Football nerd stuff. If you get a chance, watch Mississippi State play a couple of games

[UgaBlows]

I made this point on another post. I didn't have to be a 7 year rebuild, but more like a transition over time. CGC/P'naude probably never even thought of it. Use the talent/skills you had on hand year one more effectively. Tobias Oliver at QB could have run it , IMO.

Tobias Oliver in the air raid? Are you freaking kidding?

 

[Techster]

I'm still holding out for the love child of the Flex Option - Air Raid offenses. Mike Leach said in a podcast during the pandemic that if he were to run any other offense, it would be the Flex option.

On another note, give me a season of Mike Leach and Paul Johnson talking football and life. I'd pay good money for that.

 

[Ibeeballin]

One thing the new staff could have done is brought in the option package out of the gun and a short air raid attack until they got their guys in the system. Tobias could have been our Tim Tebow until he got his QB ready.

I made this point on another post. I didn't have to be a 7 year rebuild, but more like a transition over time. CGC/P'naude probably never even thought of it. Use the talent/skills you had on hand year one more effectively. Tobias Oliver at QB could have run it , IMO.

Lol y’all do realize we used Tobias and played to strengths and didn’t work.

 

[ilovetheoption]

I'm still holding out for the love child of the Flex Option - Air Raid offenses. Mike Leach said in a podcast during the pandemic that if he were to run any other offense, it would be the Flex option.

On another note, give me a season of Mike Leach and Paul Johnson talking football and life. I'd pay good money for that.

I imagine they'd get along like peas and carrots. They've each heard "it's BS" so many times over the years that their only response is "ok motherf'er, if it's bs how come I just hung 45 on you with a bunch of 2 and 3 stars?"

 

[ilovetheoption]

All,

I have to push back pretty strongly on the notion that it would have been an easy transition from the flex option to the Air Raid.

They're not at all alike in terms of execution. In terms of concepts, sure, and overarching notion, sure, but in terms of the skills required, and the bodies required, and the amount of carryover, it's almost zero.

Recall that I said the advantage is that you only have to recruit certain skills, so you can have successful players without having to recruit the 4 and 5 stars (who are the 4 and 5 stars BECAUSE they can fit in ANY system and contribute).

That said, the "certain skills" have almost zero overlap between the two offenses.

You guys would have struggled MIGHTILY trying to run the air raid with PJ's players. Probably worse than you're struggling now.

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

I had long heard Paul Johnson talk about how much the Air Raid was like the Triple Option, and for my own team, I've cribbed some Air Raid concepts in the pass game, but I'd never really dug into the Air Raid as a whole offense until this year.

Johnson's not wrong.

Like, x's and o's, it couldn't me more different, but conceptually, it he's not wrong. They're more alike than you think.

They do relatively few things, they just do them really well, and above all else they're ball control offenses, trying to manage the sticks with a baseline thing that they'll just do 100 times in a row (with a smile) if you don't defend it.

ONLY WHEN you defend the basics will they go to their counters to your counters, and your counters to their counters leave you vulnerable to the baseline thing, and they just circle around over and over and over, confident that the few plays that they have have enough wrinkles in them that you can't be right, and the QB just has to read it right and make the right choice.

It's a beautiful offense to watch, if you don't wed yourself to what football "should" be like, and just allow yourself to see the system, and the patterns, and let it settle on your brain.

Look at this: https://www.ncaa.com/stats/football/fbs/current/team/705

It's VERY few concepts, that have choices, and you have certain choices of how to defend it, and if you chose one, another of their few concepts is the answer to that. Like, stick=the dive. If you don't defend stick, they'll just run stick over and over and over again all the way down the field.

They rep their 6 concepts over and over and over and over again, until they can just execute it, and that 6 yard throw is the same thing as a handoff to them.

Different skills, different bodies, different concepts, but underneath it is "we reduce the number of things we ask our guys to do to a VERY streamlined set of actions, and because of that, we don't need to recruit guys who can do EVERYTHING, just guys who can do THOSE things very well, and because of that we don't have to recruit the same guys everybody else does, and guys can outperform their recruiting rankings".

I feel like that should seem very familiar to you guys.

When I watched Washington State a few years ago, a poster on an opponent's fan forum was complaining that Leach recruited guys that looked like they belonged in a fraternity flag football club but when the game started every SOB was wide open playing pitch and catch with the quarterback. I guess that is why in the PAC 10 he was known as the "mad scientist".

 

[MidtownJacket]

This has always been a spin on the scheme coach versus player coach for me. The scheme coach can force you out of your normal alignment. Running a 4-3 against the air raid doesn't give you enough speed to defend, running a 3-4 against the option and you won't have the bulk side to side on the field to stop them getting to the alley.

if you have a stud WR though, they just stalk him with their best DBack, QB is a run threat? Fine they make a LB a spy, etc.

I just think the scheme coaches force the other side to play guys out of depth to match the fronts they need, as opposed to being able to just plop your best Defender on the stud across the LoS

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

Tobias Oliver in the air raid? Are you freaking kidding?

He did it in HS. Short passes are not that tough.

 

[UgaBlows]

He did it in HS. Short passes are not that tough.

Did you see his passing in college?

 

[takethepoints]

I wanted Leach, myself, but it would have been a heck of a transition, too. Possibly tougher than what we are attempting now.

Me too. What Option says above is the key here: you don't have to recruit world beaters; just players who can do what you need to make the O work. It worked before and it would have worked with Leach too.

 

[slugboy]

I wanted Leach, myself, but it would have been a heck of a transition, too. Possibly tougher than what we are attempting now.

I never heard that he had any interest in GT. However, I’m surprised he was interested in MissSt, and I don’t have a personal NCAA HC grapevine

 

[LibertyTurns]

All,

I have to push back pretty strongly on the notion that it would have been an easy transition from the flex option to the Air Raid.

They're not at all alike in terms of execution. In terms of concepts, sure, and overarching notion, sure, but in terms of the skills required, and the bodies required, and the amount of carryover, it's almost zero.

Recall that I said the advantage is that you only have to recruit certain skills, so you can have successful players without having to recruit the 4 and 5 stars (who are the 4 and 5 stars BECAUSE they can fit in ANY system and contribute).

That said, the "certain skills" have almost zero overlap between the two offenses.

You guys would have struggled MIGHTILY trying to run the air raid with PJ's players. Probably worse than you're struggling now.

Nobody’s that’s sane advocated jumping off the cliff and going full throttle air raid. What many did advocate is you took our run offense and built a heavier pass offense off of that. Maybe you went from 10-12% passes per game to 15-20%, once you got comfortable with passing some you amped it up to 20-25%. You use the run to set up the pass, not abandon the run & pass, pass, pass. No pass for the sake of passing so you could thump your chest that we’re now a passing team. What we did lacked thought. There were many ways to transition, some rational and others idotic. We didn’t select the most insane path, but it sure looked dumb and the performance given the level of talent backed it up.

 

[gtg936g]

I had long heard Paul Johnson talk about how much the Air Raid was like the Triple Option, and for my own team, I've cribbed some Air Raid concepts in the pass game, but I'd never really dug into the Air Raid as a whole offense until this year.

Johnson's not wrong.

Like, x's and o's, it couldn't me more different, but conceptually, it he's not wrong. They're more alike than you think.

They do relatively few things, they just do them really well, and above all else they're ball control offenses, trying to manage the sticks with a baseline thing that they'll just do 100 times in a row (with a smile) if you don't defend it.

ONLY WHEN you defend the basics will they go to their counters to your counters, and your counters to their counters leave you vulnerable to the baseline thing, and they just circle around over and over and over, confident that the few plays that they have have enough wrinkles in them that you can't be right, and the QB just has to read it right and make the right choice.

It's a beautiful offense to watch, if you don't wed yourself to what football "should" be like, and just allow yourself to see the system, and the patterns, and let it settle on your brain.

Look at this: https://www.ncaa.com/stats/football/fbs/current/team/705

It's VERY few concepts, that have choices, and you have certain choices of how to defend it, and if you chose one, another of their few concepts is the answer to that. Like, stick=the dive. If you don't defend stick, they'll just run stick over and over and over again all the way down the field.

They rep their 6 concepts over and over and over and over again, until they can just execute it, and that 6 yard throw is the same thing as a handoff to them.

Different skills, different bodies, different concepts, but underneath it is "we reduce the number of things we ask our guys to do to a VERY streamlined set of actions, and because of that, we don't need to recruit guys who can do EVERYTHING, just guys who can do THOSE things very well, and because of that we don't have to recruit the same guys everybody else does, and guys can outperform their recruiting rankings".

I feel like that should seem very familiar to you guys.

One interesting thing is the number of passes that are deep shots in the spread option offense compared to the air raid. CPJ took a lot of shots deep compared to other “passing” offenses.

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

Did you see his passing in college?

Yes. I saw him put his team on his shoulders when it counted and pass them down the field for a state championship.

 

[rodandanga]

It's great to see this thread, given that both the Mumme/Leach air raid and Johnson's Spread have passing games heavily based out of the old Mouse Davis Run & Shoot.

