Monday Morning Sh*t Storm!

Lattimer and I, whilst sipping only the finest Colombian coffee mixed with only the finest Persian rum, were discussing on Friday the plight of coaches who leave College Football for the National Football League, only to come back to to the college ranks. Carroll, Saban, Spurrier, Petrino, Holtz, etc. The roster is lengthy, but for every transition back toward college, there is a tinge of demotion associated. "That coach, he just couldn't cut it in the NFL." "Some guys just don't have what it takes." All that jive.

I say an EMPHATIC JIVE! to denote my scrupulousness.

Lattimer and I agree: It's not a degree a capability that is associated with great coaches on the different levels of play, it's just...different. You can't say Urban Meyer isn't a good coach, but you also can't say that you could see his bizzaro world offense working in the NFL. Saban, too, is awesome, and did as well as anyone cold have done with that Miami team, but hey, "had to go back to college because he couldn't hack it" - slash - his coaching style is one of strict discipline, and you can't have that in the league.

But I digress. And we did say ANY LEVEL. That means there are fantastic coaches, NAY GREAT COACHES, who work well for DIII colleges, high schools, Jr. High, and Pop Warner leagues. I'm not sure if there are some pro coaches who couldn't coach a Pop Warner team to a touchdown.

SO THE SHIT STORM:

Best and Worst Pro Coach to Coach Little League/Pop Warner Football. Include reasons. Include savvy.

Mine? Best Coach: Andy Reid, because you know the best part about winning a big game is the coach taking the team out for a pizza party and YOU KNOW DAMN WELL Reid can throw an AWESOME pizza party. Worst Coach: Norv Turner, because...well, look at him. Children would be frightened by a man who looks like his face caught on fire, melted, and someone put the flames out with a golf cleat.

Storm on. Storm on. Storm on. Storm until your dreams come true.

CFB Notes

Alright, we are T-minus 6 hours until the return of real, live, meaningful football. But first let's address some issues.

Michigan- So the free press comes out claiming that Michigan is going over the allotted amount of time for NCAA workouts. Well color me surprised. You're telling me playing football at an extremely high level involves a significant amount of time commitment? Here's the first thing, we really need to examine the terms mandatory and voluntary. From personal experience on a Sunday (for example) after a game once you combine the training room, workouts, film, training table, and more film, I could see how these "mandatory" hours pile up. As they say, these things are not mandatory, but neither is playing time. Which brings me to my rage filled point. You're a division I football player at one of the most storied programs in American football. Meaning, you have your education paid for IN FULL, and you are typically afforded conveniences not seen by the general student population. So spare me the pity party. If you don't like it, quit. Truth be told I think this goes on at any major CFB program.

Ok, now on to the fun part

Several sleeper teams, I'll keep it brief.

Georgia Tech- 10 returners on offense and 8 on the Defense, plus they still have Dwyer and Nesbit. The other thing you have to realize that PJ had about 40% of his offense installed. Again, I encourage you to look at what he was doing at Georgia Southern. (here is O-line coach Mike Sewak's version) Long story short, a better grasp of the offense plus the cluster F known as the ACC, and it's easy to see GT challenging for a conference title. Did I mention the flexbone?

LSU- I honestly don't know what to think about the Bayou Bengals. On one hand they are a sleeper, on the other they are overrated. I still think they are a year or two away from being MNC contenders Seven returners on offense, and the defense is going to be nasty, Cajun nasty. In the end I think F-ing some shit up for other SEC teams mainly because they are a premiere program in the country. (Miles is...dare I say...underrated). Perhaps that Oct. 10th game against the Florida Tebows in Baton Rouge is more than we think? The QB situation is the thing holding them back, but who knows if that Shepard kid steps up and fulfills the hype. Either way they have a center named T-bob, and a Tackle with the last name of Barksdale. These are things not to be overlooked.

Arkansas- Just a gut feeling, they have a lot of guys coming back. I think Mallet is one of the better, QB's in the country, (BEST pro prospect) and although he's a dickhead, Petrino is a good coach. They won't win anything of significance because their SEC schedule is criminal, but it will be interesting to see how they play.

Rutgers-Schedule

ND-Schedule. But to be fair, ND has had a rough go in terms of schedules in past years.

