Too smart for me

Homer Smith is weird to read. The thing about him is I'd suggest try just read his stuff and then after awhile the light kind of goes on. It's not that it's otherworldly, some of it is just his writing style.

I suggest reading some of the articles on his website (I particularly like the "misconceptions" series) which are short and getting those to digest. If you feel like you get a better handle on it and then you'll get more used to it. Also, like cc said the manuals are good and more direct as well.

homersmith.net/?page_id=5

BLB,

a few years back a good friend of mine brought Homer Smith in for visit and allowed a few high school coaches in to off set the $$$. I sat in the room and I know I missed about 70% of what he was trying to say. It was at a complete different level for this guy. The guy was border line genius, almost to damn smart. He broke everything down into such detail it was amazing.

I agree tog.

I agree tog, but there's no doubt that Homer Smith knows what he's talking about and the way the guy thinks about football is borderline revolutionary. I guess here's the question for jd, even if you missed 70% of what he was saying, how did that other 30% compare to lectures from other coaches? You can pick up things, though I agree maybe it is best in smaller chunks. The guy won a lot of games over the years, so I'm pretty sure he knew how to make sure his players "got it" too.

wasn't hatin on old homer

i have read his stuff, and have learned a lot

Coach: First off, Chris Brown's advice is excellent -- go to Coach Smith's site and read his "Misconceptions" series. Once the idea of expressing football concepts as Zen koans loses its novelty, you'll be fine.



As far as the 2-Level Defense book is concerned, you should know that Bill Arnsparger had fairly minimal input to it. He was brought on board by a publisher who was worried that no one would buy a football book that scholarly unless there was a big "name" attached to it.

Arnsparger actually complained to the real author, John Thomson of Canada, that he was being harassed about the 2LD as he was trying to recruit at LSU...

The 2LD is conceptually simple, but so different from standard defensive approaches that understanding it can sometimes be a hard road.

The five defenders in the first level fill gaps and pursue the ball. The five defenders in the second level usually "mirror" potential recievers and play tight man coverage, but they can also drop and play zone.

The 11th man, the deep safety, lines up about 28 yards from the LOS and establishes an "end line" at +18 yards deep where he intercepts the ball either on the ground or through the air. In effect he cuts off the field vertically so that the two levels of defenders in front of him can attack either their gaps, their men, or sometimes their zones.

I've tried to abstract the teachings of the book into something a little closer to standard English:

savefile.com/files/8350098

Hope this helps...

Coach: Homer lives in a world of Platonic perfection, it's true. To him, the single wing, run and shoot, and triple option (at least in its wishbone and split veer forms) were all caught up with by defenses, have been philosophically refuted, and should thus be discarded...

...and yet I STILL learn a lot from him.

blb, I know what you mean. He's not always good about defining his terms at the start, and even if he does you keep having to flip back. I suppose it's because he has been around so long that the Bear Bryant/Bill Walsh/Gillman/Woody Hayes movements that more or less "standardized" many our football terms happened after he'd already started coaching, so he probably just integrated their thoughts into his and has just held on to those terms. Someone could probably go through and replace all of those with something we're more familiar with.

On his debunking the shoot/veer/etc theories, I agree with you all, but I see what (at least I think) his point is, which is not to butt your head against the wall with an offense that passed its prime twenty years prior by "making it work" again, and instead to do the simple things that work well with great execution while integrating "the best of the new." I think we'd all admit that with an "old system," such as the veer, wishbone or wing-t it is easier to have success if you play in a district where the opponents don't see it every very often. What this means is they don't know its weaknesses and go through the same mistakes to find out.

I'll just paste this post from his "Misconception Series" both because I agree with his theory, but I think in practice information travels a little more slowly.

homersmith.net/?page_id=172



I think all he's saying is you must keep the defense or offense on its toes, and simply "resurrecting the past" will not, by itself, do it. An interesting point is sites like these make that even more true. Even just ten years ago if I faced a "true R&S team" (that uses Mouse's protections as well) you might have no idea how to stop it or get pressure on the passer, and everyone ends up making basically the same mistakes that teams made for years. However, eventually Bob Davie and others DID get a plan for breaking the protection down (the zone blitzes, bringing heat off the edges and dropping inside rushers so the OL would block air) and now I can do a google search or come to a site like this, and bypass 10 years of mistakes and at least have a workable plan, even if I still get beat by execution, talent, etc.

Anyway, no right answers but the guy tends to make me think, and for that I'm grateful.

Or JT Curtis (LA) and their 19 state titles.

the veer as something that is debunked? lol

Those offenses you cite are only one dimensional if you make them so. Delaware threw the ball well under Tubby Raymond, as did Coach Yeoman at Houston (old timers remember Elmo Wright or Warren McVea?)

We are a Veer team and average 12-16 passes a game. We have led the league in total offense two years in a row and set the school record for scoring last season, when we threw 10 TD passes. Two years ago we had a game in which we passed for over 300 yards.