Florida/Meyer Offense

Lindehan's Louisville+Wilson's Northwestern+Purdue's Passing Game=Meyer's Bowling Green Spread Offense

I think they run a lot more Counter/Power now then they did then with the R-Back and the QB.

EXACTLY

I'm working on an article about this (I hope I can get it out before the weekend). The run game is all basic one-back stuff. Kevin Wilson (now at OU) said he and Randy Walker just ran their base plays from the spread. They don't run the wing-t or the single wing. They run the world's most basic plays -- plays run for 100 years -- from spread formations.

There's more similarity between Meyer's offense and Joe Gibbs' than with either the wing-t or the single wing or whatever else.

I have a friend who played at Notre Dame in the late 90s. Meyer did Special Teams I believe and word traveled around that he had some "crazy" offensive philosophies. The players would ask him and he would share some of his offensive ideas with the players. My friend said it's a lot of the stuff he is doing now, but at the time it was seen as nutty.

auburn, exactly. Take QB Power for example.


-X----------------T-G-C-G-T-Y----------------
---------U---------------------------------Z----
------------------------Q-F---------------------

It becomes the exact same play as I formation power only now the QB becomes the TB, the FB offsets and you now have an extra position that you can turn into a slot. From here you can also go QB sweep, QB Counter Trey, QB Trap, QB Draw and you haven't even started with Jet motion, or handoffs to F (i.e zone read). Add that to gun triple option out of a billion formations. What I see them doing a lot is this:

They start here...

----X----------------T-G-C-G-T-----------------Z
------------U------------------B-------------------
---------------------------Q-F---------------------

Motion U to here...

---X---------------T-G-C-G-T--------------Z
------------------------------B----------------
----------------------U-Q-F-------------------

That B back is a tight end (Hernandez) that they move all around. Sometimes he is a TE, sometimes he is in a sniffer position like the Old singlewing, sometimes they have him in a tradition wing/slot position.

-CD

I can't find the article but in the NYT Meyer told a story about how, when he was at Notre Dame, they lost to Nebraska. After the game, receiver David Givens was at his locker in tears, saying "I just wanted to help the team" -- Givens didn't have a catch. Meyer said he swore that if he got his own team he would run an offense that had the ability to get the ball to all his playmakers.

Of course that's true for all offenses, not just the spread. (PJ at GT seems to be doing fine with that concept.) But I thought that was interesting. Puts a human face on all this stuff.

Meyer runs the same offense they ran while he was at Notre Dame only instead of running from I formation they line up in shotgun & the QB is the tailback. Basically its the power/option I they have just done away with the QB slot Kind of like that "new" pistol offense. Its looks a lot like John Mckay's I formation, only in the pistol the QB lines up where the Fb lined up in Mckay's I formation rest of it looks the same. Hey spreadattack I have a article I want you to write about. You mentioned Kevin Wilson, do an article on how he has evolved from his Northwestern spread days & how Oklahoma has evolved from Leach's airraid into the offense they are running now. Enjoy your articles

Got this from last weeks Florida FSU game, looks like Meyer says he has a Single Wing flavor to his offense:

"Dan Mullen deserves some credit as well, keeping the game plan in order despite the deluge right before the game. Urban Meyer has admitted that he was ready to ditch the pass and go single wing, power football all the way but Mullen stuck to his guns and it paid off as Tebow threw for three touchdowns in those miserable conditions. Tebow was the calm in the storm and has once again leaped to the top of the Heisman list."

sorry for the long link, but paste that into your browser

Spreadattack,
This may be one of your finest articles ever. I've learned tons of football from you over the years and you've helped my passing game succeed.

I've always felt that there was something "not quite right" with the zone read option play but couldn't put my finger on it.
I grew up an option QB although I've never been an option coach, I know how and why it works.
That section that you wrote about the option and the difference between them answers those "feelings" I've had.
Thanks again.

OJW

Yeah, that makes sense there Spreadattack,
It is a combination of bootleg and option ideas. That could be another reason that it works. The bootleg with an fast athletic QB is a real killer, I've used that thing for years.

A few years ago I faced Shotgun Spread with 9 of 10 teams, so we got pretty good at defending the ideas. One of the things that became actually easy to defend after a while was the option out of shotgun. It is possible that no one we played was any good at it, I don't know. But we saw it so much it lost its mystery.

This year we faced it twice and both teams ran it exactly the same way. The formation had a TE to one side and a runningback away from that TE with a wideout on both sides.

They would either run zone read or speed option.
I hope my terms aren't too archaic here, if they are-sorry.
Although the teams ran these plays, they were ineffective.

I don't know if it was their formations that lead to their lack of success or their execution, I didn't care because we won.

All I did was put my Sam Backer on the side with the Back and had he and the MLB cross read. Simple.
If the RunningBack ran Speed option the Sam had him, the MLB had the QB.
If the Runningback went inside the Sam had QB and the MLB had QB. Simple.

This was nothing like trying to defense the veer dive from under Center. That play is way faster and gives you no margin for error.
The Shotgun version is slower because the ball is 5 yards back, giving us a little time to get to the ball.

But maybe it's just the people we play, who knows.
Sorry to ramble here.

You are one of the finest minds in football today, it is a privilege to correspond with you.
Keep up the good work.

OJW

This is an interesting thread and I appreciate the insight given to the Florida offense. One of the things Florida (as well as many other spread teams) do is run a controlled "no huddle" where they don't no huddle every play but have the ability to line up and look like they are going to quick snap the ball and try to draw the opponent offsides and then the Qb and receivers look to the sideline for a call and then run a play based on how the opposing defense lines up. Do any of you have any materials on how to incorporate this in your offense? We would like to do this some next season and I would like to learn the basics of how to do it. If you could give me your thoughts or point us in the direction of where to find materials on this we would greatly appreciate it. Thank You.