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Post by dubber on Aug 26, 2010 11:02:55 GMT -6
But there is a glass ceiling to any scheme, no matter how good/smart/cutting edge your are with your scheme. If everyone else is doing the same thing or at least something very similiar, then the differenes then shift to the athletic matchups, the program mathups, and the $ matchups. And it doesn't stop there. We were doing some stuff offensively that nobody was doing, adding tweaks along the way. But after several years of seeing it, teams got better at defending it. Same with the dynamic warmup, SAQ trainging, weight lifting, weight facilities, PE classes, middle school programs. Obviously, all things being equal, athletes will make the difference. But what is the signal that screams TIME FOR CHANGE!!!There is a hierarchy of what makes a scheme successful........ to avoid controversy, these are in no particular order: *Good fundamental coaching *Good game planning *Athletes -recruitment -development -DNA *Kids believe in it *Familiarity -staff -players *Execution *Good play calling -F.T.S. -constraint theory *Able to adjust to defensive trends *Able to adjust in game to the unexpected *Able to adjust (minimize or maximize) to different personnel And all of that comes before "unique scheme"......... Having a unique scheme has to be paired with knowledge (which probably comes from experience) of how to make it work. Probably the way it works best (IE, the best example) is when a guy has "his scheme" that knows it back and forth, and brings that scheme to a new school where everyone is unfamilar with it.
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Post by lochness on Aug 26, 2010 11:05:15 GMT -6
But there is a glass ceiling to any scheme, no matter how good/smart/cutting edge your are with your scheme. If everyone else is doing the same thing or at least something very similiar, then the differenes then shift to the athletic matchups, the program mathups, and the $ matchups. And it doesn't stop there. We were doing some stuff offensively that nobody was doing, adding tweaks along the way. But after several years of seeing it, teams got better at defending it. Same with the dynamic warmup, SAQ trainging, weight lifting, weight facilities, PE classes, middle school programs. Obviously, all things being equal, athletes will make the difference. But what is the signal that screams TIME FOR CHANGE!!!A coach's inability or lack of interest in continuing to develop the types of players necessary to be consistently competitive in the established scheme is the only reason I can think of to scream "TIME FOR CHANGE!" Call me crazy...but I always say...if you can't "tweak" an offense to adapt for personnel changes that are out of your control, and the only way to maximize your effectiveness is wholesale change...you were probably in a bad offense and/or didn't understand that offense (more likely) to begin with.
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Post by coachwoodall on Aug 26, 2010 11:08:49 GMT -6
so do you think that the succes you gained comes from simply being able to tweak what you do by formation, utilization of athletes at hand, creating/expanding complementing series, or is it simply your over all scheme allows you greater freedom to remain contrarian?
Of course we're not talking about a static system. Coaches come and go, school split or the demographics change, money problems and educational focus changes as well.
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Post by blb on Aug 26, 2010 11:35:15 GMT -6
We were only team in our league that ran Veer last five years (everybody else either Spread or Pro-I with Spread package) so we were different (fans probably would say "out-dated" or "out-something").
But it's not like opponents didn't know what we were going to do or had never seen our stuff either.
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Post by coachwoodall on Aug 26, 2010 12:25:18 GMT -6
So you are the oddball.
how much would you want/need to change if most others in your league were veer teams?
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Post by coachfurn on Aug 26, 2010 13:00:26 GMT -6
I look at systems and the 1st that comes to my mind being from texas is Celina. 10-1 defense 70+% of the time and power run game. Been that way since the 80's...if not before. The #1 thing is having they kids buy into your system. Before they were successful..at some point a group had to buy into a system. And win. And then kids will move into your school district. Celina is not a pool of talent. But kids move in from all around to play in the system. It's a group of parents who have good DNA and believe in hard work, discipline. I could coach in the same district and copy their system but not beat them because the kids believe they won't lose...and other schools are afraid to play them/ And a lot fo teams tried to copy what Celina does...everything except their 10-1 defense...only 5 teams run it in texas.
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Post by coachks on Aug 26, 2010 21:01:54 GMT -6
Assuming you are the odd-ball, and you are being imitated, there is no reason for you to NOT continue to be the odd-ball.
You bring the Wing- into an area that doesn't see it. You win for awhile and you system starts filtering through the area.
You have to be able to change your system to stay odd. Maybe it's new formations. Maybe it's adding/replacing a series. Maybe it's changing the pass game. Maybe you GET IN THE GUN, but run the same stuff. Maybe you abandon the gun and go back under center.
