Spring Theory

All this noise about Texas moving to a power running game in the offseason must just be a coincidence in timing with the Malcolm Brown sweepstakes.

One thing will never change about offensive football. If you go get the biggest, baddest, fastest dude on the field and give him the ball continuously, it will always work to a degree. Texas, at times, appears like they try to be everything on offense and end up not being real good at any of them. Handing the ball off to Brown with a lead blocker will be an easier formula than finding another Colt McCoy.

Why does it have to be the SEC offense? Why not USC? They run a pro set and still manage to use all of their weapons. However, they are (typically) able to run the ball with some authority.

Nice read NR, but I disagree with your thought about the spread (HAH!) of Muschamp’s weapons tech to the rest of the league. It’s a good line, though.

Right now in the Big XII you undoubtedly have two of the top 3 or 5 defensive minds (don’t know where Tuberville ranks honestly, so sorry ded) in college football in Muschamp and Pelini. Guys like these are continually tweaking, changing, implementing and the transition from a traditional 4-3 to a 4-2-5 or 3-3-5 stack is well…natural. It’s not that big of a mental leap to see that this was coming. We have like what…7 or 8 teams in the Big XII that run a spread-based offense?

It was only a matter of time, IMO.

Thanks for the morning fix NR. You’re like dime coverage sans cleavage..

“Historically the forward pass…” “The NFL is currently dominated by the forward pass…”

Moving to a pro-style offense would be to Texas’ benefit once Mack leaves. Mack doesn’t believe in motion or running multiple formations – probably because he believes it leads to turnovers, confusion and penalties. Over the long haul, Mack’s teams have about 1/2 the turnovers as Mackovic’s teams, so he may be onto something (though Mackovic’s teams more often played from behind).

I do believe the spread will stagnate unless it’s adopted more often by the NFL. When top QB’s realize they’ll hurt their draft chances by working exclusively out of the shotgun, they’ll be more apt to play for pro-style offenses.

I think the differences in Pac-10 & SEC have more to do with pace than anything. Let’s hope we lean more towards the Pac-10 side to avoid 6-3 victories.

I like the idea of going mainly 11 personnel on offense from EITHER the shotgun or under center. My biggest deal there is that it’s a combination of both in order to avoid the kind of situation with a team like OU where they have you absolutely booked on offense because you are only running one formation. Mix in some Monroe/Goodwin misdirection/jet sweep plays from the four-wide and a few five-wide shotgun sets to keep the defense off balance and some USC-type pre-snap motion sets from under center, shake well, and bingo! An offense that isn’t easier to gameplan against than, uh, the basketball one…

Mr. Mike: yeah, I’m not suggesting Muschamp is the author of the tweaks or all the defenses that are catching on but he was amongst the first to start use nickel-bases, pattern-reading, and other SEC technology to the Big 12.
OU has been advanced beyond the rest of the league for awhile but they insist on leaving in 3 linebackers and have lacked big time players at safety since Evil Roy.

Eskimohorn: Texas runs an offense frequently used in the NFL. That was one of my points.
The Colts use 2 basic formations and run a handful of plays. They don’t try to trick anyone they just run whatever play will work best against the given defense. The Saints and Patriots both operate out of 4 and 5 WR offenses routinely.

Jinx: The USC offense is not that terribly different from the Texas offense except without the use of many spread formations or the shotgun. They use the zone-running game. It’s possible Texas will make a few minor tweaks next year like using the I-Formation or moving Gilbert under center but still using the same inside/outside zone playbook. In that event Texas will resemble Indy or USC even more.

Rover: There are some pretty big differences between us an Indy. The reason the offense works for them — and worked for Jim Kelly’s Buffalo teams before that — was the mastery over the scheme displayed by Kelly, Peyton Manning, Ted Marchibroda, and Tom Moore.

One aspect of that is that the offensive coordinator can prepare for any defense they’ll see. We can’t do that because ours isn’t a master of a system, merely an owner of coctail napkins with those plays on them.

Second, both Kelly and Manning called the plays. They knew all the defenses and got their teams into the right play. This, in my opinion, is a good way to be good but a horrible way to be great (as evidenced by the 1-5 Superbowl record of those two teams). One good defense with weeks to prepare can screw you up for one game.

But even worse for us, McCoy didn’t really audible. All of our plays were guesswork, and badly executed guesswork at that. While Manning might have a good play 90% of the time, we were closer to 40-50%. 60-70% on our good days. The most we did was run that WR screen instead of running into an 8 man front.

The Colts don’t trick anyone (the Saints do), and neither did Buffalo. It’s one of the most simple offenses at their competition level, as is ours. However they don’t need to fool you because they simply adjust to whatever you give them. We don’t, and that’s the big key. We’re just simple. They are simple but flexible.

ChrisApplewhite: no I definitely agree. Colt’s sophomore year Davis tried to make him more responsible for audibles and calls at the line and then ditched the effort after one of the 4 turnover games early in the season.
I’m not sure if you give Davis enough credit for preparing for defenses as he was able to work out ways to blow up Alabama and OU on a few occasions. He’s not enough of a master to get every call right from the booth with our scheme, which may be damning enough, but he does work out effective ways to exploit weaknesses.
I should have pointed out Manning mastery of the line calls as being the essential ingredient to destroying teams with simple schemes. With Colt it was either a good call that he could execute with his accuracy or him simply buying time and making an off-schedule play. Not nearly as reliable.
My comparison of the Texas and New Orleans offenses is only in the use of particular 5-wide plays.
If you argued, Texas attempts to duplicate what Indianapolis does on offense without the execution of the zone running game, the ability to audible and adjust at the line, and the employment of a running back draw play you would have no argument from me.