Option Football

[RonJohn]

It makes sense. When you don't want to pay a buyout, you handicap the coach so much that he wants to quit and does quit. It happens. It happens in regular corporations too.

You might think "I would never do that as an AD", but that doesn't mean ADs don't do that.

To quote Albus Dumbledore: "We must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy". Too many times people take the easy route.

 

[RonJohn]

It's one piece of evidence, but it's strong evidence that we overrate recruiting and we underrate scheme.

Coaching should be thrown into the mix also. Sometimes scheme is overrated also. I think to win consistently it requires all three of scheme, talent, and coaching. If you have extreme talent, like Miami, you can win but will also have spectacular failures because coaching and discipline are lacking. If you have good coaching and a good scheme, you can have spectacular failures against superior talent, such as GT vs Clemson and the mutts in 2018. It is a balancing act.

 

[slugboy]

Coaching should be thrown into the mix also. Sometimes scheme is overrated also. I think to win consistently it requires all three of scheme, talent, and coaching. If you have extreme talent, like Miami, you can win but will also have spectacular failures because coaching and discipline are lacking. If you have good coaching and a good scheme, you can have spectacular failures against superior talent, such as GT vs Clemson and the mutts in 2018. It is a balancing act.

I should have totally looked at Miami or FSU to compare recruiting rankings vs performance. There are a bunch of teams where it's just shooting fish in the barrel to compare how they recruit vs how they perform. TA&M, the list just goes on and on...

There's a correlation that people flog that the teams in national title games have top recruiting classes, but that doesn't mean "top recruiting classes"->"FBS playoffs". There are way too many teams that win the recruiting wars but then don't come close to that potential.

Coaching and athletic talent and grit are all contributing factors to winning. I think one of the reasons that Tennessee looks so good this year is that they have (coaching)*(talent)*(grit?)*(schematic advantage).

For the most part, when posters here mention scheme, they're talking about taking a different strategy than other schools. I don't think anyone is calling Ole Miss a "scheme school"--their coach just coaches the same RPO that Bama runs better than most RPO OCs. We would call Mississippi State a scheme school, because while they're recruiting the best athletes they can get, they're not trying to run the same playbook as Bama better than Bama--they're running a different playbook.

For scheme, we'd get slaughtered running air raid with 230 lb linemen. The point is that something like that gives us a shot to match up high 3* and 4* linemen against 5* DTs, if we're coached well.

 

[MWBATL]

it’s just most of the people saying scheme mean one thing and that’s the return of option football

That's your paranoid take, and it isn't true.

 

[CEB]

To quote Albus Dumbledore: "We must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy". Too many times people take the easy route.

Coaching should be thrown into the mix also. Sometimes scheme is overrated also. I think to win consistently it requires all three of scheme, talent, and coaching. If you have extreme talent, like Miami, you can win but will also have spectacular failures because coaching and discipline are lacking. If you have good coaching and a good scheme, you can have spectacular failures against superior talent, such as GT vs Clemson and the mutts in 2018. It is a balancing act.

Your two posts are a nice segue to my concern. I hope we’re not looking at the “easy” way with regard to the coach. It’s “easy” to focus on appearance and claim we’re doing things “right.” It is a 3-legged stool, as you say and the readily identifiable (easy) aspects criticized by every Tom Richard and Harry are “we don’t recruit well enough,” and “the offense / play calling is bad.” Its easy to fall victim to satisfying those two camps, at the expense of the actual business of coaching.... hopefully the folks in charge have the courage and foresight to get the right people in place even if they don’t pass everyone’s eye test initially.

 

[Techster]

For the most part, when posters here mention scheme, they're talking about taking a different strategy than other schools. I don't think anyone is calling Ole Miss a "scheme school"--their coach just coaches the same RPO that Bama runs better than most RPO OCs. We would call Mississippi State a scheme school, because while they're recruiting the best athletes they can get, they're not trying to run the same playbook as Bama better than Bama--they're running a different playbook.

For scheme, we'd get slaughtered running air raid with 230 lb linemen. The point is that something like that gives us a shot to match up high 3* and 4* linemen against 5* DTs, if we're coached well.

Ole Miss, and by extenstion Kiffin's offense, is definitely a "scheme school". Do they use RPO? Yes, but the offense is a mix of a LOT of different concepts taken from his years working with different coaches. He has worked with Norm Chow (West Coast guru), Kendal Briles (Baylor's "veer and shoot"), Jeff Lebby (UCF with Heupal's Air Raid/Baylor's offense), among others. He's gone from being a West Coast offense guy from his days at the Raiders and USC, to someone who has installed high impact schemes to fit the talent around him. This year his offense is actually running the ball more, but can be devastating in the air when needed. Now you add talent + scheme, and you get a high powered offense. Alabama, for all of their recruiting prowess, has also become a scheme + talent school. Add to that, he's installed a uptempo no huddle aspect to all of his offenses.

Lane Kiffin: A Complete Offensive History

Play fast, score points, win ball games.

www.redcuprebellion.com

Kiffin is one of the few coaches you could put at any school and he would have a good offensive unit because he has a breadth of knowledge of signature offenses, but he's not married to any of them because he takes into consideration the talent he has at his disposal. Saban said it best, Kiffin is one of the best offensive minds in the country. IMO, that's the very definition of a "scheme" coach.

 

[RonJohn]

I should have totally looked at Miami or FSU to compare recruiting rankings vs performance. There are a bunch of teams where it's just shooting fish in the barrel to compare how they recruit vs how they perform. TA&M, the list just goes on and on...

There's a correlation that people flog that the teams in national title games have top recruiting classes, but that doesn't mean "top recruiting classes"->"FBS playoffs". There are way too many teams that win the recruiting wars but then don't come close to that potential.

Coaching and athletic talent and grit are all contributing factors to winning. I think one of the reasons that Tennessee looks so good this year is that they have (coaching)*(talent)*(grit?)*(schematic advantage).

For the most part, when posters here mention scheme, they're talking about taking a different strategy than other schools. I don't think anyone is calling Ole Miss a "scheme school"--their coach just coaches the same RPO that Bama runs better than most RPO OCs. We would call Mississippi State a scheme school, because while they're recruiting the best athletes they can get, they're not trying to run the same playbook as Bama better than Bama--they're running a different playbook.

For scheme, we'd get slaughtered running air raid with 230 lb linemen. The point is that something like that gives us a shot to match up high 3* and 4* linemen against 5* DTs, if we're coached well.

I don't disagree with you. I was just trying to point out that all of those things have to be taken into consideration.

Scheme with 3* and 4* players isn't going to do much if we are playing 5* DTs, 5* LBs, and 5* DBs, who are all disciplined, well coached, and well prepared for the scheme. In the TO, if the MLB can get around his block, he can blow up the play. RPO depends on mismatches. If the CBs and safeties are talented enough to shut down in single coverage, one linebacker can take the RB, and another linebacker can take the QB, it will be difficult to execute successfully.

There are very few teams with that have that high a level of talent, that level of coaching, and that level of discipline. Unfortunately for use, there are two of them on our schedule every year. To beat those teams with scheme, it will take them having an off day. But to beat them with high talent and no discipline will also take them having an off day.

I think too many people put too much emphasis on one or the other. (Probably as a bias, I think that mainly people who thing recruiting is more important make it a one or the other argument.) If we want to win consistently, I think it will take not only recruiting, nor only scheme. I think it will take a higher level of recruiting, a higher level of coaching, and something unique all at the same time.

 

[JacketFan137]

I think too many people put too much emphasis on one or the other. (Probably as a bias, I think that mainly people who thing recruiting is more important make it a one or the other argument.) If we want to win consistently, I think it will take not only recruiting, nor only scheme. I think it will take a higher level of recruiting, a higher level of coaching, and something unique all at the same time.

the reason this is true is because you factually cannot recruit that well in the option. top athletes will not come to your school at many positions. mainly qb, WR, o line.

