Parity in D-IA?
Posted: Sun Nov 25, 2007 8:36 pm
I hear so many people talk about parity in college football. I really don't see it across the board. I don't think that there is more inter-conference parity. I think that there is more intra-conference parity.
Ohio is the perfect example of my point. They beat the team in the MAC with the best record (dispite one of the toughest schedules, if not the toughest), and they beat the MAC east champion. However, they went nowhere.
How did they do it? Simple. Their offensive scheme is different from most MAC offenses. Their run-option offense finds a lot of MAC defenses unprepared.
Our defensive scheme is clearly structured to play against teams that run offenses similar to our own. Rightfully so, since so many teams in our conference are running their own variation of the spread. Our defense sacrifices size for speed, and typically runs a zone structure that doesn't regularly blitz the linebackers. Not that I'm bragging about our defense, but it looks to be patterned after the Tampa 2 (which is one of the biggest reason why the spread doesn't work in the NFL). We aren't the only team in the MAC with this same defensive philosophy, but rather the norm. It make sense, since that defensive scheme is generally thought of as the most effective way to stop the spread.
That considered, it is little wonder why our defense struggled against OU's offense. To be honest, I wasn't at all surprised that we lost to them, and even less surprised when Miami did. To be honest, I wasn't at all surpised when Miami lost to Temple either. The times that we ran Dan Macon up the middle against Miami, they struggled to stop it, and I sat there thinking that Miami was going to have trouble the week following against Temple. Their defense was structured to stop our offensive scheme, not Temple or OU.
If you look across the board in D-I, there are a lot of teams that are starting to adopt schemes that catch their opponents off guard. For as much as I hate OSU, I have to credit them with recognizing that you can roll over the Big10 if you have a strong defense and run a spread offense (which was more apparent last year than this year).
Fifteen years ago, it seemed as though teams could more effectively gameplan for the entire season than they can now. Teams need to gameplan week to week these days in order to compete within their conference. This gets compounded with the addition of a fourth non-conference game, since teams play more games against dissimilar styles of ball.
Which brings me to my point. I really don't think that the parody exists from teams 1 through 120. I see the parody within each conference. If I were to rank the conferences in order of best to worst, I think that they would generally be the same as they were fifteen years ago.
Maybe I'm crazy, or I just can't see the handwriting on the wall. However, i really don't see a whole lot of difference in what teams are represented in the rankings.
Ohio is the perfect example of my point. They beat the team in the MAC with the best record (dispite one of the toughest schedules, if not the toughest), and they beat the MAC east champion. However, they went nowhere.
How did they do it? Simple. Their offensive scheme is different from most MAC offenses. Their run-option offense finds a lot of MAC defenses unprepared.
Our defensive scheme is clearly structured to play against teams that run offenses similar to our own. Rightfully so, since so many teams in our conference are running their own variation of the spread. Our defense sacrifices size for speed, and typically runs a zone structure that doesn't regularly blitz the linebackers. Not that I'm bragging about our defense, but it looks to be patterned after the Tampa 2 (which is one of the biggest reason why the spread doesn't work in the NFL). We aren't the only team in the MAC with this same defensive philosophy, but rather the norm. It make sense, since that defensive scheme is generally thought of as the most effective way to stop the spread.
That considered, it is little wonder why our defense struggled against OU's offense. To be honest, I wasn't at all surprised that we lost to them, and even less surprised when Miami did. To be honest, I wasn't at all surpised when Miami lost to Temple either. The times that we ran Dan Macon up the middle against Miami, they struggled to stop it, and I sat there thinking that Miami was going to have trouble the week following against Temple. Their defense was structured to stop our offensive scheme, not Temple or OU.
If you look across the board in D-I, there are a lot of teams that are starting to adopt schemes that catch their opponents off guard. For as much as I hate OSU, I have to credit them with recognizing that you can roll over the Big10 if you have a strong defense and run a spread offense (which was more apparent last year than this year).
Fifteen years ago, it seemed as though teams could more effectively gameplan for the entire season than they can now. Teams need to gameplan week to week these days in order to compete within their conference. This gets compounded with the addition of a fourth non-conference game, since teams play more games against dissimilar styles of ball.
Which brings me to my point. I really don't think that the parody exists from teams 1 through 120. I see the parody within each conference. If I were to rank the conferences in order of best to worst, I think that they would generally be the same as they were fifteen years ago.
Maybe I'm crazy, or I just can't see the handwriting on the wall. However, i really don't see a whole lot of difference in what teams are represented in the rankings.
