Following up on that last post, Ian Boyd asks the exact same question that popped into my head when I read that Manny Diaz quote from Connelly.
Within Connelly’s article is a point made by Manny Diaz, current head coach of the Miami Hurricanes.
“There’s such a thing as a ‘college football offense’: 90% of America runs 60% of the same plays.”
This point, clearly true when you study some playbooks, leads to a follow up question. What differentiates teams anymore? Does this turn the college football world that was once a tapestry of disparate tactics and styles into a monochromatic product? How in the world can the less-advantaged teams compete if everyone is doing the same thing?
Well, “compete” is doing some heavy lifting there. No, a school isn’t going to be able to run the triple option and compete for a national championship. But there’s still a niche for, say, Mississippi State to run the Air Raid and make itself a consistent pain in the ass that occasionally rises to the heights of nine or ten wins in a brutally tough division.
The real takeaway, though, is that if Diaz is right and Boyd is right, then running a program that makes its bones on talent accumulation — hint, hint, Kirby — means you ought to be doing what other elite programs are doing, because the difference at that point becomes the talent level — especially on the defensive side of the ball, if you’ve got the kids who are better at stopping what those other offenses are doing.
I used to argue that there was real value to being a contrarian in college football scheming, that in an era when defenses are geared to stop the spread attack, being the team that sticks to a power run game has its advantages. The problem with that philosophy these days is spread offenses have gotten so dynamic that it’s hard for a power attack to keep up, as anybody who watched the last SECCG game could tell you.
Plus, the rules.
Rodriguez has found plenty of ways to implement the RPO game into his playbook. It’s hard to see why you wouldn’t. “Anything you run in the quick passing game, you can basically tag onto a run play,” he said. “In college, where the [blockers] can get three yards downfield, you can run just about every run play, specifically your zone, with your quick game and have the best of both worlds.”
And that’s assuming the refs even bother to enforce that much.
Needless to say, I’m very curious to see where Kirby goes with the offense from here.
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Does Manny call this the Sex Panther offense? It would be a lot cooler if he did.
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60% of the time, it works every time.
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An offense made with bits of real panther, so you know it’s good.
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Yeah. And the other 40% of the time it works damn near half the time.
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You touch on it at the end, but I don’t think enough has been said about the changes in the rules of the game and/or how it is officiated. As football has made a transition to a spread game, changes in the name of safety have enabled that transition. They’ve happened on a continuum together, so it gets hard to distinguish.
But take that 2019 LSU offense and put it in 1992, and what you’ll end up getting is a lot of injured LSU receivers because they’re going to get blown up (legally, largely) for running in space. Yeah, they’d do well in a vacuum at first because there would be so many novel concepts, but the things a DC would do to stop them back then generally aren’t an option now.
It can’t be said enough how much the targeting rule has handcuffed the defense in slowing down a passing attack. Just that split second a DB or dropping LB has to hesitate to avoid getting ejected from the game has made all the difference in the world. And that’s not to mention that the three yards downfield rule that Rodriguez notes is often merely a suggestion, either because the rules committee doesn’t care to make it a priority for the referees or the referees can’t enforce it for more practical reasons.
Other than having the umpire stop the game to allow substitutions on defense when the offense substitutes, I can’t think of another rule change in the past 20 years that has benefitted the defense at the expense of the offense.
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If the rules weren’t so tilted to the offense and those rules that are in place (holding, OPI, linemen downfield) were enforced, you may be able to win with defense. That ship has sailed and isn’t coming back to port.
The SECCG wasn’t because our offensive style was deficient. It was because we had some personnel deficiencies (receivers, Pickens’ boneheaded suspension, Swift’s injury) and were terrible at strategy and execution on that day across the board (and for the 2nd half of the season). That same offensive style went toe-to-toe with Bama’s high-powered offense the year before and generated a comeback win for the ages against the poster child of offensive football with a Heisman winning QB.
Hey, I want to see Kirby turn Monken loose and let these guys we’ve recruited play the game. I want to see an offense that is as dynamic as our defense. That doesn’t mean we need to throw 50x per game. If we can get to where we are running for about 200 and throwing for 300 per game, we’ll score enough to allow our defense to suffocate opponents regardless of their scheme.
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UGA was living on borrowed time the entire second half of the 2019 season. The SECCG was when the bill came due.
You can tell yourself all you want that the offensive strategy from past seasons is good, but the Rose Bowl win came against a team with a terrible defense and Georgia lost both big games against ‘Bama.
Nobody is arguing that Georgia has to throw 50 times a game to win. Last season, LSU threw 39.8 times per game; Alabama threw 31.2 times per game; UGA threw 29.6 times per game. The thing is, LSU’s passer rating was 197.40 and Alabama’s was 199.61. When your passing game is that efficient, you should be throwing more.
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Burrow was also a more than capable threat as a runner. He kept passing plays alive and hurt UGA with his feet during the SECCG last year too. Same with Hurts subbing in the previous SECCG. Not only did UGA have issues passing, but the other DCs knew with the lack of depth at QB Kirby was not going to let Fromm run and take a lot of extra shots to his body.
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Senator, I am saying I want to see a dynamic offense. You are right the bill came due on n Atlanta.
We had a dynamic offense in 2017 and 2018. It was a great running game to set up an efficient passing game. I hated watching that offense last year after the South Carolina game (other than the WLOCP). Watching paint dry was more exciting than watching us run inside zone with no threat of a QB run or no apparent pass option off the run.