 

[SoMsJacket]

the reason this is true is because you factually cannot recruit that well in the option. top athletes will not come to your school at many positions. mainly qb, WR, o line.

Actually, negative recruiting has a major impact on GT recruiting today. Recruits are being told that GT will return to the 3O scheme and top rated recruits (OL, DL, QBs & WRs and TEs) want no part of it. It doesn't prepare one for an NFL career. Fans need to critically look at opposing teams OL and DL size/talent. They are averaging 315 for OL and 325 for interior DL. No scheme can neutralize that size and talent differential.

I'm not sold on Chadwell's ability to recruit at the level needed to compete with Clemson.

 

[RonJohn]

the reason this is true is because you factually cannot recruit that well in the option. top athletes will not come to your school at many positions. mainly qb, WR, o line.

Your post is actually a case in point providing some proof to my argument. People who stress recruiting ABOVE all else, ignore everything except recruiting. Are we discussion flexbone specifically, or a "scheme" in general? Yet, you go straight to all the reasons flexbone can't possibly succeed.

Cam Newton went to an RPO team. He won a national championship in a scheme offense. GT won the Orange Bowl, and was closer than we had been in 24 years to sniffing a national championship in 2014 with the flexbone AND what you consider far inferior talent. Miami has been a top 10 recruiting team for a long time, and hasn't done squat with all of that talent.

It does take more than just scheme. However, it takes more than just talent. If you don't believe that, look at Miami. They have had talent. They have changed coaches multiple times, but still are an undisciplined train wreck.

 

[JacketFan137]

Your post is actually a case in point providing some proof to my argument. People who stress recruiting ABOVE all else, ignore everything except recruiting. Are we discussion flexbone specifically, or a "scheme" in general? Yet, you go straight to all the reasons flexbone can't possibly succeed.

you have absolutely jumped the gun here. literally no one is saying that scheme and coaching doesn’t matter or ignoring it’s importance. you’re being exactly the same as the imaginary person you are arguing with.

 

[RonJohn]

you have absolutely jumped the gun here. literally no one is saying that scheme and coaching doesn’t matter or ignoring it’s importance. you’re being exactly the same as the imaginary person you are arguing with.

Then by all means, please let us know your opinions about all of the other schemes that have been discussed instead of reminding us how much you loathe the flexbone.

 

[stigs02jrt]

The data for Tennessee is in the table I shared. It's also pretty clear in the chart--you'd just need to shift the recruiting line by 3 places.
It's also easy to add a 4-year running average. Or, we could go and get that "Talent Composite Index".

I think what you're saying in the bolded part is "yeah, the smart move is to get that coaching staff that can recruit--that's the main thing". Kirby Smart recruits better than Mark Richt did, but Smart recruits a lot better at UGA than he would at Kentucky or here. I don't think Kirby Smart or Jimbo Fisher would pull in many top 15 classes here--maybe not any. You can correlate coaching changes with recruiting rankings, but the school seems to be a bigger factor than the coach. UGA has only been outside of the top 10 in recruiting 3 times in the last 22 years--for any coach.

Recruiting is better under Smart, but UGA has pumped a lot more money into recruiting under Smart than they did under Richt. That's an arms race we can't compete in.

Do I think Deion could bring in better classes at Tech than Jimbo Fisher? Probably. Do I think he'll bring in top 10 classes here? Let's say I need to be convinced and would be really impressed by classes in the 15-20 range.

Are classes in the 15-20 range enough to beat Clemson? Yeah, with a schematic advantage, if we had one. Or occasionally, if we didn't have a schematic advantage.

Is Recruiting Ranking correlated with your AP rank? Yeah. Is recruiting ranking also correlated with other contributing factors, like the amount of revenue your AA brings in? Yeah. Are wins correlated with other factors, like how much money the school has? Yeah. Does that mean that we overrate how much recruiting ratings are tied to on the field performance? Yeah. Do we wildly overrate how much a coach's recruiting skills result in wins? Yeah.

