"The Spread", spread offenses, and keeping up with trends (long)

[stylee]

This undoubtedly belongs in some other forum, but because the subject matter is mostly college football, lots of people read this forum, and there are applications in NCAA Football to what I'm saying, I'll keep it here.


I want to get something out of the way - there is no "The Spread Offense (tm)."

Chris Johnson at Smartfootball has blogged on this but, for the large part, I find that fans and commentators are blissfully unaware of this.

There are plenty of offenses that emphasize spread formations and it makes perfect sense to call these spread offenses. But the formational similarities might be the only thing they have in common.

Let's take Texas Tech and West Virginia. I've heard so so many announcers refer to them as both running The Spread Offense even though their offensive philosophies are fundamentally different.

Texas Tech spreads the field to open up their (mostly) horizontal passing game. Mike Leach (along with Hal Mumme and Christ Hatcher) came up with this "Airraid" many years ago but he'd admit it's not revolutionary in its concepts. For all the flak his quarterbacks get for not running a "Pro-Style system", the concepts are mostly from the West Coast Offense. The difference is that they use 4 Wide Recievers to accomplish many of the same things that the WCO did from "The Pro Set (tm)."
Pass to set up the run (or even just pass to set up the pass).


WVU, on the other hand, spreads the field to open up their dynamic running game. By forcing defenders to move outside, they've opened up inside running lanes, which they exploit through a combination of counters, draws, the zone read, and the true triple option. This is not to say that they're opposed to throwing it, of course - just that throwing is something to do when the defense keys too much on the run, it works as a constraint to teams overdefending the rushing attack.

That's a very simplified version of gameplanning but it gives a picture of how different some spread offenses are.


Even pass-first spread offenses can't be bunched together though.
Hawaii and SMU do not run the same spread offense as Texas Tech or Purdue. The former teams run some version of the Run and Shoot offense.

Texas Tech's passing game relies on a relatively small number of concepts practiced to perfection with routes and concepts that complement each other and definite progressions for the quarterbacks. Again, it's largely horizontal.

Hawaii and SMU is the same in the sense that they practice a few concepts to perfection but the driving force behind these concepts is the idea of choice routes. The WRs have a series of options based on coverages they see during the play. They run where the defense aint.

I could throw tons of other examples out but my take home message is simple.

In general - there is no The Spread Offense. The commentators who blabber about it and the type of players it produces are either dumbing themselves down to the lowest common denominater or are themselves just that uninterested in understanding the multiplicity of offenses.

It's been very trendy to speak of The Spread and its benefits for the past few years, just as now it's become trendy to talk about how revolutionary the "Wildcat Offense" is - even though the basic premise has been around since, oh...the early 20th century.

When an offense is not trendy, the argument against it is usually the same, no matter what it is - " Defenses today are too athletic for THAT to work. It may have worked in the past, but the game has changed."

The application to playing video games is that you should probably work to develop an offensive identity and get good at it. Don't waste your time running speed options and the double spin reverse jet rocket james gang butterback special if what you really want to do is exploit favorable matchups in the horizontal passing game.

This approach might be limited because of the nature of video games - stupidity of defensive AI, existence of cheese plays, the success you can have with just having speed and nothing else - but these flaws are being improved (hopefully) with every new gen and game.

[TrevJo]

Quote: Originally Posted by stylee

In general - there is no The Spread Offense. The commentators who blabber about it and the type of players it produces are either dumbing themselves down to the lowest common denominater or are themselves just that uninterested in understanding the multiplicity of offenses.

It's the same thing as West Coash Offense. For years, people have been referring to all kinds of offenses as West Coast even though they were vastly different in philosophy, personnel, and play-calling. It's a fairly generic classification rather than a specific descriptor.

In the case of Texas Tech, I do think it's inaccurate to call it the spread. West Virginia is more like what I think of as a spread offense.

[sportyguyfl31]

Simply put. There are 2 types of "spread offenses"


The Urban Meyer "Spread Option" is really triple option football football, dressed up in a shotgun formation, to con kids into playing it (slight sarcasm there, but you get my point, I hope)

Seriously though, What's really the difference between what TIm Tebow does in this offense, and this guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np6jmBlK1MA


The texas tech spread is basically the june jones run and shoot.

