Spread Offense

[blackfootbengal]

I'm sitting here reading Brad's blog concerning bringing in the spread next year and needing different QB's to run it. Zamberlin seems to think that the spread can be used as a running offense. While the spread can be used to run the ball effectively, look at Barnetts stats, it is not a run first offense. Both Barnum and Orthman ran the spread, so it is not anything new to us. Butler and Blum are both QB's that can run the ball, but both had trouble in the spread, first requirement for running the spread is a QB that can read defenses, thus the reason Hill always comes out on top. No matter how fast your QB is, he still has to make pre-snap reads when he comes up to the line of scrimmage. It is also a offense that does not require the QB be a great runner, it just requires the QB be willing to run when needed. Everyone makes the call for a JC QB to come in and save the day, JC QB's don't face defenses like we have in the big sky, and don't read defenses as well as Hill does. What we will end up with is what we have had for the past three years. Starting one person because of a wish, then having to go to Hill because he can get the job done. What makes the spread effective as a running offense is the constant threat of the pass and spreading of the defense all over the field. If you don't have the pass threat the running game becomes ineffective, the reads are quick requiring the QB to find the open man within five to seven yards. You cannot wait for the receiver to come open, you have to know who is open based on your reads. In addition, right now we don't have enough receivers to run the spread, the spread requires three to four on the field, and three to four as backups. To be honest, what we ran last year was not that far from being a spread, quick passes to the slot and outs to the receivers and tightends. We just ran out of play makers. What we really need, is for Zamberlin to quit fixing the offense and focus on making his defense better. He is as bad as Koetter was. Koetter was always trying to coach the defense, changing coaches all the time, changing things right at game time. What Koetter accomplished was bad defense, Zamberlin causes bad offense. Bring in your OC, leave him alone and let him do his job. Until your defense quits giving up almost 500 yards a game, quit trying to lay the blame on the side of the team your not coaching on.

 

[letuknow]

I thought baughman did a great job reading defenses. wasnt he a jc QB?

 

[blackfootbengal]

Bauchman preferred throwing deep to the short routes. His second year he did a much better job a reading the defense. The one who came in reading defenses was Hetherington, but because he was slow of foot we wasted time trying to play the other kid that came in the same year. Bauchman had a cannon for a arm, Hill's are is way better than Hetherington, both Hetherington and Hill are very accurate QB's. Based on this staffs success with JC's, do you want to put all your money on a kid they bring in. Better hope for a Div. I drop down, but remember there is usually a reason they had to drop down. Some are successful, some are not. As far as I'm concerned, Zamberlin needs to get some DT's and a pass rusher, that will go along way towards making the team better. Granted some of our problem were turnovers, both fumbles and interceptions, but not being able to stop anyone when it counted cost us the Montana game and almost the Portland game. Football is a team sport, if the defense could win the games by themselves we would not need O-linemen.

 

[letuknow]

hetheringtons arm was strong

 

[letuknow]

I believe you are referring to roman ybarra. I dare anyone to find a better statistcial game than he had against Northern Colorado by a ISU player. Another Jc qb who put up great numbers but for some reason lost the support of the coaches. We need a Qb who can read defenses make all throws not just the shorts ones and who doesnt throw ints. remember baughman.

 

[blackfootbengal]

Hetherington through 18 interceptions and 19 touchdowns his senior year. If I remember right, Baughman has similar stats. Both played in Barnums offense which was QB friendly as far as stats went. The good old days, were not really as good as we like to remember. Both of these QB's had better defenses to support them. The best QB I remember watching after Machurik was Jason Whitmer, he like Hill has had to deal with OC changes. His freshman year under Koetter he tore it up, after that he had Hall for three years and put up padestrian stats.

 

[bengalbeliever]

Take 'The Spread' and shove it is what I say.

 

[bengalcub]

I expect the SPREAD offense to equate to spread the blame amongst two or three QB's.

Neither Hill nor Blum have been given the opportunity to lead the team consistently. It has been musical QB's for the past three seasons. I don't expect next year to be any different. The one given, whomever starts the season will probably be replaced 2-4 games into the season. Hill, Butler, Hill, Blum, Blum, Hill--take your pick--it has always been musical QB's. I feel horrible for all three, to be honest.

