Comments on: Pattern Matching

By: dedfischer

dedfischer — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:36:06 +0000

From my observations across the country, I think the only real effective way to shut down a spread offense is with two badass DEs and a play side DT that requires a double team on run plays. Other than that, it’s just one big mismatch on the coverage side of things.

By: dedfischer

dedfischer — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:22:47 +0000

That’s what I’m thinking. I got schooled by this guy on pattern read zone for bitching about how our coverage scheme under Sentencich looked like half our guys were playing man and the other half were playing zone. All I know is that when it goes wrong, it results in your middle linebacker chasing Johnnie Lee Higgins on a crossing route all night and ending up with a stat line of about 11 catches for 200 yards.

By: HenryJames

HenryJames — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:17:15 +0000

If it has been that way for the last 10 years, I’m guessing it must be defensive coordinators’ answer to the spread.

By: dedfischer

dedfischer — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:15:52 +0000

I actually thin pattern read zone is the most predominant type of zone played in college and pro football today. One dude on our board, who is a DC at the high school level in Texas, claims it’s pretty much the standard zone coached today at the high school level. I may be a little behind the times, but he claims it has been that way for the last 10 years. My summation is that if you have good players, it doesn’t matter what you run on defense. Lyle Sentencich ran a pattern read zone scheme and our defense sucked.

By: HenryJames

HenryJames — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 19:48:07 +0000

Have you seen Heather Thomas lately?

By: TaylorTRoom

TaylorTRoom — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 19:32:13 +0000

Why does T.J. Hooker’s Heather Locklear have a career and Fall Guys’s Heather Thomas doesn’t?

By: Sailor Ripley

Sailor Ripley — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 06:11:08 +0000

I did that once and watched a Fall Guy marathon. Very similar.

By: zizzybalubah

zizzybalubah — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 05:58:19 +0000

I got high and just watched the dots move for the last 4 hours.

By: ChrisApplewhite

ChrisApplewhite — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 04:28:32 +0000

Gresham being a mismatch isn’t the problem of any hybrid cover scheme, it’s just that he’s tall and fast.

Muschamp has the track record of being able to teach multiple defenses. It’s not like these kids won’t be doing anything else that they haven’t been since high school.

Coverage is mostly technique, mental quickness and athletic ability anyway.

By: NateHeupel

NateHeupel — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:24:25 +0000

“Chykie Brown may not be great at picking up schemes, but he can cover. Just give him a number and tell him to follow it.”

If OU had done this with Onyenegecha a couple of years ago, we would’ve had an All-American. He had the tools, but not the workshop. Although, interestingly, OU has been showing a lot more man coverage looks in the spring with great success. We’ll see if that is validated by actual results.

The problem is that any pattern matching scheme will be a potential liability in 2008 while the players are still perfecting their techniques and reads. It requires defensive players to go head to head with their offensive counterparts AND the offensive coordinator. That’s one thing in the NFL when guys have 60 hours a week when they’re being paid to play and study the game. It’s another for a college kid who’s got 20-25 hours a week to learn it while he’s carrying a college course load.

As for the safeties, they’ll have the same problem as any safety does, at OU, UT, or wherever, against a big athletic Gresham/Jermichael Finley type TE: they’ll be outmatched physically in size and height. An accurate QB will just go over the top to get the completion. That’s neither here nor there.

All in all, I think this scheme could definitely be a valuable asset to UT, but it might be 2009 before it’s not a liability in any shape or form.