That Oklahoma defense only allowed 14 points in the 1st half of the Rose Bowl (that FG at the end of the half was the result of a special teams blunder – squib/pooch kicking rarely works). We gave up 31. What happened in the 2nd half was what should have been happening the entire game. We attacked the line of scrimmage on defense and made Douche Bag Frat Boy very uncomfortable. Once we showed we could stop them, their defense crumbled. If you want to blame the SECCG in 2018 on the offense, feel free (28 points should have been enough), but the defense let a QB they absolutely shut down the year before beat them.
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Seems to me Kirby knew he didn’t have an offense capable of keeping up with LSU’s.
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I get it and I agree. I bet that if our offense had had 200 yards rushing and 300 passing, we may not have won, but LSU would have known they had been in a fistfight instead of a pillow fight to get to the playoff.
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That LSU offense was historic. Its not going to be replicated every year. Or possibly EVER. We lost to Bama twice because of DEFENSE not the offense. The 1st year we lost because of lack of DBs and gave up the big play to lose. The 2nd time we had no pass rush. Now we have both. Our offense needs to adapt but mainly in the play calling and having better WRs like Clemson, Bama and LSU. It doesn’t have to be a full on spread, not with the OL and RBs we have collected.
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Clemson, Alabama and LSU have great OLmen and RBs, too.
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Sometimes I just don’t get you. I guess its writing a blog where everybody is so critical. None of those teams have the OL talent we have assembled. None. Bama is very close. But not in any way LSU or Clemson. But you completely ignored the point on the wideouts. We had very good WRs the prior two years and a very good offense and could’ve won the title and possibly even last year. But this year we didn’t have great receivers like those other 3. Not close. And obviously last year we were very limited with the WRs.
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Good post, Atticus. Clemson may look full on spread, but Travis Etienne is a game-breaking running back. I may be a bit contrarian with this comment, but in hindsight (yes, that’s 20/20), our offensive line frankly underachieved in 2019. When we needed a yard to get a first down on 3rd or 4th and short, we rarely got it. In multiple games, when we needed to grind out first downs to run clock, we didn’t and let teams back in games. We never really gave Swift a chance to bust a really long one as he had the previous couple of years.
While Trey Hill is big and athletic, we missed Lamont Gailliard in the middle of that offensive line.
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Yes I agree with you. But there was a reason we had two 1st round picks and still a $hit ton of talent still on the roster. WR is BY FAR where we have been deficient. And play calling.
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Our passing design and utilization was so horrible it wouldnt much matter. And a QB that never ever ran, free DB. Options that never optioned. We had good enough receivers.
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Kirby has to adapt or get left behind. It’s that simple. The pro style I formation with a TE offense has gone the way of the wishbone. Having a dynamic player at QB who presents a running as well as passing threat to the defense levels the playing field with the defense. The Free Safety can no longer hang out and play Center Field or double up the #1 WR. I think the main takeaway from this article is versatility with your players on both sides of the ball. TE’s that can go from in-line blocker to flex out and become a slot receiver or safeties that can drop down and play as an extra LB against the run go a long way in evening the odds.
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But we haven’t been running the old pro-style “I” formation in years really. We’ve been in this retarded spread / bunch look that ostensibly has multiple threats… yet we never tried to exploit said threats. Hell, we’d have probably been better off running an ‘I’-formation last year given what we never allowed Jake Fromm to do.
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Retarded bunched look is exactly how i describe it.
I watch the ravens a lot last year and they used a power style of football. But their line was easily 6 _ 8″ further apart. Which doesn’t sound like much until you multiply it by 5. Made a big difference
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I too was a big fan of the contrarian offense, but I have seen the light. I do think that being able to bully a team on the line of scrimmage still has value though. Most teams try to go faster and lighter, but if you can force them to defend the run without extra bodies they will be doomed.
I think LSU’s offense had a lot of this. The physical OL and RB gives Burrow plenty of time to find those elite WRs. Clemson didn’t have the big boys upfront and did something very different to try and deal with LSU. It worked for a half.
Sort of related… I didn’t think we had much of a chance against LSU, but during the game I saw how big the gap was. Our D did an OK job of slowing them down, but the offense was hopeless. There was no way we could keep up. Kirby seemed to feel the same way in the post game presser, and it was then that he started looking for Coley’s replacement.
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You can demand physicality and be physically dominant and not be stupid
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Poor coaching decisions on the utilization of Swift and the discipline of Pickens the previous week neutered the Georgia offense in the SECC. It was over when Blaylock went down. Scheme makes little difference when you don’t have the personnel to run it.
But the most discouraging takeaway in that game was LSU’s hurry-up offense nullifying Georgia’s defensive substitution pattern again. Those who remained in the game were ineffective in containing the QB and coordinating coverage. Georgia’s coaching staff did not learn their lesson in Baton Rouge.
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Well it helps if you’re offense stays on the field a minute
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Don’t let the numbers LSU put up in one special year completely skew your beliefs on football. There is nothing wrong today with being contrarian with a power running game. The difference between 2017 / 2018 and 2019 is that the 2017 and 2018 teams could either 1. still run the ball when teams stacked the box and / or 2. manage enough of a passing attack to force teams out of cover 1.
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Where did you get the idea you can’t run power out of a spread attack?
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That was a direct quote of what you wrote. I didn’t introduce a dichotomy of power vs. spread. That was you. You claimed you used to argue that there was value in a power running game when everyone was geared to stop the spread (this is where you make the power vs. spread dichotomy). You then say that the problem with your former belief is what happened in the SECCG vs LSU where you claimed that thei spread attack was so dynamic that it is hard for a power team could not keep up.
“Power”, by definition, is gap-blocking. You can run power form any formation and any size line-split, but I didn’t introduce power vs spread to the conversation.
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