New Offense?

[Jacobs4Heisman]

First off, if you don't like reading speculative posts about the future in-season, or if you think talking about a possible next coach while the current coach is still employed is disrespectful, do yourself a favor and stop reading right now.


Okay, now that they're gone.

For the purposes of this thread, I'm going to assume that GB is not going to suddenly become a good coach and run the table this year or win the MAC next year. This probably means that we will have new coach in the next year or 2, and possibly new coordinators.

My question is this. In that scenario, would you rather see a set of coaches come in and continue with some form of the spread, or would you rather see a more traditional offense be implemented with the new staff?

Personally, I like the spread a ton when it's done like we did it in 03. Run, pass, trickery, the defense never knew what was coming. The spread can be a great tool to even the playing field against the Ohio States and Michigans of our mid-western world. However, there are many that feel a more traditional offense based on running the ball ad play-action might be more suited for this area/weather/conference. I'm not necessarily one of them, but I see the argument. The weather gets nasty and cold and the spread has the tendency to bog down a bit. It's not an inevitability, but we've all seen it happen.

Another interesting factor - with spread offenses becoming so prevalent, are defenses now geared more towards stopping it? Would we be going back against the grain and gaining an advantage in the MAC by going to a more traditional offense?

Yet another factor -- would going away from the spread hurt recruiting at the skill positions? I think it definitely would. I've heard countless skill recruits say they were drawn to BG by the offense and getting their opportunity to produce within it.

I don't see why we can't keep the spread formations, but just use it when the situation calls for it. I think the more varied we can be, the better, whether that's out of the spread or a more traditional set. I'm not sure which side of this I would be on yet, but I was interested in hearing some other folks' opinion on the subject.

[bgsufalcon24]

I love the spread and I think its great. Keep it. When run properly, there's not much the defense can do to combat it, especially in the MAC where the defenses don't tend to be very athletic compared to other conferences.

[BGSUFootballFan]

I like the spread. We've just forgotten how to RUN it.

[Bleeding Orange]

I have loved what Boise has done over the past few years. They run the spread formation sparingly, and mix in sets using multiple TE's. There are a few other schools that are running multiple formations mixing the spread, I-formation, and even the pistol. In my mind, mixing offensive formations and sets at this level is what it takes to keep defenses off balance, if they are all employed with their own individual level of diversity. Running the I-formation every now and then will do nothing if you only run HB dives and off-tackle draws. Similarly, the five wide formation will not be effective if you pass out of it 80% of the time, only varying how often you run a slot reciever in motion.

I guess I would really like to see a more complex system employed with the talent level that we have on this team. If we were not a talented and athletic team, I don't think I would even be contemplating this. And, I guess this is the reason that I have found this year to be so frustrating to watch. I don't think we necessarily need a new coach to make these changes, but this, or any other coach, has to be willing to take a risk, challenge his players (week in and week out), and commit to them.

[Bleeding Orange]

I forgot to add that I always have, and always will, love the option offense. If run effectively, I think it is the hardest type of offense to stop, but you have to have the personnel to do it. I don't think we have the right players for it now, but it would be an awesome wrinkle to throw into an otherwise open offensive package.

I swear, watching a Navy game is the most exciting football there is for my money.

[hammb]

Personally I want to run the spread option offense the way it was originally implemented in 2001-03.

I, like BO, would like to see some smattering of I formation in there as well, just to keep defenses off balance, but if you're going to do that you MUST be willing to run & pass from that formation. Currently we go under center occasionally, but it's always run from that formation.

I think the offense absolutely requires an athletic QB, and I'd actually go as far as saying that his throwing ability is secondary to his ability to be a playmaker with his feet.

I agree whole-heartedly that the spread is the key to helping us compete above our talent level. If run well it will still light up the scoreboard in the MAC as well. The key to it is to remember that this is supposed to be a spread "OPTION" offense, not just a spread offense. You must run the ball, and that is with a mixture of the standard option, and the read option.

I do think we can win the MAC with a traditional NFL style offense as well, however. I'm just not sure we could compete with Big 10 schools as well in that scheme. I think Mr. Weiss is finding out quickly how difficult it is to get college kids to understand a complex NFL offense...then when you dumb it down so they can grasp it, it becomes so basic that it has little chance at success. We're much better off, IMO, sticking with some variation of the spread/option offenses.

[Strouse]

I think that the best coach is one that can get his team together so that both the spread and the traditional offenses can be run with relative ease. I believe that they both have their pros and cons, where one works well, the other doesn't, when the other works well, one does not. Also, if the coach has his offensive coaching staff able to teach and run effective practices with both the spread and traditional offenses, then he can work with the defensive coaches to get the defense to a point where they can defend against almost anything thrown at them.

[Falcon137]

I think the best offense is one that can use both the Spread and go under center. I like Ohio State's offense, they use both the spread and traditional looks.

[Falconboy]

Boise St's and Utah have some of the more interesting offensive formations around. I like to see us go a bit in that direction. One thing I've noticed among successful teams is that they use the TE to perfection. OSU does this extremely well.

[BGSUFootballFan]

I like Oregon and Florida's verison of the spread the most!

[falconfan1999]

The spread works, if you can mix in new wrinkles to keep defenses guessing and actually try to run the ball legitamately!

[Schadenfreude]

I like the spread, and I think that's ultimately the offense I hope our head coach will continue to recruit to.

But I respect Gregg Brandon enormously for seemingly tearing up the playbook last season in order to fit the tools he had. That was gutsy as all heck in my book.

In others words, we should run the offense that best fits our tools. The spread probably makes the most sense for us, in general.

[Rollo83]

I think the Spread offense has helped us recruit better offensive players. We have high school QBs from places like New Jersey and other states that are considering us because of the style of offense we run. Same for the wide recievers from Florida. Our recruiting class for next year has four top offensive lineman prospects that want to play a pro-style passing offense much like Korey and Scott did prepping for NFL careers.

Consequently, the focus on the offensive side of the ball has meant we have seemed to not focus on recruiting large numbers of quality defensive players.

[Falcon137]

I think the Spread offense has helped us recruit better offensive players. We have high school QBs from places like New Jersey and other states that are considering us because of the style of offense we run. Same for the wide recievers from Florida. Our recruiting class for next year has four top offensive lineman prospects that want to play a pro-style passing offense much like Korey and Scott did prepping for NFL careers.

Consequently, the focus on the offensive side of the ball has meant we have seemed to not focus on recruiting large numbers of quality defensive players.

While I agree this is a fun style of O for players I don't think there's anything NFL style about it. Pro Style offenses are based out of going under center. A pro style offense is what USC runs.

[Rollo83]

Pro style in the fact you are pass blocking much of the time versus running the ball more. Lot of guys can run block, the NFL is looking for guys that give QBs the time to throw against unbelieveable pressure.