If you are Wishbone and everyone jumps into the Wishbone. Go Flexbone. If you're flexone and so is everyone else, run your option out of a "power" set (Wishbone/I) and throw in some ISO or Power. It's change without being radical.
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Post by blb on Aug 27, 2010 6:08:57 GMT -6
So you are the oddball. how much would you want/need to change if most others in your league were veer teams? Discussed this in Reply #29, bottom of Page 1.
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Post by mariner42 on Aug 27, 2010 7:12:35 GMT -6
So what does it say that 85% of this discussion has been about offense? Is there no such thing as an 'oddball', contrarian, or unique defensive system? Just a few thoughts that occurred to me while reading & eating breakfast.
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Post by blb on Aug 27, 2010 7:24:02 GMT -6
So what does it say that 85% of this discussion has been about offense? Is there no such thing as an 'oddball', contrarian, or unique defensive system? TCU 4-2-5 was unique a decade ago, becoming more and more common. Same with 3-3-5/3-5-3. Just like with the 'I' on offense, the 5-2 Monster defense which was the norm 30 years ago, is the unusual scheme now. But both are starting to come back (latter packaged as '3-4') in different forms. Football has always been a cyclical game.
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Post by pfeifferjoshua on Aug 27, 2010 7:46:36 GMT -6
So what does it say that 85% of this discussion has been about offense? Is there no such thing as an 'oddball', contrarian, or unique defensive system? Just a few thoughts that occurred to me while reading & eating breakfast. You make a good point. I hadn't thought about that. I assume that the reason that the majority of the discussion has been about offense is because on offense you can do about anything you want to and the defense has to adjust to you. The offense pretty much dictates how the game is going to go. The defense may want to play an 8 man front out of a 6-2 defense, but if the offense lines up with 4 wide, that's just not gonna happen. However, I do believe that it is possible for defenses to be contrarian. For a while, the NFL was mostly 4-3 defenses with just a few 3-4 but now there are an awful lot more 3-4 defenses. On the college level 4-2-5 and 3-3-5 defenses used to be pretty uncommon. I think that another example of contrarian defensive philosophy that has led to a lot of success is the way some defenses play pattern matching like Pelini at Nebraska, Saban at Alabama, and Patterson at TCU.
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Post by coachbrek on Aug 27, 2010 8:04:48 GMT -6
So what does it say that 85% of this discussion has been about offense? Is there no such thing as an 'oddball', contrairian, or unique defensive system? Just a few thoughts that occurred to me while reading & eating breakfast. This whole topic about being contarion got be thinking about defense too, in particular the Radar defense with a stand up d-line. It was popular and effective in the 80's at the high school level around here. Has anyone seen it in the last 20 years? I did a search on this forum and the topic does not show up.
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Post by coachwoodall on Aug 27, 2010 9:20:16 GMT -6
Personally, I was just using Off. as an example.
I think what we do defensively is contrarian. I think use of the term though from an offensive perspective stands out. I am no offensive guru, but fronts are either even/odd, pressure or not, coverages 1 high/2high. Dang, we are always the last ones to leave on Sunday.
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Post by dubber on Aug 27, 2010 10:30:36 GMT -6
So what does it say that 85% of this discussion has been about offense? Is there no such thing as an 'oddball', contrarian, or unique defensive system? Just a few thoughts that occurred to me while reading & eating breakfast. You make a good point. I hadn't thought about that. I assume that the reason that the majority of the discussion has been about offense is because on offense you can do about anything you want to and the defense has to adjust to you. The offense pretty much dictates how the game is going to go. The defense may want to play an 8 man front out of a 6-2 defense, but if the offense lines up with 4 wide, that's just not gonna happen. However, I do believe that it is possible for defenses to be contrarian. For a while, the NFL was mostly 4-3 defenses with just a few 3-4 but now there are an awful lot more 3-4 defenses. On the college level 4-2-5 and 3-3-5 defenses used to be pretty uncommon. I think that another example of contrarian defensive philosophy that has led to a lot of success is the way some defenses play pattern matching like Pelini at Nebraska, Saban at Alabama, and Patterson at TCU. Basically, defense is reactionary, and offense is exploitive. I realize we could argue ad nausum about 'dictating defenses' (cover 0 blitz-esta) and 'reactionary offenses' (run and shoot), but we should all get the point. One controls where the ball is going, the other tries to stop it from going there.
