Difference in Offensive Philosophies

MelroseHawkins

MelroseHawkins

Well-Known Member
Ok. I admit. Iowa's offense is antiquated for the college game. We all know KF and BF rely on the old school blocking and play action. That is what they know and recruit to. I really enjoy Urban Myers break it down segments on the BIG network and just happened to catch one the other day (I don't typically watch unless for games). He did a really good job in describing the goals of the spread offenses, more than the obvious goals. It made one think.

- Iowa's philosophy is to load up and block to open holes.
Spread offense is to spread out and put athletes into space to make plays.
- Iowa's philosophy is to get the defense to move to the ball to gang tackle
Spread is to create confusion and run away from defenders and to create one-on-one tackling attempts which may break for gains
- Iowa's philosophy is to suck in defenses to trick with miss direction plays or play action pass to cross up defenses.
Spread is to get the ball into the best athletes hands in space and/or the best mismatch vs defender. Create mismatches. See David Bell vs Iowa's LB's.

When breaking it down, it is a completely different philosophy. Unfortunately, recruiting to each philosophy makes it difficult to be able to change easily. I presume the spread you would want maybe a bit more athletic lineman than just the big beefy guys. I admit now the I actually enjoy watching Iowa's States offense now more than Iowa's. They seem to always get their RB running in space or going thru a 5 ft hole for gains.
 
Yeah the zone blocking scheme doesn't work as well nowadays because it's macho football. You're trying to just say our guys are better then yours now go get 4 plus yards. And nowadays everybody lifts weights. It's more of a math thing then it is macho thing. How many guys do you have in the box to defend it. If we lineup in the I formation with a FB going against an 8 man box we are outnumbered. You're banking on them running themselves out of position to overpursue so a cutback lane opens up. LBs are smart now and it's easy to scout us. Sure against lessor competition it can work but against similar or close to you talent wise not so much.

That play we scored on with Goodson is a great example of why that style works. When you spread the field formation wise you open up the box. That made it a one on one with him and a LB once he got past the LOS and guess what? Goodson is pretty special and can beat guys in the open field like that. