Coach Mack Brown stated his main concern this spring is to fix the ground game. "We've got to get back to having more balance." Brown said the Longhorns would switch their offense and put their quarterback under center as well as a two back rushing attack. Brown went on to say "this school was built on running the football, playing man to man defense and stoning everyone." Talk about a dramatic change of philosophy. What team did he just describe? Perhaps the NC game will symbolize the beginning of the end for these talented elite teams running the spread.When talent is even it's enough to make you pause and say to yourself what in the name of Texas bovine DNA are we doing wrong? We are going back to the future. Did Curtis Mayfield say it best "Spread is Dead." (well, close enough)
When I look at the Saints and the Colts in the Superbowl, I thought the game may have killed two old views: 1. Defense wins championships. 2. Your offense has to have balance, run and pass. Both teams offenses dominated the other teams D. Neither team rushed the ball very well, not nearly as effectively as they passed it. Now that's the pro's, and we were watching the two best QB's in the league, so the same rules that hold for them may not hold in college ball, where you don't have a matured Manning or Brees. But, college schemes come and go. In the 70's, it was the wishbone, now nobody runs it. Teams learned to defense the bone, then the wishbone offense couldn't throw the ball and the teams couldn't come from behind. Probably the 85 scholly limit also had an effect on creating parity of talent and that helped kill the bone also. I think D's are probably catching up to the spread. Linebackers are lighter and faster than they were 20 years ago. LSU had a former safety at outside LB last year, may do it again this year. As the D gets lighter and faster, a power running game will be a mismatch. Let's see what Tx. does this season. It will be interesting. Edited: I wonder is Bama won the championship with a power running game, that defenses designed to stop the Fla. spread were at a disadvantage to, like the LSU D? Just a thought. English teachers, please don't send corrections of the above english.
Just part of the normal evolution of the game. New offenses come along, or old ones are recycled. For a while, defenses aren't sure how to defend it. Then after a few years, defensive coaches figure out how to bottle up most of the wrinkles that the offense can throw at you. The spread is still an effective offense, but a disciplined, speedy defense can stop it.
Exactly what I was going to post. It's predictable that defensive coordinators are going to evolve their personnel and tactics to handle the spread. So you get a fast, agile (and therefore smallish) defense. Eventually, the offenses figure they better evolve (or devolve) and the offense becomes a bruising running game - and suddenly the mismatch favors the offense again.
This made me think about how the A11 was supposed to be a quantum leap forward in the game. Until all the state high school athletic associations closed the scrimmage kick loophole that allowed its use. Couldn't have happened to a couple of nicer guys, since the coaches that came up with it seemed to be far more interested in marketing and selling their system than coaching the kids.
What I found to be most interesting about Texas change of style included the defensive schemes as well. Mack Brown spoke of "man to man" and "stoning other teams." This sounds like a defense that wants to get bigger and meaner as well. I've seldom seen a spread offense that didn't come equipped with a spread defense. With the exception of a few elite teams with over whelming talent, what ever these offensives "taketh" the spread defenses "giveth back." Coach Brown seems determined to make the adjustment on both sides of the ball. Maybe these guys are coming to the SEC after all.
Don't get too far ahead of yourself. Mack damn near won the game with his backup QB. I doubt he'll be rushing to make any mass overhauls.
Talk about gimmicks...I'm wondering if the "Wildcat" formation is going to eventually disappear or become more varied in the future. I have yet to see things like directional snaps and other things that confuse the defense (as to which back gets the ball) other than optioning...or passing from the formation. I kind of think the single wing look will disappear because of the weakness of putting the ball into play so far back from the line of scrimmage on running plays. The offensive linemen have to hold their blocks for too long as opposed to just nudging the defensive linemen out the way for a moment. Maybe the veer formation will come back for occasionally mixing up the defenses. I kind of like the idea of keeping the ball at the line of scrimmage on running plays and quick slants on passing ones. I think we'd benefit from plays that don't need a lot of time to develop or plays that don't require a lot of reading by the quarterback.
Kind of makes you wonder, with Urban Meyer and his system getting trashed by pro's, does anyone think any really good quarterback that throws the ball, and isn't a running quarterback will ever want to go to Florida as long as CUM is there.