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Post by brophy on Aug 27, 2010 10:36:16 GMT -6
defense, though, is not offensive.........
defense always has to respond to something - it doesn't exist in a vacuum. Pattern-matching was just a natural selection adaptation to what defenses were doing. Same with 2-high, 1/4,1/4,1/2 ....fire zones.....
Defenses were/are about how to handle what an offense presents. THEN offenses adapt to account for what those defenses just did.
Maybe the discussion is being able to assess where everyone (in your conference) is, and then plotting 2-steps ahead to become that contrarian solution. You're not different, just ahead of the game
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Post by pfeifferjoshua on Aug 27, 2010 11:04:06 GMT -6
defense, though, is not offensive......... defense always has to respond to something - it doesn't exist in a vacuum. Pattern-matching was just a natural selection adaptation to what defenses were doing. Same with 2-high, 1/4,1/4,1/2 ....fire zones..... Defenses were/are about how to handle what an offense presents. THEN offenses adapt to account for what those defenses just did. Maybe the discussion is being able to assess where everyone (in your conference) is, and then plotting 2-steps ahead to become that contrarian solution. You're not different, just ahead of the game My point was simply that there are times when a team can be at an advantage over another team because they do something different defensively than most (or all) other teams in that team's league. I think that pattern matching can be an example of that because of the way that it causes so much problems for opposing teams when they face it because they are used to playing against different coverages the rest of the season. So in that respect, doing something different that the offenses aren't used to puts them at an advantage.
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Post by coachwoodall on Aug 27, 2010 11:06:09 GMT -6
broph, I would disgree. Buddy of mine stills uses the wishbone, same offense they have been using for 40 years. In a since they became contrarian b/c everybody else changed. The still use the same terminology and blocking schemes from when we were in school.
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Post by mariner42 on Aug 27, 2010 11:42:21 GMT -6
I think Coachwoodall touched on something important in that defenses are a bit easier to 'categorize' by alignment and Brophy is right in that defense is reactionary and there is a certain amount of dictation that happens by the offense.
The offense HAS to cover all the gaps in the run game. They also HAVE to cover all the receivers. It's the way that they do both that separates them. But it does basically come down to odd or even, 1 high or 2 high, pressure or coverage. It's hard to be contrarian on defense while still honoring the basic rules of what you need to accomplish, imo.
You can be the only 3-4 team in your league/conference/whatever, but if you run what's primarily an under front, you're the same as any 4-3 under front team. I don't know that this is the same case for offense. There's a hell of a lot of difference between wishbone triple option and SBV triple option, even though they're both triple option.
If you're in a league full of cover 3 1-high, are you contrarian if you run c. 4 2-high? Or would you need to be running some sort of man coverage to qualify?
I dunno, I think being "completely different" as a defense is harder, but being slightly different from other defenses is doable.
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Post by brophy on Aug 27, 2010 13:40:12 GMT -6
pattern matching can be an example of that because of the way that it causes so much problems for opposing teams when they face it because they are used to playing against different coverages.... but its not a different coverage - just a different technique. If one team's corners shuffle and another's backpedal....it isn't a change in the defense. broph, I would disgree. Buddy of mine stills uses the wishbone, same offense they have been using for 40 years. In a since they became contrarian b/c everybody else changed. The still use the same terminology and blocking schemes from when we were in school. The game adapts....people can chose to use those adaptations or not. Choosing not to doesn't mean extinction, just pointing out that the game/scheme is responsive....it isn't going to act without a response to that action. As pointed out, you play a 6-3.....does it not adapt / respond to 4-5 wides? If you're in a league full of cover 3 1-high, are you contrarian if you run c. 4 2-high? Or would you need to be running some sort of man coverage to qualify? and this would beg the question, WHY are those defenses 1-high? The rationale may be to have an 8-man box, so you could be a 7-man front defense, but how can that accomodate what those other teams have to contend with (that make them special)?
