SB Nation User Blog: Rhapsode

The "Spread" is not an offense

Rhapsode — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 06:26:35 -0000

I am reading a lot about "spread offense" and how it benefits a team and gets wins. The problem is that "the spread" is not an offense. It is a formation.

The spread is a formation out of which a coach can run different offenses based on the talent available. Watch Florida, Oklahoma, Texas Tech, and last year's West Virginia team and see what the offenses have in common. Here's a hint: nothing. Texas Tech almost never runs the ball while West Virginia tried not to throw the ball. Sam Bradford is a drop pack passer while Tim Tebow leads his team in carries . The only similarity between all of these teams is that they will often put just 5 men up at the line and always have multiple split out receivers.

Running an offense out of a spread formation does not guarantee wins or even a capable offense. A team's offense should fit its personnel (whether by adjusting to the players or recruiting the right players for the system) and the spread is generally geared toward teams with more skill players and less (in number) capable linemen and tight ends. The spread allows a team to use the presence of extra skill players on the field to negate a defense's size advantage.

Scheme is a great equalizer in college football, but only when the scheme is properly executed. A team with many able large bodied linemen would be wasting talent running a spread and would be better off converting some of those linemen to tight end and using them to block. A team with Texas Tech's personnel would be foolish to try and run a power running game like Ohio State when they have so many receivers and so few run blocking linemen.

What I am trying to say is that scheme and play calling, whether out of the spread formation or a more conventional formation, need to fit the personnel available. One offense or another does not guarantee more points, better recruits, or more wins. Besides, like in basketball, the true goal is efficiency. If you score on every possession, it doesn't matter if your drives take 1 minute or 10.

I am confident that our coaching staff, while not employing a "spread" offense, is leading the team in the right direction. By bringing in the necessary players to fit the system and getting them to execute properly, our coaches will set themselves up for an incredible run. As far as the offense goes, every offense (WCO, spread, pro style, A-11, etc.) tries to make the defense commit one way in order to go the other. If our coaches do that, they can run the single wing for all I care.

Trojan Cheaters Can't Say They Didn't know

Rhapsode — Mon, 12 May 2008 19:34:24 -0000

The Big Lead caught this first but I am going to post it here for everyone.

It seems that USC knew way more than they are letting on. Greg Doyel first wrote about Mayo and Guillory in 2006. It seems that he knew almost as much as Kelli Naqi has figured out for ESPN, the only difference was that he didn't have receipts.

Doyel has this little nugget that is relevant to any claims of ignorance that Garret and other SC lackeys might make.

Though the USC football team faces the possibility of having to vacate its 2004 national championship, pending the results of the NCAA's investigation, the USC basketball team faces the possibility of adding a player sure to draw the NCAA's attention. And people at USC don't want to talk about it.
USC athletic director Mike Garrett didn't return numerous calls and e-mails for this story. But Garrett did get the message to the USC coaching staff -- and eventually to Guillory himself -- that CBS SportsLine.com was investigating Mayo's relationship with Guillory.
How do I know? Guillory told me. Guillory also told me that he doesn't work for an agent, and that he has done nothing to compromise Mayo's eligibility.

Ignorance is something fun to claim, but hard to hold on to when there is so much evidence to the contrary. In March of 2007, The Big Lead googled Guillory and found plenty that would suggest the relationship was not proper. How USC investigated this guy before and could not find what was on the internet is beyond me, but it sure doesn't look good, or it looks great, depending on your point of view.

Luck?

Rhapsode — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:36:44 -0000

I have been reading and watching a lot of people say how lucky UCLA has been lately and how maybe there is some grand conspiracy out there to push us further and further in the tournament.

I understand that to the outsider, things have looked a little fishy lately but there is more to the situation than meets the eye.

Stanford: DC draws a foul that allows him to make 2 free throws and push the game to overtime. All the media pictures show the play from the head up, completely ignoring the fact that the ref called the foul for Body Contact. Later, it comes out that there was a foul but the call was inappropriate, what? Are referees only supposed to call fouls when the game is not in the balance and ignore everything during the final minute of the game?

Cal: A foul is not called in the corner giving UCLA the ball with time for Josh Shipp to make his circus shot over the corner of the backboard. This one has been addressed by several people already and even Cal fans have noted that the play in the corner was clean. As for the shot, it did violate the written rules but the referees allowing it is not unprecedented (thanks Oregon). Here, I think we did get lucky.

Texas A&M: Josh Shipp blocks a shot that could have tied the game and pictures show that he got a good helping of arm along the way. A&M fans are screaming all over that this should have been called a foul and that the tournament's worst free throw shooting team would have tied the game up and possibly won in overtime. Watching this game live, I wasn't sure but I thought that this was a clean block, especially since the refs had been swallowing their whistles all game. The refs let the players play and it got rough several times inside the paint and there were plenty of instances where I screamed at the television about fouls that were not being called.

So it was a loosely called game and the play was hard to see so quickly. But more importantly, didn't we learn in the Stanford game that referees aren't supposed to make calls like that in the final seconds of a game? Didn't ESPN go on a rampage about how, even if it was a foul, it was close enough and important enough that the referees should have not called anything. Now all of a sudden, because following the rules they had been spewing all week would benefit UCLA, referees are supposed call close fouls late in the game. There were 3 players in position to block that shot and Shipp made a great play to get it first.

