Offensive Simplicity

[RICuse44]

15 plays. I love it. I also love this quote from Lester:

"The defensive coordinator on the other side doesn't have the ability to know what we're going to do," Lester said. "Like when the big two tight ends come in, it's going to be power. When the five wideouts come in, they have a pretty darn good idea what's coming. So we just try to be unpredictable that way."

I really like the offensive philosophy off running multiple types of plays with the same personnel and with a similar look. IMO this creates more uncertainty within the defense. Also without having sub packages you have the ability to know what defense will be out there and try to exploit mismatches.

Estime and Broyld apparently have had issues fully understanding the playbook in the past. After watching last years collection of plays from the island of misfit toys its not a great surprise. I'm looking forward to seeing what this looks like in the spring game.

**Disclaimer** I usually convince myself every February/March we can win a national championship

 

[CIL]

I have always been a big believe of mastering 40-50 plays and executing those to perfection. There's no need to run 150 when 130 of those are crap. If you can run 40 plays out of multiple formations, you can move the ball.

 

[Rocco]

This was his plan as soon as he was handed the reigns. I think it is the only way to go.

Keep it simple, give Hunt some LOS flexibility and keep the D on their heels.

Generating quality production through the air is critical. Without that, it won't matter what plays we're running.

 

[Gooorange]

I agree, in fact my recollection is that if you look at recent success @ SU going back to when Hackett was OC, the offense began to take off when he simplified his play calling as well. During McD's tenure, I remember comments from players leading up to the Texas bowl when they said the offense had like a thousand plays and it seemed as though they were testing everything out. McD simplified things for Hunt and the team performed well enough to win some games.

 

[Full_Rebar]

Now it's about drilling execution- have to cut down on the penalties and preach patience. While I agree that simple is better, Lester could flip on some Baylor or Ohio St. video to see that you can easily run power out of a 4 WR set.

Unless Hunt can make enough throws to the outside, you don't want to invite teams to put more in the box if you're hoping to feature the run.

 

[RMH44]

15 plays. I love it. I also love this quote from Lester:

"The defensive coordinator on the other side doesn't have the ability to know what we're going to do," Lester said. "Like when the big two tight ends come in, it's going to be power. When the five wideouts come in, they have a pretty darn good idea what's coming. So we just try to be unpredictable that way."

I really like the offensive philosophy off running multiple types of plays with the same personnel and with a similar look. IMO this creates more uncertainty within the defense. Also without having sub packages you have the ability to know what defense will be out there and try to exploit mismatches.

Estime and Broyld apparently have had issues fully understanding the playbook in the past. After watching last years collection of plays from the island of misfit toys its not a great surprise. I'm looking forward to seeing what this looks like in the spring game.

**Disclaimer** I usually convince myself every February/March we can win a national championship

Not to beat a dead horse but...it appeared McDonald used multiple player personnel packages simply to use multiple player personnel packages. His offenses lacked identity and, more importantly, utilizing so many different packages kept some of our best offensive weapons (think Jerome Smith) off the field far too often.

I think the substitution patterns will now be done by offensive series rather than situational (down and distance) definitions. I like what I see thus far.

 

[RMH44]

Now it's about drilling execution- have to cut down on the penalties and preach patience. While I agree that simple is better, Lester could flip on some Baylor or Ohio St. video to see that you can easily run power out of a 4 WR set.

Unless Hunt can make enough throws to the outside, you don't want to invite teams to put more in the box if you're hoping to feature the run.

I think you'll see plenty of 4 wr sets, especially if Adly and Custis are classified as wr's ;-)

 

[upperdeck]

much easier to run power against nickel D. lets hope our Big WR are fast enough to make teams honor that and block well enough to control DBs. much like what NE does. if the TE is tough for a LB to cover the multiple sets from same grouping works well. its been awhile since we had anyone teams worried about covering.

 

[RICuse44]

The other part is that usually the defense has keys based on formations, ie when they are 4 wide with the TB offset to the right they run this play 75% of the time. Having the same personal and running multiple plays off of the same look keeps the defense guessing. It seemed like last year we had formations that we ran one play out of over and over again. If I can figure that out sitting on my couch with screaming children running around I'm willing to bet opposing D coordinators can do that to. In college we used to do the same thing- we ran this play out of this formation. Needless to say it did not work out well.