Mid majors- BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall recently claimed "BYU would be competitive week in and week out in the Pac-10 Big 10 (11)" Agreed Bronco, but you know who else is competitive? Purdue, Cal, Iowa, and Arizona State. We have Boise, BYU, TCU....and ok fine, Southern Miss as threats to become BCS busters this year. The only problem is that being competitive isn't enough, there is a reason those conferences have auto bids. Now, I was on the Boise bandwagon before anyone else, the mid majors have done extremely well in BCS games, but I wonder if they end up in BCS bowls if they had to play a major conference schedule? I don't know. I mean if Boise wins tonight they have a straight shot to going undefeated this year, but again when the fighting highlighters is your premiere game something is wrong. Basically this is a roundabout way of saying I hate the BCS.

SEC- On Saturday the SEC will defend it's crown of resident CFB ass-kickers. I called them out, and it's time for me to pay the fiddler. I'm pretty sure Bama and UGA will win both games, and we'll all get to hear about it. Maybe, UGA is overrated and maybe VT completes a pass, but I just have a bad feeling. My main point in this is that think for a second if we had a playoff system and conference schedules took precedence. We might see more traditional match ups of conferences. Big 12 south vs. SEC west? ACC Vs. SEC? Big 12 North vs. Big 10 (11) Pac-10 USC Vs. whoever. THAT would be a mindblowing opening weekend. Too bad it will never happen.

The "spread"- Once you get over how you actually define spread (ranging from Florida's single wing flavor, Michigan/Oregon's option sauce, Texas Tech's modern West Coast deal, and the last bastion of the run n' shoot SMU) it's an interesting dynamic to look at. trotting out 4wr's used to be reserved for the likes of Kentucky, Purdue, and Texas Tech in order to compensate for personnel deficiencies. Now everyone runs some form of it, hell even tOSU is blaspheming in the house of Woody. It seems that the spread has moved from a talent equalizer to a talent maximizer.

Football history tells us that DC's will figure it out and the offenses will evolve again. The only question is where it will head. Some argue that the game will become more spread. I tend to disagree. Football is the ultimate chess match more than any other game, well except for chess. The one thing about football is that while there is room for a great amount of creativity, one is handcuffed by certain limitations. Teams can only have a certain amount of eligible receivers (6) vertical threats (5, leaving you with one runner) certain ways to receive a snap (physics) and men on the LOS (7). At some point the laws and doctrines of defensive fronts and coverages become apparent and the defense will simply stop spreading with you, at this point the defense WILL have a numbers advantage at the point of the snap, and the offense better have a war daddy back there in order to make things go.

In order to see these trends we all need to disregard the USC's tOSU's and ND's of the world. No we have to look at teams who are perennial bottom dwellers and need to compensate for a lack of recruiting. My prediction is that at some point some coach will see those 6 DB type players trotting on the field and raise them the old buck/belly series. (although it will most likely be the cooler, sexier Jet/fly series...look at what Oregon State and Wake Forest are doing) Watch out if PJ has some success at GT, the veer may make a huge comeback. (hoping for the split back variety) We have to deal with this on a weekly basis in high school, but at some point some OC is going to look at all these bastardized fronts/coverages and figure out how to smoke them. Point is I don't know, and neither does anyone else. That's the great thing about football (ON TONIGHT!!!) We can have a beer...ok several....fine, like six....ok starting at 10 am.. and enjoy everything that is good in life.
/single tear

Get Coached

I hate it when I have to listen to "experts" analyze significant games. You would think they would talk about something like Florida's (glorified) single wing against Oklahoma's under front. Perhaps they could examine the similarities and differences between the Steelers and Ravens D, but no, we have to sit here and listen to Anquan Boldin answer questions about the altercation between himself and OC Tom Haley. (Oh but Kurt gets a pass because he's a "competitor," F that) Anyway, I sit there and watching TV and yelling "WHO F-ING CARES!!!!" However, one day I thought to myself, "Well Lattimer what the hell are you doing to cure this ignorance?" The answer is nothing.

Until now.

Let's get into a little coach porn.

First thing, I have to plug one of the better blogs on the web. Chris Brown's Smart Football is easily the most insightful football blog out there. (The guy applies game theory to play calling for god's sake) Anyway he combines theory, as well as practical applications to the game, he talked about some of the things I'll address last week, but...just read it.
(He also has the best analysis on the VAUNTED A-11 OFFENSE)


Ok on to my little dissection, let's talk a little Steeler D vs. Arizona O. (Mainly the Steeler D...and in some respects Arizona' s D) I've seen them both run the type of stuff I'll talk about.

This should be a three part series...maybe 2...maybe 4, I really have no idea.

PART 1-THE BASICS
Before we get into the hardcore stuff, lets take a little crash course in Defense 101, courtesy of the late Fritz Shurmur.

We're going to talk run defense, because hey you got to stop the run.

