Spread Option Offense Part 1

stylee

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I coached semi-pro ball, sort of the laughingstock of the football world, so take it with a grain of salt...

It was partly marketing. Tell kids you're in the pistol and all of a sudden you're some sort of futuristic Atomic Flamethrower offense and some dig that more. It was also partly a result of the HC's longtime love of the pistol - he had wanted to run it in some form for years, so we jointly decided to do the veer option thing from it. Lastly, I love the passing game and felt like I could accomplish some things in that area from the pistol easier.

I got really comfortable with my system and stuck with it. I still see defenses on TV and think of what *my* answer would be to any particular front or coverage...not what the *right* answer is. The Wing-T guys have their answers, the Airraid guys have theirs, and I've got mine, you know?
 
Squints

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nodawgs said:
Anyone with a good voice can be a broadcaster/announcer. They are not experts. It's kind of like the "read option". Read option refers to the "Zone Read Option" which we do not have anywhere in our play book. Yet broadcasters just throw the term around during our games.
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Ugh don't even get me started on the read option crap. I'm a 49er fan so somehow over the past year their offense became a "read option offense." I just roll my eyes.

But I stand my point with the announcer. It wasn't the play-by-play guy who was making this claim it was the color guy who I believe was a former NFL QB. And he wasn't just saying it. He actually broke it down with film and diagrams during the broadcast.
 

nodawgs

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stylee said:
Page 30 of my PDF copy of the GaSouthern playbook defines "Zone" blocking as "a playside blocking scheme. PSLinemen step at 45* to the outside and play what comes thier [sic] way. "

Page 54 of the book shows 22-23, a zone running play. Playside linemen zone, backside linemen scoop.
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That is what I'm talking about. Zoning front side or backside of a play is not the Inside/Outside Zone play. Zoning refers to a combo between the 2 OLinemen. Just like Railroad (Reach and Run), Pin and Pull, or even Fanning. Zoning is not the actual play.

You can't run an actual inside zone from our base formation under center. The deep back must be 7 yards deep in order to give the blocking time to develop. We had a young coach one time who stood up in a meeting and said "we need to hit the line faster on inside zone". What he didn't understand was that its not a race to hit a gap on that play. You have to give your linemen the time to drive the defender into the 2nd level and chip off to the LBers. If not your RB will run right into an unblocked LBer.

On your dive play that you mentioned, you are zoning at the point of attack rather than Base Blocking. Its a dive play that's been around forever, but is still not the inside zone. If you ran your dive play at the goal line you would have to make a Base block call in order to cover all of the extra defenders now in the gaps. If you zoned at the point of attack, a extra defender would shoot through and blow the play up. Even a simple Iso call can involve zoning, but it's still not the inside zone play.
 

stylee

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Then you're objecting to terminology, and as every coach knows, there are as many football vocabularies as there are coaches.

As I said, we are not using the break points for our BB that an I-formation team would use for their zone runs because of our depth/lack of depth. But there ARE break points for it. And we DO combo block on it when we faced with a front requiring a combo block.

You can say we're not "really" running a zone running play when we run the ZD, because your definition of a zone running play is XYZ. That's your football vocabulary and I have no desire to change it. But that's not *everyone's* vocabulary and it's disingenuous to suggest otherwise. I've been to clinics where coaches have discussed "running zone" out of a variety of formations, including the flexbone.

I certainly agree that there are some differences because of our alignment. If we ran the double wing, the differences would be greater....just like our veer would be different from the shotgun because the aiming points have to be adjusted with the dive back deeper.
 

nodawgs

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stylee said:
Then you're objecting to terminology, and as every coach knows, there are as many football vocabularies as there are coaches.

As I said, we are not using the break points for our BB that an I-formation team would use for their zone runs because of our depth/lack of depth. But there ARE break points for it. And we DO combo block on it when we faced with a front requiring a combo block.

You can say we're not "really" running a zone running play when we run the ZD, because your definition of a zone running play is XYZ. That's your football vocabulary and I have no desire to change it. But that's not *everyone's* vocabulary and it's disingenuous to suggest otherwise. I've been to clinics where coaches have discussed "running zone" out of a variety of formations, including the flexbone.

