Why not be a contrarian?

I agree to an extent; in other words I wouldn't be a contrarian just for the sake of it, but I do think you should test everything.

My least favorite saying is when people say "we don't need to re-invent the wheel." WHAT? Think if nobody re invented the wheel, trucks would be worthless with conestoga wheels. Reinventing the wheels is what leads to small improvements.

The issue is that to do things different than the norm is that you have to take a risk; remember most people here learned what they coach from someone else (who learned it from another....etc.) So it takes a lot of guts to say, "hey this thing that so many others have done is wrong." Because basically if you fail, you're on your own.

Not to mention too many people put cache in a name. I'm not gonna lie; I've come up with stuff that I wanted to do, but when I present it I'll bs and say I got it from somewhere else. Gary Patterson's name carries a lot more weight than mine.

Anycase thats my thought, end of rant.

Or is it that some of us isolate ourselves from our Peers and stagnate in our own ideas?

I have seen plenty of coaches that have a decent amount of Knowledge, but never teach it. They never even try. The reason is simple, they live in their own bubble for so long they learn to distrust those that matter the most; the Player. Then after a loss or a bad season or two, the reflect and say: "I need a couple of Studs".

So to come back to the quote, I dont believe its always about the most efficient way to win, but the most conservative way of not loosing.

Because it is easier to avoid criticism by sticking to the norm regardless of the outcome

Why not be a contrarian? Because mostly it doesn't work. Radical offenses and defenses are hard to learn. There isn't much info out there about how to handle the nuts and bolts of the 10-1 or a 5-wide offense.

Most coaches don't onsides kick every time or always go for it on 4th down because field position does matter. IMO the guy in Arkansas doesn't win because of his no-punt philosophy. He wins in spite of it.

Why not improve on a good idea rather than trying to "reinvent the wheel" nobody has ever reinvented the wheel they have just made better wheels. IMO

Let me add that I see a big difference between using a "radical" offense or defense and going away from percentage football. There's a lot to be said for using an unusual offense. I heard Tubby Raymond say that if he was coaching HS football in Delaware he wouldn't run the Wing T because everybody's used to it. If you really understand a system there's no particular risk in running it.

This, IMO, is the reason why coaches opt against a contrarian approach to football. It's challenging enough to compete against your opponent let alone yourself because many risks are being taken throughout the game in a variety of different ways on offense, defense, and special teams. "We will not give them the game" is a motto believed and exemplified by a majority of football coaches.

I personally believe we must do everything in our power as coaches, within reason and within the rules, to help our teams be successful. That's what we're in a position to do and we owe it to our players. However, as coaches, we can sometimes become our own worst enemies because we don't set boundaries. There is a point of diminishing returns in this realm.

When the point at which the risk heavily outweighs the reward is reached, coaches must make a decision. Most coaches choose to stop there because they believe the likelihood of giving the game away is much higher. Obviously, giving the game away is never anything a coach should strive for. It's a balancing act and coaches set boundaries differently. I hope this makes sense.

I also believe this is an even greater challenge at smalls schools with minimal numbers and players who for the most part two-platoon and play on special teams. We constantly evaluate, as a coaching staff, if we are putting too much on our players. We don't want the fact that we're trying to do too much as coaches end up putting our team in a situation where the likelihood that we'll give the game away is higher. JMO.

Why is it that most NFL/NCAA teams don't onside kick or go for it on 4th down every time??? Even though they have the opportunity to 2-platoon, and sometimes have non-starters as their Special Teams performers...it still takes reps away from what their kids do best...block, tackle, run, throw, catch, get-offs, reads & block destruction. When do most gaffs occur during Special Teams situations...when the team that makes the mistake is not prepared mentally or physically in football basics for that moment. The skills don't change...just the situation/down/distance.

The first time I played against a Rugby Punt team who always made it a kick/run/throw option for his punter...I made 1 or 2 simple alignment modifications, and then said "play football" like you've been taught. They punted every time but once...and we intercepted his only pass attempt. Should have batted it down...but who's complaining, it wasn't a completion.

We gave our punter the option to to run or kick for a game this past season and he ran and failed to get it deep on our side of the field, next time we were punting out of our endzone and it got blocked, and third time put in the back up punter and told him to roll out and KICK IT and he tried to run for the first down. I probaly won't be doing the whole run or kick thing again for a long time. It was a game to decide a trip to the playoffs and we lost by 11. Its sounds great in theory but I don't like taking a decision I could make and turning it over to a player who doesn't have the experience I have.

Some of the posts are totally missing the point.

People are confusing gambling on a call with being contarian,

Being contarian is being different not stupid.

Being contrarian is all relative, in one part of the country running a well executed unbalanced single wing offense in a conference where everyone else is running some type of spread offense is contrarian. (different)

In another part of the country running a spread offense in a conference where everyone else is beating each others brains out in a double tight power offense is contrarian.

Going for a win in overtime is not contarian.

