Keen: 2013

"The thing I wonder about is that if you play offense like that, then that's how you practice. You have to practice like that, so how do you really ever coach defensive players? If a guy doesn't play the right technique, you're going up and telling him and showing him how to play that block or whatever.

But, hell, they're running another play.

All you're trying to do is get lined up [on defense],

You can't play specialty third-down stuff.

You can't hardly scheme anything.

The most important thing is to get the call so the guys can get lined up, and it's got to be a simple call. The offense kind of knows what you're doing."

>>this is another collaborative post with hemlock<<

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Nick's unnerved at the thought of losing control of the game, despite the fact that his system provides as sound of an approach for preparing players for dealing with the realities of spread football as any. He's still saying that the NCAA should do something to slow offenses down because it takes all of the adjustments and special schemes that coaches create out of the game.

Coaches, not just fans are having a hard time dealing with this. Moreover, unlike the wishbone and what not, this is probably not going anywhere. For a number of reasons the uptempo attack s probably here to stay.

Case in point, using this year's Texas A&M and Alabama game, with the assumption that A&M came out with guns firing, giving it their best shot in the first half and the second half pretty much was determined and the game took an entirely different direction. Taking a look at the 36-something offensive snaps (19 1st & 10s) A&M had between the 10s (wiping the goal line scenarios), just to see how Bama was going to play them and what A&M was after.....

3x1 and 3x2 83% of the snaps

pressuring 3x2 45% of the time and 3x1 31%

A great example of this chess match was evidenced in the first series of A&M. A&M starts in 3x2 then motions into the formation, for which a rote response from a Saban defense (automatic against 3x2 motion) would be "Razor - Check 1 Funnel", where the weak safety rolls back to deep hole player and move the backside linebacker inside as the rat. Coach Sumlin used this to setup the counter with Manziel for an explosive gain.

The first half of offense was interesting from Cal, particularly with the repeated use of 68 stick early in the 1st quarter. Up to this game, Cal had been a vertically focused team and not reliant on perimeter plays as much as Louisiana Tech was. The use of 98 Out, 68 Stick, 41/51 flash screens and zone early in the game looked to stretch OSU horizontally with the intention of going back to a downfield homerun throw later. This was attempted a few times, but Cal missed several of these opportunities. The 2nd half presented fewer opportunities for the Cal offense to get started again. Franklin used Zack to counter the first half's zone runs, then standard 2-back counter in the 4th. After a full season in this offense, Cal should be primed to fully grasp the speed and expectations Franklin and company have in mind.

Although pulling for the upset, I was happy to see Tom Herman and Urban Meyer not relent in the 3rd quarter, using their own brand of uptempo to break the Cal defense on several drives.