 

[LongforDodd]

I made this point on another post. I didn't have to be a 7 year rebuild, but more like a transition over time. CGC/P'naude probably never even thought of it. Use the talent/skills you had on hand year one more effectively. Tobias Oliver at QB could have run it , IMO.

After year one, then what do you do? Who do you recruit? A hybrid of a team suited for your previous offense and then half for your future state? I’m not kicking you in the nuts but how do you do this?

 

[jgtengineer]

After year one, then what do you do? Who do you recruit? A hybrid of a team suited for your previous offense and then half for your future state? I’m not kicking you in the nuts but how do you do this?

Okay so heres how you do it honestly. You are looking to move from an option offense to a RPO right. That's the goal. Step one you need to recruit a QB right? Well the problem is most QBs are just flat out not ready as true freshman, and you have the problem of your O-line not being setup for etc basically as far as logic is concerned you legit are doign a roster turn.

Year one you run an option offense, but it looks different your still veer blocking, power blocking predicated on a power run game out of the I or single back and a pistol option game with play action. In all honestly this looks alot like Baltimore (minus the heavy reliance on veer line concepts) And you can say hey look we are running a pro offense. If it works and you win the games you should lose all the games you shouldn't and go to a bowl game well you've got extra practice. Nwo you have a base of plays you can build from, a lot of them simple power run concepts. And you land a QB recruit. You tell him look by your junior year we want to be 50/50 in passing, we have this ATL concept so what we are going to do is have you have a series of plays you practice hard and we are going to use the situationally EVERY week if we can. Think Tebow behind leak it will be great... okay sated the ego of your QB of the future? Good because you know you still need lineman lots of em.

As you recruit lineman and train them up you slowly introduce more and more pass concepts and are calling less and less option concepts, you shift to zone options, zone reads and the goal is to still control the pace of the game. But you are still doing what you are good at. And eventually we enter the next phase.

Its year three you have a QB you've been running option with and some passing that's now a Junior/seniro and you have a QB you recruited who is now a redshirt sophmore that has got a ton of reps at the passing side of things, he really knows how to read the field for the offense you want, that small cluster of plays and reads he's been using every game he's been ATL has grown to an actually offensive tree. Hell maybe even last year You had people calling all year for you to bench the option guy and play this guy whose been throwing it great and running read option concepts. He didn't have pressure on him to play great he just went out there and did. So durign spring you basically figure out that yeah the new guy is ready. you go to your option QB and say look , heres the deal. We really want to open it up and maybe make a run at a really good season you are still above the line, we are still going to have a place for you and packages, but we also want you to get reps at RB, if you want to transfer thats fine you've got your degree. But we still want you on the field (typically an option QB is one of your best athletes in general). You make your change. Hopefully he stays maybe he doesn't. But now you haven't wasted 2 years. You hopefully have some lineman you've trained up or retrained and some you've recruited and you are ready for yoru goal offense to really be implemented. Maybe you win 7-8 games. Have a good season.

Year 4 you now have a junior QB a junior/senior line, senior wide outs, senior RBs and you've slowly added your scheme over the years and you are ready to shock the ****ing world you hope.

Now heres the funny part.
Johnson tried part 2 and part 3 with Vad Lee. And in all honesty probably would have continued had Vad NOT transfered. We'd have probably seen JT as an A back and backup QB, but im not sure we'd have been better than going back to base offense in 2014, but he was trying to build up to a more passing threat. Look at Waller (had an addiction problem but can't really call that a miss of talent read) he went out and got smelter. that core of a-backs were amazing blockers but deon hill was probably as reliable as any tight end. and our line was bigger than it had been. But you don't take an amazing option QB and force him to stick in that transition when the guy you were transitioning for transfers.

Malzahn did this at auburn, before they bought newton.

Hell you could even say Kiffen and Saban did this at Alabama when alabama was transitioning to the spread from the power run. They had to retool their ENTIRE offense. They knew they had a down hill blocking o-lien that suffered in pass blocking so they got a really good series of mobile QBS so they could scramble and get off line while even alabama had to retool their o-line for the spread. Then they had a Tua. They somehow convinced hurts to stay and it gets them a championship.

Sometimes blowing up everything and installing your system day one can work (Johnson 08, mike leach at times he's hit or miss on this) But mso tof the time it doesn't especially if you are moving to something like a Pro Spread. Things that rely on mulitple sets, lots of reads. massive play charts , etc take time. And in a world like college football... you don't really have it until you are old and staying old.

 

[Jim Prather]

I wish I could like this post 50 times!!!!