Stay tuned, musical O-Coordinators in the next edition...

 

[blackfootbengal]

I wish I could disagree with you Cub, but I can't.

 

[up for the challenge]

It will be interesting to see what happens during the off season as the recruiting process is just now underway. I believe ISU will land some good recruits and I believe ISU will have a good year this upcoming season. The new offense coordinator will determine what offense to run so we will just have to wait to see what happens.

 

[ISUDude]

Challenge I thought you were leaving for the sahara on a recruiting trip and wouldn't be able to post or something like that? Jk. Good to have your insight on this topic.

I recently read about a coach that has a philosophy to go against the grain. Meaning, as the trends in style go in football, he tends to trend opposite. He figures that by doing so he can always find his type of player because everyone is looking for a different skill set. For us, what if we went to a power O. Remember what Port St would do in the running game prior to the Glanville experiment (which experiment worked slightly better than our own D2 experiment)? Everyone is trending towards going to the spread. But which spread are we talking? The byu passing, oregon running, west virginia, tex tech, etc? It sounds to me to be rhetoric given by zam in order to appease the voices. Spread is the hot prom date these days and by saying that he's looking to do so makes it appear as if everything will be alright. As if we will magically put a ton of points on the board... But if I may draw your attention to what orthman did. We had the 9th best passing offense the year he got fired. Sounds like he was 'spreading' the ball around!

Whatever the coordinator does bring will take time to implement. But even if he does turn the offensive hip around, the defense giving up 40 a game and 6 a carry will lead to the same type of season that Z has previously led us to. What has he done which would lead one to believe that things will turn out differently?

 

[blackfootbengal]

ISUDude, you touched on one of my concerns, personnel. Two of the three leaving over the Shopko thing were WR's. We recruited three WR's last year, two came in, I don't know if Cullpepper is coming in or not. That leaves us with Krosch, Burel, Senegal, Rumble, T. Taylor, and possibly Benevidas. That's not enough to run the spread, and four of the above are underclassmen. We will have no experience or depth if this is not fixed. Burel has not made it through a season yet without getting injured and Taylor while shorter, has a similar build. At this time these two are our deep threats. The experience issue becomes more evident in that in most spread offenses, the WR and QB make reads at the line of scrimmage, it takes time for them to get on the same page. Thus the reason Thompson caught so many passes from Hill. Hill trusted Thompson's line reads and could count on Thompson being open. Trust and repitition are what make the spread offenses work. I'm going to stick with what I said about QB, bringing in a JC would be a waste of time unless your looking for a starter in two years. We have two seniors already here, a Junior, two redshirt freshmen, and a greyshirt coming in January. Bring in the best Freshman or a Div. I dropdown RS freshman, prepare them for two years from now. Hill and Blum are good enough to get us there. Additionally, put in plays that are suited to the types of runningbacks you have rather than forcing them into the offense. Get the best you can out of high school, but don't expect freshman to be the difference, they rarely if ever are. Way to much pressure on the freshmen on our offense to be the difference, playing time early is nice, but it rarely makes the team a winner.

On defense, we can only hope the young D-Linemen are ready to play and are as good or better than those who graduated. Untll we can at least put some pressure on the other teams QB, we are going to struggle stopping teams when it matters. Granted, our defense was better statistically last year, they still could not make the stop when it mattered late in the game. As for being tired, the offense played well in both the Portland and Montana games, and the defense folded against Montana and tried to against Portland. As I have said before, excuses are like A$$holes, we all have one. More talented depth on D-line and being on the field becomes less of an issue. We need linebackers, badly. This has to be a priority for the team. I have not heard anything on Kelvin Miller or Viser, we will have a real need at CB and Safety. Young talented DB's to play behind what we have and fill in if needed. No matter how you try to hash it out, we are still paying for the lack of recruiting the first two years. Either they are not here or they were not talented enough. I'm with Cub here, I think there not being here has created a real issue depth wise.