Do I mean that coaches should ignore recruiting? No--it's like shaving. If you don't do a good job of it every day you look like a bum.

What I meant by the bold part is doing a correlation of CFB as a whole, recruiting rank to FEI 3 years later, not just a cherry picked outlier like Tennessee.

You talk about recruiting money spent and AA revenue. It's really much simpler than that. Does a recruit like you when you visit him and his mama? Does he believe that you and your school will help him to get to the NFL? Does he respect you and want to play for you? and as silly as this sounds, what will his friends say when he tells them "I'm playing for coach Deion" vs. say Chadwell?

If you think our recruiting budget is keeping us from top 25 recruiting classes when we have 40 4+ star recruits JUST IN GEORGIA, then I can't help you. It's not money, it's credibility.

Do some folks wildly underestimate recruiting? Yes. It's usually the folks that root for schools that don't recruit well.

 

[CEB]

the reason this is true is because you factually cannot recruit that well in the option. top athletes will not come to your school at many positions. mainly qb, WR, o line.

You have been very big on telling everyone that just because CGC failed doesn't mean we should abandon recruiting.
On the flip side, you're adamant that because CPJ didn't recruit, "factually" NO ONE can recruit to an option based offense.
Both are strawman positions - no one is saying we shouldn't try to recruit, and college football is littered with option based offenses doing just fine with recruits.

Here is the crux of the issue for me... Recruiting as a primary focus is a non-starter because:
1. Recruiting independent coaching, development, and program identity / stability is next to worthless
2. Recruiting without development won't take you very far, and probably wont allow you to retain those recruits... especially these days
3. We will not out recruit at least a 1/3, if not 1/2 of our schedule, so if we plan to win more than 7-8, there has to be a lot more to it. Recruiting definitely helps, but recruiting doesn't SOLVE much of anything.
4. Recruiting is wishy washy and highly subjective. Hardly something to base your existence on. How do you measure recruiting? The only thing I have seen is independent parties opining on individual talent with little concern for what you need as a program. Thats probably fine for the factories in the top 10 of rankings annually... it is a fair assessment of where those top 10 teams stack up relative to one another. They stack 4 and 5 star recruits 3 deep, so its just a numbers game on which of them got the most this year. For everyone outside of the top 10-15, its not a very accurate measure as far as I can tell. So honestly, what does it mean to "recruit better?" What is the real benefit of getting a top 20 class vs a top 30 class vs a top 50 class?

 

[CuseJacket]

Ole Miss, and by extenstion Kiffin's offense, is definitely a "scheme school". Do they use RPO? Yes, but the offense is a mix of a LOT of different concepts taken from his years working with different coaches. He has worked with Norm Chow (West Coast guru), Kendal Briles (Baylor's "veer and shoot"), Jeff Lebby (UCF with Heupal's Air Raid/Baylor's offense), among others. He's gone from being a West Coast offense guy from his days at the Raiders and USC, to someone who has installed high impact schemes to fit the talent around him. This year his offense is actually running the ball more, but can be devastating in the air when needed. Now you add talent + scheme, and you get a high powered offense. Alabama, for all of their recruiting prowess, has also become a scheme + talent school. Add to that, he's installed a uptempo no huddle aspect to all of his offenses.

Lane Kiffin: A Complete Offensive History

Play fast, score points, win ball games.

www.redcuprebellion.com

Kiffin is one of the few coaches you could put at any school and he would have a good offensive unit because he has a breadth of knowledge of signature offenses, but he's not married to any of them because he takes into consideration the talent he has at his disposal. Saban said it best, Kiffin is one of the best offensive minds in the country. IMO, that's the very definition of a "scheme" coach.

I work with a die hard Ole Miss fan who goes as far as using the 'gimmick' word for Kiffin's offense. And he loves it as much as those who don't use that adjective for the offense.

