(01-16-2018 11:55 PM)Intellectual_Brutality Wrote:  

(01-16-2018 09:22 PM)owl40 Wrote:  Good read and relevant to Rice (sans the Triple Option which it is not really about offensive scheme).
http://footballscoop.com/news/army-go-2-...-explains/

Meh, all these commandments are cliche. We hear similar language from Bloomgren (and probably Bailiff too, I forget).
I want to hear specific on what he does differently, if anything, from other programs and what structural advantages he has, if any. How much practice time does he spend on fundamentals versus, say, the average; how does he structure his practices, etc.
I recall someone saying that the service academies can in effect have 130+ person rosters, so that even though they're ll 2-stars, with enough of them you can find who develops and stands out.
I don't expect to hear any of this information from him, but the usual stuff is just platitudes

Yes, the commandments are the same from pretty much all coaches. But what matters is how you apply them.

One of the big things is whether you have a big playbook, or simplify and get enough reps to perfect them. The option teams really simplify and repeat. The Air Raid teams do the same thing. The Air Raid coaches will tell you that the most important part of the system is the practice plan, which doesn't really look like the practice plan for any other scheme. There is also a practice plan for installing the option. There are articles online about how both do it differently, and Leach talks at length about to in his book. They have fewer moving parts and fewer fundamentals, and they beat the crap out of them.

People say the option is not good if you fall three touchdowns behind or the Air Raid doesn't really have a good play for fourth and goal from the two. That's by design. They don't have those things because they don't try to, because they don't want to take practice time away from their bread and butter. Their theory is I'm going to do something different, and I'm going to execute it so perfectly that you can't stop it, and if there are certain situations that I can't handle very well, then I'll just try to stay out of them. Particularly now that practice times are so limited by the NCAA, the simplified approaches have appeal. So you have coaches who focus on simple schemes and execution and coaches who want a bigger playbook and are willing to live with execution errors in order to have the perfect play for every situation. I would put Monken and Leach in the first group, because they do basically the same thing, only differently. In Leach's book he talks about conversations with Barry Switzer while he was at OU in which they concluded that the wishbone and the Air Raid were basically the same offensive principle, having the QB distribute the ball to different players in space, applied differently.

I still think you could have an amazing offense by combining the option running game with the Air Raid passing game, and since both are very simplified and both can be run from the flexbone formation, I think it could be done if you had a very intelligent team and a dual threat QB. Paul Johnson successfully combined the option and the run-and-shoot at Georgia Southern with Tracy Ham and at Hawaii with Garrett Gabriel and Ivan Jasper. In both cases he was working with defensive-oriented coaches, Erk Russell at GS and Bob Wagner at Hawaii, who said the hardest running attack to stop is the option and the hardest passing attack to stop is the R&S, so let's combine a simplified version each. I used to stay up late Saturday nights and watch the Hawaii games because I loved watching their offense. They ran up 50+ twice against ranked BYU teams and 42 against ranked Notre Dame, and they sure as heck weren't out-athleting them. At Navy and Ga Tech, Johnson hasn't really had a QB who could throw it like Ham or Gabriel, or even Jasper, so he hasn't really gotten the throwing side implemented and instead has focused on making the run side more sophisticated, with more ways to block the option and stuff like that. I think he sometimes outthinks himself and tries to be too clever with it. I thought Ken did the same thing to some extent, and he had some QBs who could throw it--LaRocca and Herm come quickly to mind.

As far as the 130 two-stars approach, I don't think very many of them are even 2-stars, and I don't think many 2-stars develop into 4-stars or 5-stars, but what it does give you is the opportunity to get a lot more practice reps because you have a lot more dummy holders. Instead of running one drill and having to alternate your second and third teamers in so they can get reps, you can have the same drill going on in three places, with the first, second, and third teamers each getting a full set of reps. When execution is your big deal, that many more reps can be huge.

I think the option helps teams that are talent constrained for one reason. You need athletes to run it, not specialists. You don't need the 340-pound left tackles to pass protect, you don't need the pure passer who may not be able to run, and your wide receivers and slots have to block so you really can't use the little smurf type inside receivers. You want smaller, quicker linemen, and your QBs and backs and receivers have to be athletes. That means you have in theory a lot more depth because your offensive and defensive athletes are more interchangeable. Instead of a bunch of specialists who can only play on one side of the ball, you have guys that you can move to defense if they aren't picking up the offense, or if you are thin somewhere on defense, or if you just want to get a guy on the field somewhere and he is blocked on offense. Same holds true for moving players the other way. A guy who is athletic enough to play defense can generally contribute somewhere in an option offense if needed.

People criticized Bailiff for having too small a playbook. I thought he had too big a playbook based on the number of execution errors. Or maybe he just didn't run practice in a way that achieved pure execution. I find it interesting that Bloomgren is of the pound the rock mentality, but he brought on an OC who apparently favors the spread. And he has already talked about using the intelligence of his players and about having QBs call or adjust plays at the LOS and about being excited to see what he and his OC can cook up on offense. I could see something like a reprise of the Russell/Wagner/Johnson combination. At minimum, I would expect less meerkat and some RPO stuff. I hope they don't get lost trying too much.

Yeah, in one sense the Monken comments are cliches. But how you apply them makes a difference. It's a philosophy thing. I never really understood Bailiff's philosophy. I don't see how you can win playing conservatively when you are bad on defense and bad on special teams. That just does not compute. It will be interesting to see how Bloomgren's philosophy develops.