As for "up for the challenge", Zamberlin could feed you a cow pie with whip cream and you would ask for more. :lol:

 

[up for the challenge]

Blackfootbengal made the comment: As for "up for the challenge", Zamberlin could feed you a cow pie with whip cream and you would ask for more.

I would ask for a cow pie with whip cream on it so I could shove it up your mouth and watch you enjoy eating it. Waz up Blackfootbengal, still hungry..or do you need some water to go with your cow pie..

 

[isusuperfan]

The spread? Forget that sh!t, gimmie a power pro-style game, a running game with a little optioning for fun.

Georgia Tech is fun to watch because of all the running and trickery, and because the option is beautiful as hell when it runs perfectly; it's like poetry in motion. Florida is not because it's so predictable. I've seen several Gator games this year and it's Teblow Teblow Teblow the whole way. Boise is fun to watch because they still incorporate that smashmouth running game to compliment their wide-open offense and they'll use both in every game. I will admit that Ohio State is not so fun to watch at times but that's only because it's hard to see what kind of offense we're running.

 

[blackfootbengal]

Who, I'm afraid. Internet cow pie, scary.

 

[bengalbeliever]

If we really want to know about the spread offense, I suggest we talk to Andrew Benevides about it.
Last night, I just watched his prior Folsom HS team operate it with absolute perfection in the second round of the Division 2 SacJoaquin playoffs and beatdown a very good Granite Bay HS defense . Best offense execution I have seen in a high school for many, many years.
The Folsom HS team has set section records for scoring and yardage.

If that is how the spread is suppose to be run as I suspect, then we are missing some of those types of players, first and foremost, at the qb position.

 

[blackfootbengal]

How do you know we don't already have that QB in Morris, Lammers, or Levins. Without even giving them a chance you have thrown them to the side of the road in search of you proverbial great one. The grass is alway greener on the other side of the fence, except when it's not. The real problem is no matter who is the QB it is not going to satisfy everyone, someone will have an issue with something. But until you have better, not just a designee, but better than Hill, I suggest you back him because he has beaten out everyone that has competed against him for the job. As I said earlier, you can't just wish they were better than Hill, they need to show it on the field.

 

[up for the challenge]

blackfootbengal wrote: Who, I'm afraid. Internet cow pie, scary.

I thought you would enjoy your internet cow pie with a glass of water as you seem to like to dish things out on but maybe you cannot handle getting things dished back to you which is probably true based on your comments. No one wants to hear about crap you post or cow pies with whip cream. I forgot, I would put a cherry on top of the whip cream for you to sweeten it up a little more for you.

 

[bengalbeliever]

Believe me, I know.
At least not that which would take us to BSC title.

By the way, didn't I tell you I hate the spread anyhow?!

 

[blackfootbengal]

Challenge we are having a big boy talk, when it's the childrens hour we'll let you know.

Believer I watch what is put in front of me, I like the double wing or wing T offenses myself. But that has not been successful in the Big Sky forever. My position on the QB's is and has always been based on what I see on the practice field prior to the season starting. When I see our number 1 missing not only short passes but his bread and butter long passes time and time again, and the only one moving the ball in practice is the number two, I get concerned. This year I just let it play out, then everyone saw what I had seen in two a days. What were getting away from is our offense was not terrible until Zanberlin fixed it by putting all the money into the defense. I'm a big believer in the defense being good, but not if you do it by making your offense way less. While I recognize the offense does not always put the defense in the best postion, reality is that was not the whole reason we lost games. With all the short fields and touchdown returns the offense gave the other team, we still gave up almost five hundred yards a game against the Big Sky, not including the big dogs we played. Thats on the defense, mainly the front seven. We had little or no pass rush allowing QB's all day to pass, who couldn't find an open guy with that much time. We had our moments againts the run, but face it almost every team we played had a 100 yard rusher against us. Our linebackers played great and I hope it was by design that Storm and Arias made all those tackles. I know it was when "Allen and Pano played for Lewis, everything was channeled towards them. As to the QB, with two seniors, 1 junior, two redshirt freshmen, and a grey shirt, how many more can we have on the team.