With the emergence of the spread offense, and trend to taller wide receivers, what kind of changes are occurring on the defensive side of the ball? It seems to me linebackers are a little lighter these days, but need to be faster. Seems linebackers used to go 230-240, and now there are more playing at 220, but they run a lot faster. You can consider moving Shomari Clemmons from safety to linebacker, and be in good shape. At corner, to play these tall wide receivers, it seems the ideal corner has to be bigger than in the past, and just as fast, or faster. I think P. Johnson comes in at 6'1", 195. I remember a lot of good corners that were 5'10 and 180. I don't see those changes on the d-line or at safety, what worked in the past still works. Whachthink?
I think players at every position are getting bigger AND faster and increasingly, more athletic. Even the linemen. Teams have always coveted tall receivers, its just that there are now a lot more of them who also have the strength and speed to be effective. Just look at the 1958 LSU White team. 6-1, 200 pounds was an offensive lineman on that team, now it's a defensive back. Offensive and defensive coordinators are reaping the benefits of having big strong guys with speed and agility at every position. It's allowing new offenses that just couldn't be done when you were either big and strong OR small and fast. Just like the T, the Single Wing, The Wishbone, the Veer and all the other hot offenses, the spread is enjoying success right now . . . but defenses will always catch up and force someone to be innovative again.
Red has already touched on it but the spread, like any "new" offense works for a period of time but make no mistake about defenses will catch up and force change. One discussion we're having on Tidefans right now is how the down side to a lot of these spread offenses that pass alot is the defenses suffer because they're on the field a lot. Scoring offensively is great and every team should want to score every series but a lot of these pass happy spread offenses actually score TOO fast. Personally, I think balance is the key. Score as fast and as often as possible without killing your defense in the process. It does no good to score all those points but your defense gives out in the first half and you end up giving all those points back.
Indeed. Much of LSU's success in recent years has been having a damn strong running game to go with those four-and-five wideout sets. We could get ahead a couple of scores and then line up in the "I" and grind out 6-to-8-minute drives running the ball. Nothing is as frustrating to an opponent than standing on the sidelines and not be able to get the offense back into the game as the clock ticks away . . .
Running the ball is one thing that's not going to change about football. Football by nature is a "physical" sport and running the ball is the ultimate way to physically beat your opponent.
i think 80% of teams that used the spread primarily, sucked. id guess a losing record. just thinking off top of my head. wouldnt say its really a trend or one thats changing the landscape of college football. athletes have been getting bigger and faster since beginning of time. this is nothing new. much quicker with the better use of weights and nutrition but certainly nothing much different than 20 yrs ago.
I am an advocate of running the ball, i love a beautifully ochestrated running game. With Tackles and Guards pulling, centers taking out a linebacker. There is nothing better in football. If a team can run the ball effectively, they usually can pass with a decent QB. Thats why you can winning a championship in college without a superstar QB.
youre probably correct. it was started mainly by schools with smaller linemen so they could get good angles in blocking because they were too small physically, same reason the wing t was created. so i would assume the less athletic teams have poor records, though it would be interesting to see a handful of bcs teams run it. one thing that has changed is the linemen are leaner. with faster defenders more linemen are pulling out of what were normal sets with normal offensive line rules...now they are pulling in shotgun half of the time.
Got me wondering about how the numbers played out last year so I pulled these. # of receptions: Doucet 57 LaFell 50 Byrd 35 Dickson 32 Hester 14 Mitchell 13 Scott 12 Tolliver 10 Williams 9 # of rushes: Hester 225 Williams 70 Holliday 53 Scott 45 Murphy 35 As is said so often, stats don't really paint a clear picture- mop up time, huge leads, etc. However, thought it may be of interest to some that we averaged 214 yards rushing per game and 225 receiving last year. 359 pass attempts to 593 rushes (100 of those were Flynn- why am I clarifying that, I have no idea); one was Colt's faked PAT/TD.
If your team has a good running game, then that is the Defenses best friend!!! :geauxtige:geauxtige :geauxtige:geauxtige
