"Your Offense"

I ran "my scheme" virtually every year for 31 years as a HC.

If we didn't have success I wouldn't have been a HC for 31 years.

I think it's fair to say most guys will run "their scheme" and cater it to the players they have.

A school near me has run a lot of spread-based veer stuff for years, this year they're a little more ground and pound because those are the cats they have.

Similarly, a school in my conference who traditionally ran double tight I and hammered the run game was spread out a bit more when they had a QB who could sling it and a kid or two who could run by people.

My definition of on-field success was winning more than we lost, beating our neighborhood rivals, making the playoffs, and winning conference championship.

Five wins was a winning season (nine-game schedule). Six wins was a good year. Seven was very good. Eight was excellent, and nine was perfect.

I didn't feel it was reasonable to judge our program on state titles because there was only one team a year in our class that was going to be happy by that standard. And none of the schools I coached at could realistically have had that as a goal.

It's more a set of beliefs and pillars, and therefore not so concrete, right?

"My offense" is centered around being gap-scheme heavy in the run game and a progression-based pass game.

That's what I believe in...doesn't mean we can't change things from year to year in order to fit into those parameters, dependent on our personnel.

I think you have your base scheme and you just adapt every year to your strengths. We still run our base stuff but we might be a little more pass heavy due to having a great QB one year and the next year be a little more run heavy. It all exists within our scheme.

I have a friend who's a professional gambler on college football, always looking for a little edge, so he sometimes asks me questions. Recently he asked me about a certain change in player personnel on a major college team, as to whether the coach concerned would take advantage by playing an extra linebacker and taking a player out of the line, or vice versa. I told him that while at the level I coach we frequently adapt our systems heavily to the players we have, at the level of major colleges it's all about what the coaches are known and hired for, and that they recruit players to fit the coach's system, and would either try to hammer a square peg into the round hole they have, or bench him.

I think that as you gain experience coaching, you should pick up more than one system in your tool kit that you've become familiar enough with to choose between them in any given season based on the players you have. If you have enough experience scattered around your staff, you might want to shuffle the jobs to get into the right position an expert in the most suitable system for your players. I'm talking about a preseason meeting in which they'd all confer about the players expected to be available, and then have a coach say, "This group is near ideal for a system of [offense|defense] I know and would like to take charge of this fall. It goes like this...."

We actually did change systems once, going from a Pro I offense to a full read triple option wishbone. The reason was simple: our QB got injured and we literally had nobody else that could throw. There were, however, reasons that we did it successfully: 1. We already ran some option so the whole concept wasn't brand new; 2. We had a coach on staff who'd been a HC and ran the bone. He knew it inside and out.

Eventually we switched back to the I. The wishbone coach had taken another job and the HC was an I guy at heart. Sure, we updated it over the years with some spread formations and such but we never switched "systems" again. If we had a great passer we threw more. If not we ran more. Some years we ran option (But never full-read). Some years we didn't. It was the same system, though.

That HC retired and was replaced by a guy who'd been on staff. He ran the same offense until he left and was replaced by a former player. I watched them play in the state championship game and for a lot of the game they ran a lot of spread stuff. In nut-cutting time, though, holding onto a narrow lead, it was 21 personnel and here comes Iso. It worked.

irishdog: This is exactly what I try to do. An adaptable "scheme".

There's a coach at a smaller school somewhat close to us that apparently has 4-5 different playbooks, and he chooses which one to use each year based on the talent. He's won a couple state titles.

We have the same play book from 1986. I formation. One TE a Flanker and a split end. Like Novocain. (Except we lost our 1st game)

"It seems to me that guys that like the ground and pound dbl tite sets are kind of married to them. Is that not a distinct disadvantage when you have smaller olines and less powerful runners?"


Not if you utilize double teams and tight splits. IMO if you use traditional offenses (wider splits) with small linemen and non powerful runners, you may be in trouble anyway.

Situation matters as well....

Football Schematics like any curriculum should be layered if possible.....

If you are in a situation in which their is heavy turnover in your roster for whatever reason your schematics don't matter beyond you better keep it simple.... However, if your gonna have mostly the same kids for 4 years whatever scheme you run ideally builds upon itself.... This becomes even more important if you have a 7-12 system or a K12 system... The reality is it helps EVERY level when kids come in with some knowledge!

Agree with all the above opinion on the fact that it has to be flexible enough to utilize talent however, I would argue almost all systems have this built in it is a byproduct of an experience coach to know how to do this without making a mess of things...

So if you are a wishbone guy, you are going to stick with it even in years where you aren't so good up front? One of the teams I follow runs flex bone regardless of personnel. Seems to me if you widen those two wing backs you make it easier to get the ball in space. I know, Hutch did well running it for a long time, but they had a string of beasts.

If you're teaching fundamentals does where you line up change them? I just think you can give your kids a better chance to succeed if you get creative with formations.