The above statements have me very perplexed.
They remind me of the time a caller asked Bobby Wilder if he had plans to run the ball more after the Maryland loss, and he replied "We run the Spread, we don't plan to use the run much." He then mentioned Oregon as a program that influenced his offensive philosophy. That left me scratching my head as Oregon's Spread was a run-first read option.
In the previous post examples, BW and the media repeatedly tout the move to the 3-4, citing Blackwell's experience and success with it at ECU.
This has bothered me since January because I did not see the the specialized players normally associated with the 3-4 defense.
So I did some research and discovered that apparently David Blackwell did NOT run a 3-4 successfully at Jacksonville or ECU.
In fact, at ECU he apparently he dropped the existing 3-4 and installed the 4-2-5 when he got there. Indeed, in his own words, he is partial to the the 4-2-5 base.
Out of necessity at ECU; because of talent deficiencies and the best utilization of players at hand, he modified the 4-2-5 to use a "bandit" to help with setting the edge. This entailed using 3 and even two down linemen at times depending on the situation. However,
that was not a 3-4 defense.
https://www.newsobserver.com/sports/arti...24000.html
https://bonesville.net/2018/01/26/blackw...p-defense/
It seems that David Blackwell has brought this defensive concept with him, and I am very optimistic.
https://www.dailypress.com/sports/dp-spt...story.html
I think he is a great asset to the program. I believe that we will have a real defense (2016 debatable) for the first time in our short history.
What I don't understand is the months of 3-4 rhetoric from both BW and Harry Minium, which is not even close to being accurate - just as BW's characterization of his Spread with the Oregon analogy.
That your HC doesn't always seem to know what is going on is not a good look.