At the start, let me be clear this isn’t a flame post. I am not trolling anyone’s knowledge and am truly talking as a fan to another fan about how I’ve enjoyed this offense more.
When we first announced the CPJ hire I was unimpressed. I felt like it was a scrape the barrel kind of a hire, and was fairly ignorant about his version of the spread option. I vaguely knew of his success at southern, but felt like he ran a gimmicky offense that was better suited for the service academies and lower tier div1 teams. Essentially, I bought the narrative many of his detractors advance (even still to this day).
I got out in 2007, so had suffered through the bitter end of CCG’s tenure and was staying in the area so dutifully bought my season tickets and set about reading up on the spread option and specifically CPJ’s flavor of it.
The more I learned, the more I liked. It is built for a quick thinking trigger man at QB, with a set of quick but strong slot backs (ABacks) and a bull dozer of a true full back with finesse enough to move, run routes and pass protect combined with the toughness to run the belly dive 25 times a game.
The more I have learned about the nuance on blocking (both Oline and Skill Players) the more fascinated I have become and the more enjoyment I get watching the game.
The preamble above was to set up the Crux of my point. Often, especially with the media, CPJ is asked why he doesn’t do more of “x” thing. The issue here is a fundamental lack of understanding belied by the question. It would be like asking a coach why they didn’t throw a long hail marry attempt when they had their jumbo package in and the defense was in cover 3 with tight man coverage on the skill players. It just isn’t the right time for that call.
The major premise of this offense is to flow to where we have numbers or specific advantage. The second part of that explains why sometimes we have a QB who is a bruiser (read: JfN) who will tuck the ball and run tight off tackle, a QB who has mastered reading the keys and offloads like a point guard with near impossible precision (read: General Washington) or sometimes use their feet to make something of a play which is either busted by missed assignments up front or was misread due to inexperience by the QB (read: last year’s TM).
When we ask if the coach can direct the players to be more focused on doing “x” the answer is more nuanced than a yes or no. No - we wouldn’t want to direct them to always do a specific action regardless of what the defense is presenting; but yes we can/should/do coach them to make quicker/better/faster reads.
I have a lot of optimism for improvements in all three phases of the game this year. I believe CPJ has our offense coached up from the freak show injury problems in 2016 and the disappointment caused by inconsistency on the front 5 mixed in with a new QB. I believe CNW has the defense fired up to play with some swagger and aggression, and frankly if we can get one take away a game more than last season think we will be on a great spot. I am also hopeful that our ST will improve with the three kickers we have taking reps (though I’ll leave it to the talented
@GTNavyNuke to talk more about that).
To get a clearer sense of CPJ’s philosophies I highly suggest perusing the old playbook of CPJ’s from 2001 at southern:
http://www.footballxos.com/download...n-offense-paul-johnson-pdf/?wpdmdl=4061&ind=0
Or this shorter article:
http://footballscoop.com/news/12-foundation-pillars-paul-johnsons-program/
I also highly suggest watch the breakdowns
@Longestday and others do of the offense. I am looking forward to seeing what
@Ibeeballin thinks of the new defense breakdowns too!
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