How many plays are in a conventional college playbook?

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  • geetarguy
    Rookie
    • Apr 2010
    • 222

    #1

    How many plays are in a conventional college playbook?

    I was just curious, I heard somewhere between the 80s and 100s, and then I read somwhere that there are more like around 1000 plays? Would anyone happen to know?
  • BHavenBlazer
    Rookie
    • Jul 2011
    • 119

    #2
    Re: How many plays are in a conventional college playbook?

    Alot of it is the same play, just out of different formations. Around 100 plays sounds about right, but with the different formations, it can into the thousands.

    Comment

    • PowerofRed25
      MVP
      • Jul 2011
      • 1477

      #3
      Re: How many plays are in a conventional college playbook?

      Originally posted by geetarguy
      I was just curious, I heard somewhere between the 80s and 100s, and then I read somwhere that there are more like around 1000 plays? Would anyone happen to know?
      It depends on the offense, but there would never be 1000 different plays. Maybe 1000 different combinations, but certainly not 1000 plays.

      Guys like Paul Johnson and his Flexbone and Mike Leach and his Air Raid MAYBE have 50-75 total plays in their offense. And on game day, they take 20-40 of them in with them. They watch film and narrow down to the best 20-40 plays against that week's opponent and they practice them nonstop during the week.

      In the case of Mike Leach's air raid, they could literally create hundreds of different plays off of a single play call. For example:

      Mike Leach's favorite play call is Six, known to the rest of you as Four Verticals. If he calls Blue Right Six (Blue Right being a split back with a tight end formation) he can add a tag to the end of that play to take advantage of something they see on film or from the coaches booth. Think of it like a hot route, but pre-determined. So it could become Blue Right Six Y Shallow. Which gives you the same play, everyone running verticals except the Y receiver (the tight end) changes and runs a shallow cross. Using one single play as a base, Leach is able to create dozens of plays.

      It is the same concept for Chip Kelly. Oregon literally runs no more than 12 plays in a game. They are inside zone, outside zone, counter, speed option and then play action off of all of it. Where they get multiplicity is via formations, shifts, motions and tags. They can run their base 12 dozen plays out of dozens of formations. They can take their base inside zone and add an option call to it and make it a triple option. They can take their base outside zone and change the read from the defensive end to the three technique defensive tackle (midline option). They can take their base outside zone call, change the blocking call to have uncovered linemen pull and you get the buck sweep that Gus Malzahn runs all day at Auburn and now Ark State. When you're running at warp speed and signaling in plays fast, you can't have 150 different plays.

      Nebraska in 1996 ran:

      10 different outside runs
      19 different inside runs
      16 pass plays

      That is it. That was the entire offense. Now each of these plays could be mirrored to go the opposite direction and could be run out of multiple formations but in the end, the Nebraska playbook in the 90's was 45 plays.

      That is the trend in football, especially in high school but now in college and even somewhat in the pros. Less plays, more formations. It is so much easier to teach a new formation than it is 150 different plays. The most successful offensive teams at every level are those that perfect a dozen or so plays and run them over and over out of different looks.

      That is where EA gets playbooks wrong. I made a thread on here a while back about Modular Custom Playbooks. Where I said instead of having certain plays be in certain formations, when doing custom books, you should be able to select the plays you want to run, then select the formations you want to use and then you'll have every play of your offense available in every formation.

      Comment

      • BHavenBlazer
        Rookie
        • Jul 2011
        • 119

        #4
        Re: How many plays are in a conventional college playbook?

        PowerofRed, its post like these that makes you , by far, my favorite poster on this site. You know football. Do you coach?
        Originally posted by PowerofRed25
        It depends on the offense, but there would never be 1000 different plays. Maybe 1000 different combinations, but certainly not 1000 plays.

        Guys like Paul Johnson and his Flexbone and Mike Leach and his Air Raid MAYBE have 50-75 total plays in their offense. And on game day, they take 20-40 of them in with them. They watch film and narrow down to the best 20-40 plays against that week's opponent and they practice them nonstop during the week.

        In the case of Mike Leach's air raid, they could literally create hundreds of different plays off of a single play call. For example:

        Mike Leach's favorite play call is Six, known to the rest of you as Four Verticals. If he calls Blue Right Six (Blue Right being a split back with a tight end formation) he can add a tag to the end of that play to take advantage of something they see on film or from the coaches booth. Think of it like a hot route, but pre-determined. So it could become Blue Right Six Y Shallow. Which gives you the same play, everyone running verticals except the Y receiver (the tight end) changes and runs a shallow cross. Using one single play as a base, Leach is able to create dozens of plays.