I certainly agree that there are some differences because of our alignment. If we ran the double wing, the differences would be greater....just like our veer would be different from the shotgun because the aiming points have to be adjusted with the dive back deeper.
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Fair enough.
 

stylee

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In any case, I always appreciate Xs and Os talk, especially from non-flexbone enthusiasts
 

nodawgs

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stylee said:
In any case, I always appreciate Xs and Os talk, especially from non-flexbone enthusiasts
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Same here! Don't get me wrong, I like the flexbone, just not as the exclusive offense. I've always believed that you need to have the ability to run and throw equally. Some games we threw it all over the place using the Air Raid base passing game, and others, we ran it down their throats out of the I. It just depended on what we could exploit in the defense. I still believe that the veer is the best play to get a defense out of a bear front. So not against it, just would like to see a more well rounded system in place.
 
ATL1

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nodawgs said:
Same here! Don't get me wrong, I like the flexbone, just not as the exclusive offense. I've always believed that you need to have the ability to run and throw equally. Some games we threw it all over the place using the Air Raid base passing game, and others, we ran it down their throats out of the I. It just depended on what we could exploit in the defense. I still believe that the veer is the best play to get a defense out of a bear front. So not against it, just would like to see a more well rounded system in place.
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I Sooooooo agree with you......
 

stylee

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I'm no purist either. I think I'll always have a soft spot for the I-formation even though "my system" was an option one (with a very basic version of the RNS for the passing game). Had some games where the 15 minutes we spent in practice a day on the I turned out to win the day for us.

Speaking of which, I wonder why PJ quit running the Power-I entirely after 2008-2009.
 
Techster

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stylee said:
I'm no purist either. I think I'll always have a soft spot for the I-formation even though "my system" was an option one (with a very basic version of the RNS for the passing game). Had some games where the 15 minutes we spent in practice a day on the I turned out to win the day for us.

Speaking of which, I wonder why PJ quit running the Power-I entirely after 2008-2009.
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After watching old film of CPJ at GSU and Hawaii, I wonder why he quit running a lot of things.
 
dressedcheeseside

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nodawgs said:
Same here! Don't get me wrong, I like the flexbone, just not as the exclusive offense. I've always believed that you need to have the ability to run and throw equally. Some games we threw it all over the place using the Air Raid base passing game, and others, we ran it down their throats out of the I. It just depended on what we could exploit in the defense. I still believe that the veer is the best play to get a defense out of a bear front. So not against it, just would like to see a more well rounded system in place.
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Do we have enough practice time to master both?
 

gtg936g

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stylee said:
I'm no purist either. I think I'll always have a soft spot for the I-formation even though "my system" was an option one (with a very basic version of the RNS for the passing game). Had some games where the 15 minutes we spent in practice a day on the I turned out to win the day for us.

Speaking of which, I wonder why PJ quit running the Power-I entirely after 2008-2009.
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I think the Dwyer -Allen combo fit the formation better. We might see it again with Custis - Laskey. To be honest Sims was probably not effective at the position until last year.
 

nodawgs

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dressedcheeseside said:
What kind of philosophical changes?
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Pass blocking mainly. We have to let the OLine pass set which will keep the Defender in front of them longer, which in turn will give the QB more time to set and throw. I understand why CPJ wants to fire out (to disguise the pass longer), but it's time to adjust a little. Also, the passing game has some good things to it, but could use an update. Believe it or not, you could run a good bit of Air Raid out of our formations.
 
IEEEWreck

IEEEWreck

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^^^^

I actually strongly agree. There's a time for 'surprise, ************- it's a pass' but that's not every play. More time for the pass could do a lot of good.
 

gtg936g

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We will probably have the best WR group we have had at tech in a long time next year.

If JT is the QB next year, we will need to get him out of the pocket because of his height.
 
Techster

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gtg936g said:
We will probably have the best WR group we have had at tech in a long time next year.

If JT is the QB next year, we will need to get him out of the pocket because of his height.
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Wow. I can't believe it's been 4 years (the 2009 season) since we had R-JR Demaryius Thomas, another one in Tyler Melton, and a sophmore Stephen Hill.

Time flies in GT football...
 
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