I've liked Gattis a lot so far. Let's see what the offense can do with a year of experience in the system and an actual QB run game threat.
well written but no quotes from Don Brown.
Maybe he’s still trying to figure out the 2005 Rich Rod version? He clearly can’t figure out the Urban Meyer 2006-2018 version.
He had Urban Meyer's offense figured out in 2016 and 2017. Our offense couldn't cut it. We were up 17-7 when Metellus dropped that interception that would have likely sealed the game. Instead, Michigan didn't score another point until overtime.Then, the John O'Korn game. We were doing fine until Haskins came in and even had a chance to win with 2.5 minutes left until the ultimate O'Korning.
In 2018, OSU switched from a running spread to a passing spread. Haskins was the start of that in 2017. So, if you want to complain about the 2-2.5 games against OSU, fine. His system isn't built for that. His system is built to stop Urban Meyer's offense that Meyer used through 2017 and it did just that until Meyer changed his offense.
I'd be fine switching to a DC with a system that is built to stop an elite passing spread, but I haven't seen anyone that is able to do that yet, which is why it is taking over football at every level.
You don't "stop" it. You need to score more points than the other side with stops in key/critical situations. That's unfortunately a concept Michigan has struggled with for almost 15 years because it's not the way foobawl was played when they wore leather helmets. I'm glad to see they're moving in the right direction under Gattis.
joeyb, wasn't the Metellus drop you're referring to in the 2017 home game? I've blocked most of the 2016 game (and 2017, honestly) out of my mind for sanity purposes, so please let me know if I'm wrong, TIA
You’re correct.
Michigan did have a 17-7 lead in the second half of 2016 at one point. But the dropped interception came in 1st half of the 2017 game, with Michigan holding a 14-0 lead.
where's the fullback?
"Defensively, the answer is to play press man, take away all those easy RPOs and throws. But now you're seeing teams like LSU that throw a bunch of rub routes and pick routes" -- route combinations designed to beat man coverage -- "because you're giving them so much single coverage.
That was an interesting line to me. It's funny, all this modern stuff with the RPO and what not has basically taken all the fancy zone defenses away, and gotten us back to where BYU proved 35 years ago: man coverage stinks. You can have the best man coverage guys in the world, but as BYU proved 35 years ago with a bunch of 25 year old white guys who ran 4.8 40s, man coverage can't handle mesh, so just run mesh til they die. That's what the spreads have done now, get everyone back in position to get BYU'd to death
And getting it back to Michigan, I think it makes me happy we have Don Brown, because the modern offensive game is forcing EVERYONE to play press man, so we might as well have a DC that likes to play that way and understands how to coach that way. Offensive innovation just isn't going to allow Michigan to play the nice soft/safe coverages we used to be able to use, so there's no point wanting that. You're going to have to live and die in man coverage.
When we got Rich Rod in 08, people were upset about going to the spread, that it wasn't "manball" (whatever that stupid word means), and the spread would never work in the B1G (I heard this several times).
Then Urban Meyer (who praised Rich Rod as a football offense genius at the time) took Rich Rod's spread, tweaked it here and there, and ran roughshod over us and the majority of the B1G with it.
Now almost everybody runs a variant of it, with maybe the exceptions of Iowa and Wisconsin. Heck, even Saban has capitulated to allowing its usage at Bama.
Also, Lloyd Carr, in a rare moment of innovation, used the pass spread to beat Florida in his last bowl game. And I watched that game and said "Where was THIS offense all season?"
I was the biggest Rich Rod apologist out there from 2008 to 2010. Then I convinced myself, after he was fired, that the man didn't put an emphasis on the other side of the football. Lack of defense was his ultimate undoing and remained so through his final year at Arizona. The guy would've dominated college football if he just hired a competent defensive staff and placed an emphasis on recruiting better defenders. It's mind boggling.
Great read!
The chess match or arms race is so fascinating to me. To stop the RPO you have to play man to make fewer guys in conflict, but then they run crossing and run routes, and you’d better have the guys to make those runs and exchanges. So, what do DC’s do, they drop into man-zone combos, like we saw Brown do this past season, and have more success against those route designed to beat press-man. So then the OC switches back, if they can.
Although many roast Brown, and perhaps rightly, for the failures against OSU, I think this article clearly shows that a great offense — characterized by being multiple — is almost impossible to stop completely. They have the initiative, and with the right guys, can simply go where you’re not. To me, all the X’s & O’s aside, it usually still comes down to a player making a great play on defense or special teams, and changing the game at a pivotal point.
Fun stuff!
These coaches, especially the offensive ones, never mention the constant rule tweaks that have been happening since 2000 or even earlier, that always favor the offense, leaving defenses to struggle for awswers. That pisses me off. Being a defensive minded guy I would get fed up real fast when we seemingly can’t stop a team or a scheme this year that we could last year and the reason is. They’re cheating. Things that were a flag or more likely not attempted for fear of a flag, are simply. Allowed.
If I was a DC I would take the same approach RR & Leach did back when. Let’s fuck them over by daring the refs to call it, then if they ever do. Immediately do it again and again cuz they’ll quit calling it. In RRs case, it wall illegal man downfield and offensive holding by his receivers downfield. In Leach’s case, blatant pick routes and more holding by his RBs & receivers.
So, what would/could a DC do that would mimic this attitude.
Here’s a few.
1. line man is engaged with you like a run but you see pass, stop trying to fight upfield against him. Invite him to dance and drag him 5,6, 8 yds downfield and fucking MAKE them call it ineligible. OR..,take a page from Bo’s book in stopping Woody’s “T” and have your D linemen trained to collapse and take the blockers legs out as soon as you feel them wanting to slide off you and get upfield.
2. On plays where you recognize the coming pick, act like you DONT see it and fucking level BOTH recievers. The concussion is the fault of their offensive coaches teaching them to purposely get in the path of a player that COULD be coming down with speed
3. When that WR has both hands full of your jersey 15yds downfield and you want him off? I’ll teach my DBs a simple move that uses one hand to trap their arm into your body while you spin across with the other, dislocating their elbow. Scream dirty but the holding that you engaged in at the behest if your coaches was the first dirty move in this exchange, we’re just taking it up a notch since the refs won’t do their jobs.
4. For tempo teams, another nifty little cheat they started getting away with cuz the refs seeded their authority to the OC’s, I’d have my guys get off any pile like an old man with a diaper full. Call it on me!! Then if you do? Call it again!! Then again, I’ll break you the same way those OCs did. I’d also have my D instructed to block their QBs view to his sideline like defending a bball inbounds pass as long between plays as they can. Enjoy officiating that one.
Holy shit, this was a great response. Dislocating opponents' arms might be a little over the top, but I like the sentiment. I especially like 2 and 4 as picking and running tempo seem to be the two most irritating bending of the rules offenses use to their advantage.
It’s just that I see scores of 86-73 coming if we continue on the current path. Literally basketball on grass. Where all that matters in a game is who has the last possession.
Defense cannot evolve to keep pace if the rules of the game are based on the fashion of the moment.