So back to the original question Why not be a contrarian? I say why not be different, it does not have to be extreme, just different enough to give your team an edge.

As a football coach I am a contrarian. I look at the league, look at my kiddos, and try to do something that fits the kids and is different from everyone else in the league just so they HAVE to prepare for us each week. I tend to be an option OC, but if the league is option run oriented I will find something that they are weak at...maybe the league pass D sucks, then we become a passing team.

I think there is some misconception on what contrarian means. It does NOT (necessarily) mean being :
-stupid/foolish
-fundamentally unsound
-unprepared
-aggressive
-outside your 'comfort zone'

There are tons of things everyone does that at one time or another is contrarian. When Bear Bryant went to the wish bone, he was being contrarian. Other ideas off the top of my head that were/are contrarian:
-dynamic warm ups
-running the single wing today
-the T formation
-the double wing
-doing olympic lifts
-speed training
-no contact in practices
-place kicks for extra points
-rugby punts
-doing 7 on 7
-'basketball on grass'
-black quarterbacks
-zone blitzes
-2 platooning
-personnel packages

I could go on and on. Even tried and true methods can be contrarian. Basically the idea/concept means opposite. It could include something as simple as being the passing team in a run heavy league or vice versa. It could mean having multiple formations and shifts in league full of 'base' teams. It could mean simply breaking tendencies based on self scouting. Nothing about the concept precludes that in order to be contrarian, your teams can't block/defeat blocks, tackle well, protect the football, or in any other way be unsound.

Maybe a better way to describe the concept is to think about innovation. Innovation involves trying new and different ideas. And of course the saying "What is old, is new again" falls into that as well.

How many times do we come to this board looking/asking for news ideas and concepts that will fundamentally improve our teams? While sometimes these suggestions are are on the cutting edge of the game, many more times than that it is taking the tried and true ideas from the experts to alter the realm of our program. Heck this message board is a contrarian concept: putting for the world to see the ideas and concepts that make our program successful verses our opponents.

Back to my original post in response to why are we opposed to be contrarian: Because it is easier to avoid criticism by sticking to the norm regardless of the outcome. It is a whole lot easier to deflect criticism when we are doing what everybody else is doing. This line of reasoning avoids admitting the WHY we are not successful.

If we are running the same basic version of offense that everyone in our league does, say most are running the option (flexbone/split back), then regardless of where we finish the season on top or at the bottom; we still are doing the same thing as everybody else from a scheme perspective. However, HOW we run that offense and how we prepare our team to play is not as easy for the outside to be able diagnose.

If we are losing, then it still looks like everybody else, just worse.
If we are winning, what we do on Friday night looks like everybody else, but we are just doing it better. In the former case we can easily justify that we are attempting to mirror the successful teams that we compete against. HOWEVER, in the latter we never have to justify why we are doing the same thing that those 'losers' are doing. Most of those tried and true methods do work. At the same time those same tried and true methods also fail.

Yes it is a whole easier to dream/tinker with the next great football idea when you are an assistant coach and your job is not on the line. Yet how do you explain the countless examples of coaches that seem to get the most out of the least?

I don't see be contrarian being a matter of the extremes. I believe that it involves looking for that edge within what we do that can make a difference. It involves the self reflection that we should all do to improve ourselves and our programs. It involves making choices and decisions that impact how we perform. It involves analysing the landscape in that we participate.

From a statistical stand point, what statistics are we looking at? In order for a statistic to be useful, it must accurately reflect a direct correlation between and event and an outcome. This comes back around to closely examining: what we do, how we do it, and how is it measured. By looking at statistics we can find clues, but we have to be looking in the right place for the right thing.

Football is lot like macro economics. There are so many factors that play into the final outcome of a football game. Is it:
-scheme
-technique
-officiating
-genetics
-weight room
-community
-money
-admistrative support
-culture
-coaching
-luck?

The concept of being contrarian should factor into the equation some where, but how much? I think that this is we should take this idea; then factor it into where we use it and to what extent.

So there is a balance a coach must maintain to avoid the "extremes". A coach must do whatever he believes is necessary to get that edge for his program. Once the possibility of an edge is essentially gone, the coach must reel himself back in to avoid the extreme...balance. Being contrarian is great...to a point.

We run what we run (Gun Wing T)) because no one around here has seen it and it was apparent. The misdirection factor alone causes problems; we ran DHO Counter 10 times in a row one game and punched it in.

However, teams around here started grab bagging and running bits and pieces of our scheme towards the end of the year. It was a good thing; they weren't very good at it but some of the adaptations to it were great. We took those wrinkles, installed them and had success.

But a lot of squads are starting to kick over into "the spread" around here and we're going to evolve as a response. We're going to get UC and run more Wingless T (8-man) this year. Our blocking schemes and run tracks will stay the same and it'll be a nice addition. Everyone is running the 3-2-3 in response to the "spread" so having the ability to get UC and pound the ball will be great.