System vs Plays

I would never go without a system offense again. Before I began using a system, I was guilty of the "grab bag" system of play calling. Now that I have an offensive system, I know what to call and when to call it. With a system you always have a game plan.

What are examples of "systems" ? Double Wing, Spread?

I'm a defensive guy at heart, I find it easier prep'ing my kids to stop a system...and seem to have to work harded prep'ing the kids for a team that runs a lot of formations and plays.

I would have to say that its best to use a system. We were a triple option team and had success with it, but in the last two years have developed our own system without the triple. We spent all winter brainstorming and sharing ideas and have created a nice system. Its ours and the entire staff has at least a basic understanding of what we are trying to do. Its helped alot during games as know the defensive coaches will call up to the box and say hey ______ is open, or the Jet boot is there, etc.

Coach,

That's a good question. I think there's a distinction between a "canned" or "adapted" offense and a "system."

Running a system does not necessarily mean that you must run something that is fairly standard (Wing-T, for example).

Our system (for example) is multi-formational and is based on a wing-I concept. It's not an offense that we learned from any one place. It's something that we evolved over the years. What makes it a SYSTEM is that we have rushing plays designed into series, blocking categorized into "schemes," and consistent adaptable terminology for everything.

When I say we have plays designed into "series," I mean that if we run the Belly as our base offensive play (double dive), then we have a Belly Counter, Belly Keeper, and Belly Pass...and we have 2-3 other series built the same way. When I say we have blocking designed into "schemes," I mean that we have plays that we man block, plays that we power block (isolation), and plays that we trap block (counters and traps), and the OL knows which plays fall into what schemes, and we block all those plays that same way. So, the OL isn't learning 12 different plays, they are only learning the 3-4 different schemes and memorizing which plays fall into what scheme.

I actually wrote an article for "Gridiron Coach" a few years ago about building and evolving a system over time. I think there is nothing more interesting than watching a HS football game and seeing a team run an offensive system that you know they developed over time and has evolved and grown.

I will agree that many times it is easier to prepare to stop a system than a team with a ton of plays and formations.

However, it is easier to actually stop the team with a ton of stuff than a team with a system.

Just my opinion.

smartfootball.blogspot.com/2005/09/what-is-system.html

What is a system?

People are always discussing "systems." The Urban Meyer system, the Charlie Weiss system, the Norm Chow. The Airraid or what Mike Leach does "is a system." Does this mean anything or is this just the self-important tautology of football coaches and fans? Are they "systems" or just a series of instructions?

If they are systems, is what the team who hasn't won a game in 10 years does a system? Why not? They have a series of plays and communications.

I want to highlight a point: A system, in ordinary terms, is no more than a series of parts that interact and work together to form a unified whole. The word unified is helpful since it implies that things work together.

I'm not going to touch today how they work together, that's more of what the past few articles about making plays look alike and even route conversions were for. But the other side of a system is its further definition, "for serving a common purpose." A system is supposed to work!

Sometimes there is much made of "being a spread team" or "having an identity" and such. The only limitating factor for a football offense is what can be executed effectively. It has nothing to do with what you already do, what "we hang our hat on," "we're a passing team," "we're a physical team." These shouldn't even be considerations. You should just try to win games. That's it.

It begs the question: how do you win games? For now I'll just say that one possible answer is "Score more points." So--forgive me for taking the long way to get here--you need the proper "tools" (plays, schemes, formations, etc) to defeat each individual strategy the defense employs. While some plays are more useful than others, everything has a defense, so you need at least one offensive strategy for every defensive strategy (at least broadly defined) that you might face. Otherwise the rational response by the defense would be to do the same thing every down that you have no answer for.

"So you've told me that offenses only are concerned with scoring points (and other offensive goals like getting first downs at important times to control the clock) and defeat what the D is doing. What a great blog buddy!!!"

It seems simple but is important for two reasons: 1) it can help you be a better coach, and 2) it's not actually true.

First, thinking like this should get rid of many slack concerns, particularly stat watching. What was our passing percentage? What was our YPC? How many formations did we run? "Oh but it looked good coming out of your hand, it was a nice spiral, even though it was an interception." All this is meaningless if the point is to win games. We all know this, but we have to defeat these mental traps at every turn.

However, on the second point, sometimes there are other considerations. At the NFL level, it really is all about winning games. The only time things like style and all that are invoked is as an explanation for success. "Oh, the Patriots win because they play it close to the vest." "The Steelers have a great record because they are a physical team." This might be true in a sense, but it mostly comes down to them having effective strategies against their opponent, with each effective strategy being a combination of talent and scheme.

