Overtime - Spread vs Power O

Oh they can.. lol.. I think I was gearing this up for more of the vertical passing teams.. we are predicated on Jet, option, and quick passing game.. so we should be able to handle it more than a team who relys on the deeper passes more.

we are a shotgun spread team and won two OT games last year. (one was triple ot) our rules have us starting from the 25, but i guess its pretty much the same concept. in one game our qb dropped back annd we hi-lo'd the FS and hit a dig for about 13 yds down to the 4 or 5 yard line. from there we went speed option and then went for two and got off speed option again. our opponenet was a jet team and they scored but we stopped the 2-pt play. (we stuffed the box... we KNEW they couldnt throw and we guessed right) i actually felt we had the advantage in that situation... we were more of a run/pass threat than the jet team. i agree with lochness because if you are not balanced, you will eventually eb in a situation you cant get out of.

overtime = which play caller is better

Most spread teams that I have coached against have some kind of "power O" package.

Keep in mind the spread team still forces the other team to defend all 53 yards wide even though the vertical threat has been negated. However if you are at the 10 YL you can still easily throw the fade.

Like Huey said in OT who is the better play caller?

Bunch stuff is very tough to defend (IMO) inside the 10. Especially if the team has any run game to go with it. The picks and rubs can be tough to handle.

I agree, with the caveat being that overtime is decided usually on less than 10 plays, which is not a very good sample to draw from.

Say you're a better playcaller by a 60-40% ratio. That's a pretty huge margin - to be a better playcaller than the other guy by a magnitude of 20% (I know I am simplifying since its more about OC v. DC matchups). To simplify, let's just say you either call a "good play" (about 6 yards, where 2 "good plays" gets you a first down or a TD eventually) or a "bad play" (no yards, 2 out of 3 "bad plays in a row = field goal).

Okay, you get some interesting results. Using this site:

www.stat.tamu.edu/~west/applets/binomialdemo.html

So you need at least two good plays to get a first down. Your chance of getting no more than 1 "good play" (and thus having to punt is still around 35%, with your chances of success about around 65% on a given drive. Your chance of stringing three "good series" together in a row to get a TD is only 27% (I know this underestimates Td capability since it rules out "big plays" but it is for illustration purposes).

Conversely, the other's guy's chance of getting a first down is about 35%, and his chance of getting three straight first downs to score is about 5%.

Although this seems low, the dropoff for the "good playcaller" is bigger (65-27 = 38% dropoff) vs. the "bad playcaller" (30% dropoff). Also, the chances of getting a TD are only comparing 27% to 5% - those numbers are so low that it would be easy to confuse who is better.

So the first lesson from these probabilities is that, even though OT is about the better playcaller, OTs are so short - and the probabilities are such that - there is a lot of "noise" who is the better playcaller. The better playcaller will still have two straight busted drives about 10% of the time (only one good play).

The second lesson? That teams that can score in a single play have much, much better odds. You don't have to rerun the numbers, just look at the dropoff you get from strining series' together - 65% to 27% and 35% to 5%. If you changed the system to one where the outcomes could be bad play, good play, or TD, the chances of scoring go way, way up.

Why? Because you avoid having to multiply the probability of getting a first down (65% or 35%) with the probability of getting 3 of those in a row without break. That's what is hard about the grind it out offense - you don't get to do a best 3 out of 4, instead you have to get 3 or 4 in a row. So the lesson is that although you want consistency, the ability to strike quick will lead to significantly more touchdowns.

On the other hand, passing offenses have this problem as well. As even the best passing offenses only complete at a percentage of 55-70% for the very best. So it is very easy to string 3 straight incompletions together.

Nope... I don't necessarily agree with that statment... I think that's a generalization...

overtime = which team is better...

What!?

I'm just sayin'

this whole thread is a generalization ...

Reading through this thread, I had two thoughts (which explain the beads of sweat):

1) Watching the end of the greatest game ever, Boise State beating Oklahoma with a 2-pt conversion, it was mentioned that Boise knew their own defense was worn out and would not be able to resist Oklahoma very well the rest of the game. They had to take their shot in OT.
2) My school's Spread team went to OT @ one of our great rivals, a DW team. They ran on 3 plays, got about 6-7 yards total, kicked a FG (considering they rarely ever kick under any condition, that was kinda surprising). We got the ball at the 10.
3 yard run, 7 yard run, and we won.
There again, their D was average at best, tired, and couldn't stop our RB (being looked at by D1 schools, for the record). Our OL was a little above average, but normally they kick our arses in the trenches.

Okay, so mostly I wanted to relive that awesome Boise St. game and the night my school finally took down the mighty DW team. Point being though, in an OT game, 1st thing I'm looking at which D has been on the field longer, especially over the 2nd half of the game.

Who decides who wins a particular game in OT? Luck

Who decides who wins more OT games over time? The better playcallers/teams that practice OT situations