        It is the same concept for Chip Kelly. Oregon literally runs no more than 12 plays in a game. They are inside zone, outside zone, counter, speed option and then play action off of all of it. Where they get multiplicity is via formations, shifts, motions and tags. They can run their base 12 dozen plays out of dozens of formations. They can take their base inside zone and add an option call to it and make it a triple option. They can take their base outside zone and change the read from the defensive end to the three technique defensive tackle (midline option). They can take their base outside zone call, change the blocking call to have uncovered linemen pull and you get the buck sweep that Gus Malzahn runs all day at Auburn and now Ark State. When you're running at warp speed and signaling in plays fast, you can't have 150 different plays.

        Nebraska in 1996 ran:

        10 different outside runs
        19 different inside runs
        16 pass plays

        That is it. That was the entire offense. Now each of these plays could be mirrored to go the opposite direction and could be run out of multiple formations but in the end, the Nebraska playbook in the 90's was 45 plays.

        That is the trend in football, especially in high school but now in college and even somewhat in the pros. Less plays, more formations. It is so much easier to teach a new formation than it is 150 different plays. The most successful offensive teams at every level are those that perfect a dozen or so plays and run them over and over out of different looks.

        That is where EA gets playbooks wrong. I made a thread on here a while back about Modular Custom Playbooks. Where I said instead of having certain plays be in certain formations, when doing custom books, you should be able to select the plays you want to run, then select the formations you want to use and then you'll have every play of your offense available in every formation.

        Comment

        • PowerofRed25
          MVP
          • Jul 2011
          • 1477

          #5
          Re: How many plays are in a conventional college playbook?

          Originally posted by BHavenBlazer
          PowerofRed, its post like these that makes you , by far, my favorite poster on this site. You know football. Do you coach?
          I do not coach, I just love this stuff. I study it all the time, I have a stack of playbooks on my desk that I study and love getting to know what these coaches run. I'd love to coach some day, I love the strategy of the game.

          I was looking forward to opening this thread when I saw the title because I knew it was a general misconception I could try to better explain.

          Of course, there are always exceptions. There are some coaches that believe in multiplicity in plays, a coach like Bill Callahan when he was here at Nebraska would be one of them. His playbook was 5-6 inches thick. Obviously not all of that is plays, but that is overkill. It is so hard for teams at any level, NFL included, to perfect all these plays. From what I've learned, the best offensive teams don't even hand out playbooks. They have a dozen or so printed out for the coaching staff, but players do not receive playbooks. It forces you, as a coach, to do your job and explain it. Guys learn their role and they do it.

          Comment

          • PowerofRed25
            MVP
            • Jul 2011
            • 1477

            #6
            Re: How many plays are in a conventional college playbook?

            The other thing I'd like to bring up, specifically about Mike Leach's (and guys like Kliff Kingsbury now at A&M and Dana Holgorsen, my favorite coach, at WVU) offenses is just how specific they are in their offensive roles. Where in NCAA 12 you have a WR depth chart that is 6 deep and if one guy goes down, the next guy slides up, in his offenses, you play one WR position. Michael Crabtree played one WR position his entire career, always on the same side of the field. Justin Blackmon at OSU is the same way (although Holgorsen and Monken utilized a lot more motion which had him shift).

            It allowed those WR's to get their position down specifically. You didn't have to learn plays and routes from 4 different spots on the field, if you were the X receiver, you stayed at X receiver. Perfection through repetition. Same thing with Wes Welker at Tech, he played that inside slot position and owned it.

            That is what allows these teams to run a couple dozen plays a game, they have them down so perfectly they don't care what defense you're in, they're going to out-execute you. A number of plays in Mike Leach's air raid offense are packaged concepts. Where you have different coverage beaters on either side. So if you're in a 2x2 spread formation. You may have a Smash concept to one side (corner/hitch combo) which will beat Cover 2 and Man and a slant/flat combo to the other side which will be your blitz beaters. You cannot defend that. No matter what you call defensively, the offense has something to beat it. It is just about the QB reading it. Don't have a good QB and you're going nowhere.

            Okay, tangent finished for now. Love this topic though. Love when real football gets brought up on here.