 

[PhatOrange]

Now it's about drilling execution- have to cut down on the penalties and preach patience. While I agree that simple is better, Lester could flip on some Baylor or Ohio St. video to see that you can easily run power out of a 4 WR set.

If I recall from reading the article the above is taken out of contex a bit. I think he was saying when you sub 2 tight ends in or wr's it's sort of predictable. His plan is to be able to go power or 4 wide with minimal or no subbing.

 

[kcsu]

If I recall from reading the article the above is taken out of contex a bit. I think he was saying when you sub 2 tight ends in or wr's it's sort of predictable. His plan is to be able to go power or 4 wide with minimal or no subbing.

you are correct. I also like the fact that it should allow us to play much faster.

 

[chakka3421]

15 plays. I love it. I also love this quote from Lester:

"The defensive coordinator on the other side doesn't have the ability to know what we're going to do," Lester said. "Like when the big two tight ends come in, it's going to be power. When the five wideouts come in, they have a pretty darn good idea what's coming. So we just try to be unpredictable that way."

I really like the offensive philosophy off running multiple types of plays with the same personnel and with a similar look. IMO this creates more uncertainty within the defense. Also without having sub packages you have the ability to know what defense will be out there and try to exploit mismatches.

Estime and Broyld apparently have had issues fully understanding the playbook in the past. After watching last years collection of plays from the island of misfit toys its not a great surprise. I'm looking forward to seeing what this looks like in the spring game.

**Disclaimer** I usually convince myself every February/March we can win a national championship

Simplicity is key in college. FHCDM had just as many plays like FOCGM but found out the hard way that you can't install that many plays in the first couple of years of a new offense. It's just too much for a college player to remember more than 30-40 plays because of limited practice time (unlike the pros where it's a full time job). After 3-4 years, you can build upon the base set of plays as upperclassman can help the newbies along outside of formal practices.

This is my case for keeping an offensive coordinator and staff intact for a long time just to build up consistency over time. HCSS made a strategic error in hiring FOCGM who had no experience as an OC and cost us 2 years in program development. OCTL is taking the right approach but it's too bad we are already into year 3 of the Shafer years...will they be given enough time to rebuild the offense?

But when it comes right down to it, simplification and a good OC & staff will only take us so far. You still need good recruits that can be developed into great players to take a program like SU to the next level and win consistently.

 

[The Viking]

And in keeping wi

If I recall from reading the article the above is taken out of contex a bit. I think he was saying when you sub 2 tight ends in or wr's it's sort of predictable. His plan is to be able to go power or 4 wide with minimal or no subbing.

And the unpredictability multiplies with players well-versed in a variety of roles: Broyld, Estime, Phillips, TE/WR combos, and mobile QBs. One player coming in from the sideline could be pretty confusing for a defense.

 

[GoSU96]

Simplicity is key in college. FHCDM had just as many plays like FOCGM but found out the hard way that you can't install that many plays in the first couple of years of a new offense. It's just too much for a college player to remember more than 30-40 plays because of limited practice time (unlike the pros where it's a full time job). After 3-4 years, you can build upon the base set of plays as upperclassman can help the newbies along outside of formal practices.

This is my case for keeping an offensive coordinator and staff intact for a long time just to build up consistency over time. HCSS made a strategic error in hiring FOCGM who had no experience as an OC and cost us 2 years in program development. OCTL is taking the right approach but it's too bad we are already into year 3 of the Shafer years...will they be given enough time to rebuild the offense?

But when it comes right down to it, simplification and a good OC & staff will only take us so far. You still need good recruits that can be developed into great players to take a program like SU to the next level and win consistently.

He was OC at Western Michigan for two years, it wasn't his first time in the role.

 

[orangepassion]

One thing I immediately noticed last year was that our penalties seemed to decrease dramatically after Lester took over. Might have been a coincidence, but I bet a big part of it was him simplifying the offense.