OSU 8-0 PSU 5-2
Archive for the ‘All Things Power Spread’ Category
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PRE GAME
What’s Drew doing?
Working out the balance between Tennis Crier and Power Spread! Tennis all over the world! Football all over the Country. And one crazed man trying to do it all!
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What’s Kurt doing?
AWOL! After several attempts I cannot locate Kurt. My assumption is that he has no fears of us losing this game. He possibly may not know about the early start?! KURT, WHERE ARE YOU!?
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What Mike’s doing?
Having breakfast at his home in San Diego getting prepared for the Big Showdown at 12:30 pst between Nebraska and Northwestern! Looking for a big Husker win to soothe his wounds from the OSU debacle.
Hopefully Beck will find the consistency and simplicity his offense has been missing. He’s a very smart OC – maybe too smart. Pull it back some, coach! Stick to the PS and you will see Martinez flourish!
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WHAT WE SHOULD ALL BE DOING!
PRE-GAME
What’s Drew doing?
Trying to recover from his Alum, Bucknell’s, big loss to Harvard! Drew played LB for Bucknell back when Head Coach Joe Susan was the Offensive Line coach. After watching with great anticipaion, Drew must now recover for the OSU night game. MORE POWER SPREAD, COACH SUSAN
What’s Kurt doing?
Travelling back from his road trip to West Point where he watched Head Coach, Darrell Hazell’s Kent State team take on Army. Hazell did some nice things as the former OSU WRs coach under Tressel. Nice pic at game time by Kurt, who was unimpressed with Hazell’s offense even though Kent State had a big win. He felt that Hazell is running a sub-standard “trick-play” type of offense at Kent State. More later…..?
What Mike’s doing?
Our resident Nebraska fan and my bro-in-law is still crying in his beer over the devastation under the OSU POWER SPREAD! Sorry Mike, but the name of the game now is PS! Tim Beck is a smart Coordinator, but needs to get straight on this idea. Watch for a big article on Tim Beck and his potential as the Nebraska OC.
WHAT WE SHOULD ALL BE DOING!
OHIO STATE 6-0 INDIANA 2-3
IU Head Coach, Kevin Wilson, is one of the originators of the Power Spread in the late 90’s when he was OC for Randy Walker’s Northwestern team. Copied directly from the father of the Zone Read, Northwestern’s offense was later examined by yours truly in the spring of 2000. Thus began the true transformation of the Power Spread from a scheme to an overall concept for winning football games in today’s fast paced game. No better exemplified in OSU’s blasting victory over Nebraska last week. (more…)
PRE-GAME
What’s Drew’s doing?
Studying up furiously on final game note preparations and trying to get up his first Live Commentary on Power Spread.
What Kurt’s doing?
Trying to get over to Stout NYC before the start of the game! Stout NYC is the new meeting place for OSU fan’s after a long run at Tonic NY in Times Square. Due to extenuating circumstances I’m unable to meet my PS buddy tonight, but most importantly have a TV from which to view the Urban Meyer Experience.
What’s Mike Doing?
My brother in law – the biggest Husker fan I know – is breaking out the boxes of old baby stuff for his beautiful 6 mth old daughter and my niece, Makayla. Something’s not right – less than an hour to THE GAME, MIKE!! WHAT THE HECK’S GOING ON OUT THERE!??
WHAT WE SHOULD ALL BE DOING!
OHIO STATE 5-0 NEBRASKA 4-1
OSU has arguably the least talented team on hand since their first year of Tressel. This is not surprising as that was also a transitions after a rocky ending to another great regime under Coach Cooper. Ohio State possibly saw its most talented teams ever during the reign of Tressel, but now have the schemes to go with the great leadership and recruiting that Coach Tress provided. Still, in a transition year with a young team, the quality of play has been far from sterling.
“Far from sterling” seems to be the moniker for Big 10 play in 2012. While Nebraska doesn’t suffer from the transition/experience problems that plague the Buckeyes, they have bigger issues with what the coaching staff is doing on both offense and defense. OC Beck can’t seem to decide on what’s best for his offense, which is ironic, considering Martinez is obviously a run first, throw later QB. Stick to the Power Spread, coach. What’s more surprising is the Defense – Pellini’s speciality!? Similar to the offense, there seems to be a real lack of direction in concept and scheme. Even worse is some of the shoddy fundamental play from the back 7. This should not be happening on any Pellini defense. (more…)
Could this be the start of Belichick bringing a full scale PS offense into the NFL?
Spreading the field and mixing in power comes in many schemes and doesn’t necessitate a running QB. Using a TE in the backfield to run, catch or block is yet another brilliant maneuver by Belichick and shows his willingness to spread the field to find balance in either the run or pass – short or long, middle or wide – the essence of the Power Spread. Playing with TIME in addition to SPACE by using the play clock – one form being the no huddle- takes the Power Spread closer to its full expression. On the eve of another possible Super Bowl victory, I’m already wondering what’s in store for New England and the PS in the NFL in 2012?