People who scream loudly about bad refereeing need to remember that referees watch television and read about sports on the internet too. Instead of complaining about them taking your advice when your team gets hurt, think of the irony and laugh. You may have influenced the game and helped eliminate what you loudly called bad officiating, only to have your recommendations beat your team. Everyone should be so lucky. Here at BN we have been trying to get something done about the terrible referees that plague the PAC-10 for years.

Now, if I am totally off base and this has been a giant conspiracy to get UCLA another championship, I will happily swear off complaining about referees for the next 5 years and only say positive things about the tireless, selfless, and all around wonderful human beings who work so tirelessly to make sure that athletic contests are played fairly (I'm not sure I could last any longer than that).

As to the question about whether we have been lucky, I think we have. But I am not sure that we would not have won these games anyways. This team is always prepared and Howland's teams have always shown their ability to win close games after it looks like all hope has been lost.

The Case for June Jones

Rhapsode — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 00:13:14 -0000

As everybody looks around the country for a suitable head coach to replace Dorrell, I would like to propose that we look to Hawaii.

June Jones' record speaks for itself. He has led his team to a 12-0 record and a 23-3 record over the last 2 years and a .655 winning percentage over 9 years. He runs what may be the best offense in college football and has never been accused of losing a game because he was afraid to make a gutsy call. Best of all, his teams get better as the season progresses, which means that we would never see a 6-0 team finish 6-6.

He is very popular, comes across well through the media, and is able to recruit quality players despite being saddled with terrible facilities and a recruiting budget of only $50,000. That means he gets only one recruiting trip to the mainland and has to recruit the rest of the team from Hawaii (which is not the richest talent base). Yet even with that, his teams always have a say about who wins the WAC and every couple of years he has an absolutely amazing team.

Brennan is the first quality QB that Jones has been able bring to Hawaii and he is setting records all over the place. Imagine what kind of players he could bring in with that offense and the UCLA name behind his recruiting pitch.

The big knock on Jones is that his defenses are never very good but I would blame that on his limited recruiting budget. Jones cannot go after highly sought after players at every position and he has focused his mainland recruiting on mostly offense, where he needs the most skill players. Being at UCLA should remedy this and allow Jones to compete for a PAC-10 championship every year.

Finally, there should not be the financial hurdles that you see with big name candidates like Spurrier because Jones only makes $800,000 a year. Plus, Jones' contract is up at the end of this season.

I know it is hard to leave the islands, but a big name program with a real budget and a pay raise can convince people to do strange things.

DW and the spread

Rhapsode — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 02:12:28 -0000

Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

Nestor wanted me to put this up in a diary so I will do my best. I was responding to a comment that nobody effectively stops the spread offense and that we should therefore not count that against DW.

The problem with the idea that nobody stops the spread is that everyone calls different offenses the spread. According to ESPN, any team that puts at least 3 wideouts on the field runs the spread.

Originally, the spread was 4 wideouts, 1 RB and a QB always in the shotgun formation. The goal of the spread is to spread out the defense so much that the middle of the field is vulnerable to short passes and runs up the middle.

By the ESPN definition, my high school team ran the spread since we never used a tight end or a FB and always had 4 wideouts. In truth, our offense more closely resembled Spurrier's fun and gun with lots of short passes to the sideline, screen passes, and draw plays on a 3-5 step drop.

Missouri's spread works nothing like the "spread" that Florida or West Virginia run. West Virginia runs a modified option based on misdirection in the running game that commits the entire defense to the line of scrimmage. That opens up the field so that even short passes go for at least 25 yards since nobody is covering the WR.

Florida runs a more power running attack that mixes in a lot of misdirection to set up Tebow's deep ball to speedy receivers. That's the reason that Tebow has so many more passing yards and TD's than Pat White.

Texas Tech's spread more resembles the spread that Northwestern made popular (and Missouri seems to use, I haven't watched them much) in that the QB is basically a pocket passer with 5 receivers spread all across the field. It is an offense based on creating bad matchups with the defense and getting one receiver (doesn't matter which one) open every play.

The "spread" is so popular because the schemes can be fine tuned to fit your players. The problem with it is that if you run a fine tuned spread and lose your star player, you become Oregon. For one moment, think about how fragile teams like WV, FL, Cal, Texas Tech, and Hawaii are(they don't run a traditional spread, but ESPN would call it that if it didn't already have a name). If any of those teams lose their QB, none of them have good seasons, and can lose to any team.

To make a long story short, I don't want DW anywhere near this team, but he never saw a spread in the No Fun League. It is possible to stop the spread, but each one is different. To stop WV, you need a defense with a big front 4, disciplined LB's and fast DB's who don't mind playing the run. WV's offense runs on a principle similar to Nebraska's old option: commit every player to the run and force them up to the line, then block, confuse, and try and make the last guy miss.

The spread is difficult. But any coach should be able to find a way to at least slow it down. There is no excuse for any defensive coach to look clueless against the spread. Having watched College Football my whole life in entirely unhealthy portions, there is no defense that cannot be countered. The one that seems the most difficult is Hawaii's because of June Jones' outstanding play calling.

By the way, I am pretty sure his contract is up this year. Do you think he would be interested in moving to Westwood?