Steelers run a 3-4, meaning 3 defensive lineman and 4 linebackers, 2 corners, and 2 deep safeties. 3+4=7 in run support right? Wrong, this is a common misconception with the 3-4 and 4-3 schemes, by design (in their base) they both commit 9 to stop the run. To paraphrase Shurmur, an easy way to think of run D is examining a team's coverage. Let's use cover 2 as an example. 2 deep safeties, corners have the flats, linebackers take the hook and middle curl areas, 4 men are rushing.

So why is coverage so important in run D? Think about it this way those two safeties have to cover the deep halves of the field, pretty tough. So it's somewhat unsound to ask (even Ed Reed) "Hey I want you to take a deep half of the field, make sure nobody gets behind you, and oh by the way, I want you to take out the running back behind the line of scrimmage." I mean you COULD do that, but play action would kill you. However, you see that little red corner back? He has the flat, he doesn't have any deep responsibility, and he beats the shit out of the WR. (delaying the release to help his safety) In short, he can be a run first player. So back to our little equation 3 lineman + 4 linebackers + 2 cornerbacks=9, or a 9 man front.
(That little force thing means that the corner is the "end" man on the run defense, his job is to turn the ball carrier back inside to his pursuing teammates. This is a very basic definition and it would take me 5 pages to talk about force players.) Another thing to note is a the secondary force player. In this case it's the safeties, their job is to get the ball carrier if he happens to break through the front 9.

Seems awesome, 9 guys playing the run, but there is one small problem. Since you're corners have to reroute the WR's to help those poor safeties, your force players are dictated by alignment. Meaning, in the NFL, where the hashes are close together, a team can essentially dictate the placement of your force player. It sucks. I know. Shit happens.

But what about when I see safeties blowing shit up? Good question, because there is another way to get 9 hombres playing the run. A safety force scheme. Now this borders on the edge of soundness, but in the biz we call it quarters coverage. An easy way to think about it is that it's a hybrid between man and zone. The main cogs are the safeties. The safeties read the #2 receiver, or the end man on the line of scrimmage to determine whether it is a run or pass. Upon this recognition they will either fly up and play the run, if it's pass lock on #2, if #2 goes shallow rob (help) on #1's route.
(Just to clear things up if the run was to the weakside, the Free Safety becomes the force player and the SS would handle the cutback, that's how we can consider it a 9 man front)
As you can see, it's pretty complicated, but nothing some reps can handle. The problems, it's strong against 21 personnel (2 backs one tight end) but it get's a little sketchy against spread sets. It's also pretty obvious that running play action against those safeties could F them up quite a bit.

What about that 8 man box? Well that is cover 3. Many, not all, but many teams will go to an 8 man "box." What does this do? Against certain personnel groupings a defensive team can sure up their strongside if they expect a run in that direction. At this point (in a 3-4) a safety will have force on the frontside, leaving the backer with force on the backside. The two corners and weakside safety take the deep thirds. 8 is one less than 9, but on the flip side you strengthen your strongside defense and you bring a guy closer to the line.


In this diagram the defense is actually asking the linebacker (S) to force and the safety is going to fill where needed.

Man defense. Man is pretty simple: you get him, I got him. In terms of run support, you technically can't ask a guy to cover a potential receiver on any route AND ask him to play the run. so pretty much whoever is rushing/blitzing is in run support. This could be 4 all the way to gun in the mouth 9. You can also play zone behind a man scheme, such as playing 2 deep safeties with one under, or the popular cover 1 where a team will typically blitz, play man, and keep a cat deep. Like I said if you play man, you are technically removing your defender from immediate run support, however, I feel like this rule is thrown out the window in the NFL. It's also another way to show an 8 man front.

Man seems really cool, but it can be exploited... a lot. Play action, stemming blocks by receivers (making it look like your running a route), crossing routes, double moves, backfield misdirection, the list goes on and on. Oh, and there is the other problem that if someone like, well me, is defending Larry Fitz, it could be a long day.

So what is all this rambling about? Well if you want to understand the core of any defense, look at the safeties. They pretty much tell you what's going on. So going back to our dear friend Fritz, set your deep coverage, remove those players from immediate run support. Then set your force players, they are typically the curl to flat players (although not always). Then fill in the blanks, and give everyone else a gap/job.

Ok so that was a crash course, we're talking defense at 10,000 feet. And if you are a coach reading this...I'm sorry for blaspheming the gospel of defense.

If this doesn't make sense to you, I'm sorry, If you want to me to talk more, clarify, or get in a giant X's & O's pissing match, just comment.

For our next edition we'll cover the Steelers (and sometimes the Cardinals) front, as well as examining the famed ZONE BLITZ!!!!!