Belichick met with Urban Meyer a few years ago and brought a wide open passing spread to New England. His disciple at the time, Josh McDaniel, became the Head Coach at Denver and drafted Tim Tebow with the idea of Power Spread football in the NFL, based on ideas he learned from Belichick via Meyer – who, by the way, was Tebow’s coach at Florida. Florida has become the first NFL team to consistently run PS schemes in the form of QB Read Option plays that Tebow ran in College.
McDaniel wasn’t around this year to experience what he started as he was fired from Denver after one year. Ironically, he was hired back by the Pats just in time to help New England decipher that very scheme he helped bring to the NFL with Tebow, eventually landing Belichick’s team in another Super Bowl. This may be the Brady swan song, but a lot depends on what other tricks Belichick has up his sleeve and his relationship with McDaniel as Offensive Coordinator.
Brady or no Brady, Belichick always has great coaches that stay in the background helping players like Brady flourish. With the help of McDaniel and maybe some more talks with friends like Meyer, I wouldn’t be surprised to see New England experiments even further with the PS starting next year. Belichick is not afraid to try something different – if it works – and the Power Spread definitely does.
~Drew
For over a month I have been on the Alabama bandwagon because of Saban’s brilliant coaching, schemes (especially on Defense), and the fact that a Les Miles coached team cant go undefeated – can it – with not one “screw up” last second loss the entire year?
Well, when these teams first played I saw some serious coaching flaws that we dont usually see from a Saban led team. No. 1, the Special Teams were a mess, which completely blew my mind as Saban practically returned hiswhole unit and much of LSU’s Sp Teams were new! I haven’t heard much talk of Special Teams, but I do think that we cant expect a repeat of a Special Teams blowout by LSU. For that reason alone I first thought Alabama should win this game in another close contest.
But there’s an even bigger variable in this game – Power Spread! In the first game I wasted a lot of tweets on my dismay at Mile’s refusal to use Jefferson in PS schemes. (Tweets 1 2 3 4 5 6 7) Jefferson became the starter and LSU finally started utilizing more PS in the last month. Consequently, the passing game started to open up a bit as in the 4 games since their last meeting “Jefferson is averaging 16 pass attempts and is completing 60 percent of his throws on the season.” Now, make no mistake, this is not the West Virginia or Oregon PS Offense as I would hardly call some of the standard power options and QB draws run by LSU a top notch PS offense. In fact, LSU’s Power Spread, when they run it, is on the low end of innovation – about as low as it gets. But thankfully at least, Miles has loosened his tight grip some with Kragthorpe(BYU passing spread) and Studwara (PS under Urban Meyer) and actually is trying to spread the field a bit and using Jefferson’s best asset – his legs.
The other innovation going on between to old school head coaches is once again on the LSU side in the form of mass substitution on the defensive side, courtesy of DC, John Chavis. From Mingo and Johnson up front to Brooks and Simon in the back, LSU can rotate a plethora of fast, top notch recruit subs that basically makes this defense a 22 player unit. In my 3 pronged Definition of the Power Spread I talk about Space. Time and Team. SPACE is taken care of by the sets/schemes used in Power Spread football. TIME by the use of the play clock in either the hurry up or mixing it up, which LSU is also finally working with a bit. Finally, TEAM will be the last piece of the puzzle as substitution never seen before in College Football will become more popular as coaches start to explore with the multitude of talent situated behind them on the bench. Chavis is one of a host of frontrunners on this theory(check out Charlie Strong’s mass sub on D in Louisville and Gus Malzahn’s mass Sub near the goalline in the Auburn’s Bowl Game).
One last variable is my feeling that great coach Saban is starting to “lose the plot” for the first time in his career. To see some of the bad execution on a more experienced Special Teams group, struggles throughout the year on simple option schemes, and some stagnating schemes on offense that I do not feel are totally the fault of OC Jim McElwain. Alabama is still very well coached, with the top talent in the nation and some of the better run schemes and play calling – no matter whether they are a PS team or not, but some cracks are starting to appear in Saban’s magnum opus. Is it getting time to head back to the NFL?
SUMMARY
Still its hard for me to;
#1 – change my mind after over a month of feeling strongly about a Bama win and
#2 -go with Les Miles when I have said all year that a Miles coached team always blows at least one game a year with crazy mistakes.
But all Bowl season I have stuck with the PS teams and and with the combination of more PS on offense and mass subs on defense, Im giving the nod to LSU.
Expect Alabama’s recent Championship experience to help. Also expect better preparation and execution – especially in the Special Teams – even with cracks appearing in the Saban mystique. But as I said during the first game – LSU wins IF LSU runs PS with Jefferson – and maybe this time Miles stays out of the way just enough to let his good assistants use his great recruiting and get him his first undefeated season.
If not, then this could be the LSU heartbreak I’ve been waiting for all year.
~Drew
POWERSPREAD 