            Comment

            • Dr Death
              Air Raid
              • May 2009
              • 1632

              #7
              Re: How many plays are in a conventional college playbook?

              Originally posted by PowerofRed25

              Okay, tangent finished for now. Love this topic though. Love when real football gets brought up on here.
              Some very good posts Red. Very glad to see another Mike Leach fan, especially considering your team faced him for a number of years. My two favorite offenses are the Air Raid and Run & Shoot. Both have a small number of plays and both have short terminology.

              Like the example you gave; Blue Right 6 - Y Shallow or in the R&S an example play call is Rip 60 Go. These shorter play calls get the offense in, and out, of the huddle quicker and to the line where the QB has time to read the defense.

              One thing I've never liked about certain West Coast offenses is that the terminology is SO lengthy. I've heard and seen many West Coast plays/playbooks and one play is damn near a paragraph long, which just takes so much time.

              Anyway... nice to see someone else who's into the strategy of the game. Sadly, EA will never get these aspects correct because it would require them to do a lot more work, but everything you've said is right on and many of the things that relate to the game are things many of us have been asking for for years.
              Dr Death
              Air Raid

              Comment

              • geetarguy
                Rookie
                • Apr 2010
                • 222

                #8
                Re: How many plays are in a conventional college playbook?

                Wow, thanks so much for this information. Do you use this mindset (I guess you could say) when creating a playbook?

                Comment

                • BHavenBlazer
                  Rookie
                  • Jul 2011
                  • 119

                  #9
                  Re: How many plays are in a conventional college playbook?

                  I do. I run alot of the same plays out of different formations. I have 35 formations and 373 plays in my playbook(I use one playbok for 5 different Offensive schemes for my online dynasties). Basically, what i'm saying is i use formations and personnel to create mismatches over the field when you adjust.

                  For example, if i'm having trouble running the dive out of shotgun spread flex, i'll go to gun trio and run it from there. No success? Normal flex wing and try it. Still nothing, Ace trio hb dive from under center.

                  Comment

                  • PowerofRed25
                    MVP
                    • Jul 2011
                    • 1477

                    #10
                    Re: How many plays are in a conventional college playbook?

                    Originally posted by Dr Death
                    Some very good posts Red. Very glad to see another Mike Leach fan, especially considering your team faced him for a number of years. My two favorite offenses are the Air Raid and Run & Shoot. Both have a small number of plays and both have short terminology.

                    Like the example you gave; Blue Right 6 - Y Shallow or in the R&S an example play call is Rip 60 Go. These shorter play calls get the offense in, and out, of the huddle quicker and to the line where the QB has time to read the defense.

                    One thing I've never liked about certain West Coast offenses is that the terminology is SO lengthy. I've heard and seen many West Coast plays/playbooks and one play is damn near a paragraph long, which just takes so much time.

                    Anyway... nice to see someone else who's into the strategy of the game. Sadly, EA will never get these aspects correct because it would require them to do a lot more work, but everything you've said is right on and many of the things that relate to the game are things many of us have been asking for for years.
                    Exactly, look how simple air raid teams are with terminology. If you huddle, you're in and out in no time. If you just run a sugar huddle or no huddle at all, a few hand signals for formation and play and you're done. QB verbally calls the blocking assignment to the line and off you go.

                    You look at most NFL sidelines and you'll see offensive coordinators or head coaches with gigantic diner menu sized call sheets. I guess in the NFL where you have head sets in helmets, unlimited practice time and generally experienced guys, you can get away with some of that stuff.

                    I am a big proponent of less is more. Get perfect at a couple base runs and base passes and you work off of that. I am a spread guy, I subscribe more to the Dana Holgorsen version of Mike Leach's offense, I love the downhill running game and a lot of the wrinkles he installs. Whereas Leach's running game is mesh, stick and other assorted quick throws, Holgorsen almost never runs mesh (an air raid staple), replaces it with a downhill run game and vertical passing off of it.

                    Look at that little jet screen he abused Clemson with. That play takes about 5 minutes to install and it is the most low risk pass you could have. Counts as a pass but works just like a run and they had counter action off of it. Every little thing sets up the next, it is what is so beautiful about a lot of these offenses, whether it is Paul Johnson's flexbone, Urban Meyer's spread option, Mike Leach's air raid or Dana Holgorsen's power raid. It is so hard to key on something because all of it looks the same off the snap.

