The boom and bust cycle of spread offense?

You don't think he played well? I get he's not NFL caliber but he seemed to fit that offense perfectly.

quote:

---

Darron Thomas scored 35 TDs and had 3,300 total yards that year.

---

Product of the scheme.

so did ya get banned or what?

The only HC who uses this system to have *consistently* had good offensive production with it *despite* always having "meh" talent at QB was/is The Dread Pirate Leach.

If you do a deeper study of Leach, you'll see that, aside from the occasional good QB, he made his QBs wait until their Sr. years to play. That way, even though they were crap for talent, they had been in the system for 4 years or more, drilling on those only handfull of plays he runs until they could make the reads and throws in their sleep.

In the cases of schools out there with up and down production, they're throwing freshman in there, or transfers, and the kids don't have that automatic ability to operate the offense with lightning speed that comes with reps. ALSO, coaches are over-complicating their schemes, adding too many plays. Simplicity and reps are the keys.

Maybe the problem is that Gus sucks as a head coach.

Gus just needs to visualize and attack

quote:

---

I'd add Stanford after Kevin Hogan and UGA after Murray as well, but that's my point. Pro style teams seem to absorb drop off at the QB position (relatively) well, whereas it's been totally crippling to spread style teams. Granted, the sampling size for Pro style teams these days seem to be pretty limited.

---

You know what you have if you run that pro set offense Stanford and Michigan run, and Alabama used to run, without great athletes?

You have Vanderbilt is what you have.

I don't really have the time to address what someone wrote above, but pro set teams are even more prone to the same problem of not having a great qb.

In addition, there is absolutely nothing sadder than trying to run like Stanford - if your offensive line is subpar. One of the many things pro set fans never address is just how hard it is to recruit the kind of linemen it takes to make it work.

And I'm not sure it will work consistently even in the SEC. Going to be interesting to watch what happens with Georgia the next few years. But despite their bang up recruiting this year, Alabama has done the same recruiting job for more than a decade. And the results on offense have been a lot less than what they've gotten from that approach on defense.

Guess we need to wait and see if Sarkisian has any idea of how to use a qb who can actually run.

Also with the way the spread has taken over high school ball, it is getting much harder to even find guys who took snaps directly from the center. You can measure how tall they are, what they run the 40 in, but you don't have much if any film on them taking the snap and dropping back.

Then there is the fact that with a running qb, it is almost impossible to run double coverage (unless you like to live really dangerously). Meaning that running qb's in general get easier throws than pocket guys.

Anyway, unless you are running an Air Raid system (and the cool kids are using mobile qb's now in that), you are running an offense that isn't as good as it could be.

Even Wisconsin would be better off junking that offense, and going with Ohio State's approach. Same power running, more possibilities in the passing game.

quote:

---

Darron Thomas scored 35 TDs and had 3,300 total yards that year. Not that shaky.

---

I remember this guy. He declared early for the NFL draft, wasn't drafted or signed as an UFA.

He truly was a product of the Oregon machine.

So GTs offense is essentially UFs offense with Urban and Tebow except GTs QB was under center tather than shotgun and UF would often motion a man in front of thr QB rather than behind like at GT. But the reads were similar. Paul Johnson highlighted that many times.

GTs best years have been with Nesbitt and Thomas. Two completely different QBs. But both made good reads. Nesbitt killed teams because he always fell forward and was 220 pounds and always converted 3rd and 4th and short. He was not a great passer but his ability to read defenses and get tough yards allowed him to succeed.

Thomas was the polar opposite. Only 180 pounds and 3 inches shorter but passes the ball well and beat teams with speed. He was successful.

The difference? Paul Johnson tailored the offense to their strengths. Nesbitt ran the mid line option to perfection. The mid line takes the motioning Aback through the DL behind the bback and the QB powers through the hole created by the overwhelming numbers mismatch up the middle. We havent see this play in 3 years since Thomas started. When Nesbitt played we never saw a WR screen. We did with Thomas.

GT been successful with both power and finese QBs. It comes down to the coach calling plays to their strengths. Hell PJ even changed his offense to a pistol/shotgun when we had Vad Lee in 2011. It wasnt as successful as we would have like and Vad transferred after that year.

All that to say that Nesbitt and Thomas were very athletic and really good QBs for our system. Tevin Washington 2012-2013 was a 2 star recruit, couldnt pass well and was pretty slow got us a 7-5 and 6-6 seasons. You still need a good QB to really excel in a spread/read option offense.