[Special27K]

Quote: Originally Posted by sportyguyfl31

Simply put. There are 2 types of "spread offenses" The Urban Meyer "Spread Option" is really triple option football football, dressed up in a shotgun formation, to con kids into playing it (slight sarcasm there, but you get my point, I hope) Seriously though, What's really the difference between what TIm Tebow does in this offense, and this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np6jmBlK1MA The texas tech spread is basically the june jones run and shoot.

I like the comparison with Tebow actually it makes a lot of sense, his passing numbers are better but, they have the same skill set really.

[stylee]

Sporty - I definitely get your point about players wanting to play in the shotgun as opposed to under center. I'm plagued by this right now as a coach - we primarily operate out of the shotgun but we always run some under center option stuff because it hits more quickly. The players think it's somehow theoretically inferior.


The Run and Shoot is not, however, the same as Texas Tech's Airraid.

There are a few concepts that are in every Run and Shoot playbook - Switch, Go, Choice, etc. that just don't exist in the Airraid. The Airraid is based on stuff like Mesh, Shallow, Y-Cross, Y-Stick, etc.

The focus in the Run and Shoot is on having a variety of routes available to the WR during the play. So on "Go", the Seam Read guy can potentially run a Seam, a Post, a Curl, or a Dig/Deep Cross.

In the Airraid, WRs have choices but not to nearly the same extent. For instance, in Mesh, the crossing guys can stop in a zone after they cross each other if it's there or the guy running the corner can flatten out if the cornerback is playing him a certain way.

They're different, and I don't think it's merely a matter of degree...the offenses are designed to do different things.


Yes, they both pass a lot, but they're different spread offenses.

[stylee]

Quote: Originally Posted by Special27K

I like the comparison with Tebow actually it makes a lot of sense, his passing numbers are better but, they have the same skill set really.

I disagree to an extent.

Crouch was a sprinter, not the tank that Tebow is. They run some of the same stuff but they're very very different players. Tebow's obviously much better as a passer and Meyer's offense allows him to showcase that.

Tebow definitely runs some real triple option from the shotgun but he does more zone read than that.

I'd say there's definitely crossover in the option concepts - much moreso than what many want to admit when they're preaching the "revolutionary" nature of The Spread.

[TrevJo]

Quote: Originally Posted by stylee

I disagree to an extent. Crouch was a sprinter, not the tank that Tebow is. They run some of the same stuff but they're very very different players. Tebow's obviously much better as a passer and Meyer's offense allows him to showcase that. Tebow definitely runs some real triple option from the shotgun but he does more zone read than that. I'd say there's definitely crossover in the option concepts - much moreso than what many want to admit when they're preaching the "revolutionary" nature of The Spread.

Correct. Florida probably uses triple option less than 20% of the time, and other types of option (i.e. choice, zone read) maybe another 20% of the time. Many of Tebow's runs are designed QB runs and not options at all. "Tank" plays to use stylee's descriptor of the player type, that Crouch would not have been effective running. Many of the runs designed for Harvin/Demps/Rainey are also not option plays. I wouldn't disagree with calling Florida's offense "spread option," but at the same time I would not say that it is very similar to what Nebraska did with Crouch.

[stylee]

Quote: Originally Posted by TrevJo

Correct. Florida probably uses triple option less than 20% of the time, and other types of option (i.e. choice, zone read) maybe another 20% of the time. Many of Tebow's runs are designed QB runs and not options at all. "Tank" plays to use stylee's descriptor of the player type, that Crouch would not have been effective running. Many of the runs designed for Harvin/Demps/Rainey are also not option plays. I wouldn't disagree with calling Florida's offense "spread option," but at the same time I would not say that it is very similar to what Nebraska did with Crouch.

Very true. Many of Tebows runs are from singlewing-type plays...you know, the same sort of thing that the REVOLUTIONARY Wildcat comes from.