                    Comment

                    • PowerofRed25
                      MVP
                      • Jul 2011
                      • 1477

                      #11
                      Re: How many plays are in a conventional college playbook?

                      Originally posted by geetarguy
                      Wow, thanks so much for this information. Do you use this mindset (I guess you could say) when creating a playbook?
                      I absolutely do. Not a single one of my offensive playbooks is more than 200 plays in the game and most of it is repeat plays. My primary book is kind of a power air raid (it is called Holgoraid) since it is basically what Coach Holgorsen runs at WVU and what he ran at OSU.

                      It is basically half pistol, half shotgun and then I install a team specific short yardage offense. So if I have speed at QB and solid HB's, I add a Flexbone. If I have no speed at QB and a FB, I'll go I or Strong/Weak. If I have no FB, I go Ace.

                      More often than not, I never leave Pistol. I can run my whole offense from there. Spread them out with 3x1 or 2x2 4WR formations, if they spread out with me, I am quick audibling to a dive and running right up the middle. Occasionally I'll put a TE in there and run Trips TE or Twin TE Slot, usually it depends what I have for a TE that year.

                      The only reason I really ever go to gun is because there are a few unique plays/formations pistol just doesn't get me.

                      I tweak the playbook every year but I've run it across 3 dynasties for many seasons now.

                      Comment

                      • gmmsports
                        Rookie
                        • Aug 2010
                        • 41

                        #12
                        Re: How many plays are in a conventional college playbook?

                        I used to play offensive line for a division 2 school with a very sophisticated offense (engineering school). We were pretty good making second round of playoffs, leading nation in yards, and even had the harlon hill winner (division two heisman).

                        We had 13 run plays, 6 pass protection schemes, 4 screens, and numerous passing plays and probably 40 route combinations. So that's a total of 60+ plays. However we ran these plays out of numerous numerous formations. So we had the capability of probably getting to a 1000 plays total. The individual game plan would probably get narrowed down to 30 or 40 plays or less depending on opponent.

                        With the complexity of our offense I would say it is very similar to what the division 1 schools do. Our coach even got some props for a play he designed which WVU used to score 4 TD's againt Clemson.

                        See link:

                        http://bruce-feldman.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/31626208/34204146
                        Last edited by gmmsports; 01-16-2012, 03:34 PM.

                        Comment

                        • PowerofRed25
                          MVP
                          • Jul 2011
                          • 1477

                          #13
                          Re: How many plays are in a conventional college playbook?

                          Originally posted by gmmsports
                          I used to play offensive line for a division 2 school with a very sophisticated offense (engineering school). We were pretty good making second round of playoffs, leading nation in yards, and even had the harlon hill winner (division two heisman).

                          We had 13 run plays, 6 pass protection schemes, 4 screens, and numerous passing plays and probably 40 route combinations. So that's a total of 60+ plays. However we ran these plays out of numerous numerous formations. So we had the capability of probably getting to a 1000 plays total. The individual game plan would probably get narrowed down to 30 or 40 plays or less depending on opponent.

                          With the complexity of our offense I would say it is very similar to what the division 1 schools do. Our coach even got some props for a play he designed which WVU used to score 4 TD's againt Clemson.

                          See link:

                          http://bruce-feldman.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/31626208/34204146
                          I mentioned that play a bit earlier. One of my absolutely favorites and I love that Holgorsen gave Coach Stitt that mention on national TV. I wish more coaches at this level would shed some light on some of the DII, DIII, high school level coaches where a lot of their stuff comes from. In the majority of cases, some of the most inventive stuff offensively comes from those levels because they don't have the talent to manhandle opponents.

                          Guys like Gus Malzahn and Chad Morris coming up from the high school level and finding a ton of success helps shed some light on those lower level coaches. Really hope some more of them get looks when jobs open.

                          That little jet/fly pass could be the basis of an entire offense if a team really wanted to. Just off the top of my head you could do this:

                          For the run game:

                          - Inside and outside zone to the back (read or no read, depending on QB)
                          - Speed option away from motion (which is the action Holgorsen runs off of the jet pass)
                          - Horn sweep (A Nevada play, basically the Wing T Buck Sweep)

                          For the pass game:

                          - Jet/fly motion tap jet pass
                          - Bubble screen to the motion guy (if he gained depth on his motion)
                          - A jailbreak screen from the boundary from the side the motion is going
                          - Your entire base passing game
                          - Play action off of all the above runs

                          God I love that play so much. So many great plays can be run off that.

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