Shows how diverse one's definition of 'gimmick' (or 'scheme') can be. And why so many talk past each other here, in all directions.

 

[CEB]

I work with a die hard Ole Miss fan who goes as far as using the 'gimmick' word for Kiffin's offense. And he loves it as much as those who don't use that adjective for the offense.

Shows how diverse one's definition of 'gimmick' (or 'scheme') can be. And why so many talk past each other here, in all directions.

If it wins football games, I will let you guys call it whatever the hell you want!

 

[stigs02jrt]

You have been very big on telling everyone that just because CGC failed doesn't mean we should abandon recruiting.
On the flip side, you're adamant that because CPJ didn't recruit, "factually" NO ONE can recruit to an option based offense.
Both are strawman positions - no one is saying we shouldn't try to recruit, and college football is littered with option based offenses doing just fine with recruits.

Here is the crux of the issue for me... Recruiting as a primary focus is a non-starter because:
1. Recruiting independent coaching, development, and program identity / stability is next to worthless
2. Recruiting without development won't take you very far, and probably wont allow you to retain those recruits... especially these days
3. We will not out recruit at least a 1/3, if not 1/2 of our schedule, so if we plan to win more than 7-8, there has to be a lot more to it. Recruiting definitely helps, but recruiting doesn't SOLVE much of anything.
4. Recruiting is wishy washy and highly subjective. Hardly something to base your existence on. How do you measure recruiting? The only thing I have seen is independent parties opining on individual talent with little concern for what you need as a program. Thats probably fine for the factories in the top 10 of rankings annually... it is a fair assessment of where those top 10 teams stack up relative to one another. They stack 4 and 5 star recruits 3 deep, so its just a numbers game on which of them got the most this year. For everyone outside of the top 10-15, its not a very accurate measure as far as I can tell. So honestly, what does it mean to "recruit better?" What is the real benefit of getting a top 20 class vs a top 30 class vs a top 50 class?

Here's the problem. Since we decided against the triple option because it was "antiquated and boring," we wanted to go towards the same offense that everyone else plays. If two teams are running the same systems, the team with the BEST PLAYERS WINS. So now, recruiting is 10x more important for tech than during the CPJ days.

Just look at the Gailey years, same pro style offense as most other teams of the era, but average talent yielded average results.

 

[stigs02jrt]

I work with a die hard Ole Miss fan who goes as far as using the 'gimmick' word for Kiffin's offense. And he loves it as much as those who don't use that adjective for the offense.

Shows how diverse one's definition of 'gimmick' (or 'scheme') can be. And why so many talk past each other here, in all directions.

Exactly. Scheme, gimmick, creativity, whatever. Heupel and Kiffin and Chadwell aren't doing much special, except maybe up tempo. And what will happen next year? The Bamas and Georgias and OSUs will incorporate some of the same stuff into their own offense, and Heupel and Kiffin will get a little less "special."

And when everyone is running a variation of everyone else's system, what the only differentiator left? Recruiting.

 

[CEB]

Here's the problem. Since we decided against the triple option because it was "antiquated and boring," we wanted to go towards the same offense that everyone else plays. If two teams are running the same systems, the team with the BEST PLAYERS WINS. So now, recruiting is 10x more important for tech than during the CPJ days.

Just look at the Gailey years, same pro style offense as most other teams of the era, but average talent yielded average results.

You’re 100% correct here (notwithstanding your commentary on the nature of option football )...

If everything else is equal (big hypothetical); recruiting will become most important. That’s what most who are deemphasizing recruiting mean when they say it can’t be the primary focus. We can’t recruit at the same level, much less out recruit, many teams On our schedule. So KNOWING that it is a deficiency for us, why would we willingly make decisions that place additional emphasis on it?

 

[yeti92]

And when everyone is running a variation of everyone else's system, what the only differentiator left? Recruiting.

Not only has this never happened, but it implies that schemes are not constantly evolving and innovating, which is also untrue.