Conversely, at other levels, particularly high school or major college football, you can get more mileage out of being "exciting" than you can out of being "3 yards and a cloud of dust." I'd be lying if I didn't say that I enjoy the passing game more than more staid elements of the run game. Is it purely strategic? Fans would rather watch their team lose 42 to 63 than 28-7 (though that isn't a fair comparison since 42/63 is a better ratio).

Anyway, the overall message is do not worry about identities or styles or systems in the sense of how they look. The question is are they effective? Why is the Norm Chow system effective? Because in about 12 pass plays he has an answer for almost all defensive strategies. Where other coaches need 80, he has 12 (or 10-16 or so, give or take).

If you must concern yourself with "style" then that is fine to a point. Sometimes it is more psychological than anything. But a true "system" is simply concerned with how good the individual parts are at working together to help you win games. If you could win all your games and never throw a pass, I would suggest you do it. Same if you never ran the ball. More likely, you need a mixture of strategies, integrated in such a way to be teachable to kids aged 14-18 (or 18-22, even 10-13, etc) during limited time. It's not easy.

Also, a system is based upon a practice structure/methodology that allows for maximum efficiency (yeah I can dream right?). AS Dennis Creehan said, " you can have a playbook, and run the plays, but they are just lines on a pages unless you know how to practice them efficiently." Running a system allows for that as long as the coaches are immersed into the system and are learning constantly how to better the practice elements to better their game day production. A case in point is this year I moved from NM where we were running a bunch of plays that the HS HC called his "west coast offense", but was actually a bunch of plays, to NE Arizona where we run the wing-t. We are series based (power and belly) with the base play, counter, play-action etc all coming off of it. We as a staff, and especially me beign a former spread coach, are constantly learning from as many different sources as possible on how we can make our teaching progressions and practices better so that we can affect game day production.

"tampa two" isnt a defense, its a SYSTEM. its HOW THINGS ARE DONE. Thats right from dungys mouth.

systems give you "if then" play calling. ever see coaches that do this...

middle screen
sweep right
sweep left
shotgun draw
iso


just all over the place...running PLAYS instead of running an OFFENSE.

this sounds like a good series of plays to me
mess with the dl
force the edge
force the other edge
sucker em again
then run right at em

we do all of that stuff

the thing a lot of people need to realize is, that yes you have answers-but assume that the other guy knows your answers too sometimes

to follow up the sweep, with the sweep, and then they start stopping it a bit, and then run trap off of the sweep the very next play isn't always too sound

they know the answers
the secret to me is to make them off balance how YOU want them to be while taking what they give you.

take what they give you
but also hit where you want with who you want for the reasons you want

when I see teams that are toooooo system oriented it is almost laughable at what comes the next play

ok

there is the buck
ok
here comes trap

ok

here comes waggle

here comes punt

write it down, use it a couple of plays later
don't make it obvious

To me, an offensive system is designed with these things in mind-

1. The plays are designed to stress a defense in a manner that compliments several other plays within the offense. For example; we treat our sweeps (jet, rocket, standard toss) as compliments to our off tackle power and veer. These plays compliment each other by stressing the way a defense aligns and defends the perimeter.

Now, this doesn't necessarily mean a series such as the jet, rocket, or belly; although series are great at accomplishing these goals.

2. The blocking schemes are-
a. limited but still effective
b. work with every formation.

3. Because you're blocking schemes work with every formation, then you can run most of your plays out of all of your formations.

A good example of this is the jet series- we can run this out of every single formation in our playbook and not have to change any blocking schemes or footwork patterns.

I keep waiting for someone to come on here and just go

System? What's a system? We just run random plays with no thought behind them at all! Isn't that what everyone does?!!

SYSTEM VS. SERIES

I think this would be a better discussion. Is the I formation a "system" even though most wouldnt consider the multiple I "series" football.

you guys want to really laugh? here's the situation im in.... my head coach knows NOTHING about offense, period. he was hired as a discipline guy and to get the kids in our building to come out and play. the program was in shambles before he got here, winless for 3 years with maybe 20 kids total. he has dobe a GREAT job of gettign the athletes to play and our numbers here are tripled. i was brought in to run the offense, and installed the shotgun spread last year. we havent been dominant, but we have been competetive and the kids are learnung the system little by little. but EVERY week, during meetings, the hc will say, "well, this week we need to be in i formation and run toss becasue we can get to the edge on them." so we spend valuable practice time teaching a new play, then neglect our base stuff. the following week after playing a delaware team he says "i want to run some kind of wham play coach, becasue thats what they did to us last week and it worked." my frustraion has boiled over now, and im ready to walk. great kids, trememndous athletes coming back next year, but im just not sure we can succeed with this "plays of the week" nonsense.