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Post by hamerhead on Aug 27, 2010 14:29:34 GMT -6
I think there are ways to make sublte adaptations to a system you already know and love in order to make it slightly more "unique". Ten years ago, the school I am currently at had CRAZY success when a new coach arrived and brought in the spread. They were really the first in this area. He left five years later and the next head coach had worked under him, kept it going. Now, in a seven team conference, 4 of the schools are full time spread, one is single wing and the other two dabble in spread companied with some other stuff. (They're obviously and understandbly terrible). The single wing team would be my pre-season pick to win it all, by the way. This season we're incorporating some other things to our version of the spread that aren't frequently seen around here. Multiple motions/multiple plays to our slot recievers (other than Jet, which everybody tries to run). We run a TE about 80% of the time, which no other "spread" team here reguarly does. We're running MANY different formations, after ten years of being 2x2 and 3x1 almost exclusively. Coach what you know, obviously. But if you can "tweak" it so it doesn't look identical to everybody else and so that your kids can rally around it as "their" offense, all the better. We use TE's and Bunch/Pinch formations as the staple of our offense, even though we're still "spread". The kids have really rallied around it. Whether or not it works, well....ask me in two months.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2010 15:43:14 GMT -6
My alma mater switched to the Singlewing this year after being a Pro I team for the last decade. They're probably the first SW offense this part of the state has seen since the 70s.
So far, they're 0-2 (2-18 the past 2 seasons) but the offense works beautifully when they just execute and stick with it. In fact, they've stayed competitive with 2 teams that are favored to finish 1-2 in their (seperate) division, respectively. Teams have really struggled to stop Power and the Wedge--they get a consistent 5-6 ypc out of those.
The only things that hold the offense back are bad snaps, fumbles, sloppy fakes, fatigue from playing a bunch of 2 way players, and sacks when they jump into the same 4 WR sets everyone else uses to try and throw. You can tell that they're still struggling with the learning curve, as this is a new experience for all the coaches as well as the players. If they stick with it for a year and iron that sloppiness out, they should be dangerous.
I dream about someday running over a league full of spread offenses and 3-3 stacks with a SBV, Power I, or Doublewing. Everybody's running a smaller 3-3 around here now and it seems like a sensible counterstrategy.
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Post by dvo45 on Aug 30, 2010 23:44:29 GMT -6
I could not find the article but prior to last season at Ohio State Doc Tressel (Jim's brother and Running back coach) was getting slammed with questions about the spread/zone read and how the Buckeyes are going to use Terrelle Pryor...
Doc basically said that they fell that they could get more out of the quarterback running the ball from the "I" than they could from the "gun"...freaked all Ohio State fans out...the Ohio Staff is going to "waste" Pryor again...
Flash forward to the Rose Bowl and all those bootlegs from the "I" that Oregon had NO-idea how to stop...
Another side note-we spent some time this past Sunday trying to figure out how to align our 35 defense to a 21 set...the answer our DC and HC came up with=get into a 4 man front...I laughed like hell...
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Post by CoachMikeJudy on Sept 1, 2010 9:35:59 GMT -6
I look at it like this:
You set up your base defense and offense packages to beat the teams in your league. In a "sea of wing-t," as I saw in my high school experience 15 years ago, most teams ran a 5-2/5-3, 9-in-the-box-quickly defense. So what happened when we saw a 11 personnel shotgun team back then? Had to install a defense-of-the-week to cover everyone.
We see a good variety of schemes in our area now: wing-t, I-option, spread, and 21/22 personnel smashmouth stuff. As a defense you have to be VERY flexible and well coached to play good football against these different looks.
Like others have stated, the contrarian idea is great, and I am a lifelong subscriber. If I had my druthers we'd be an option team- I know I can coach it effectively and only 2 teams in the state run it...and one of them "call" the pitch/keep some years...DC's would be crapping their beds over facing the option.
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Post by phantom on Sept 1, 2010 9:44:20 GMT -6
Good staffs will have a plan for the "contrarian" offense, though. They may set up their base for what they're going to see the most but they're not going to wait until the week they play an unusual offense to start preparing for it. They'll start gatting a tentative game plan together during the winter. They may work against it some in the spring, if the have spring ball, or take a day in preseason to work at it.
Running a "different" offense is an advantage but it doesn't have to be a huge advantage if the defensive staff prepares.
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Post by CoachMikeJudy on Sept 1, 2010 13:13:26 GMT -6
Good staffs will have a plan for the "contrarian" offense, though. They may set up their base for what they're going to see the most but they're not going to wait until the week they play an unusual offense to start preparing for it. They'll start gatting a tentative game plan together during the winter. They may work against it some in the spring, if the have spring ball, or take a day in preseason to work at it. Running a "different" offense is an advantage but it doesn't have to be a huge advantage if the defensive staff prepares. Agreed. I think it may expose unprepared teams, but good staffs will have at least 1 answer to the unknown..."when in doubt, check Cov 3..." or the like
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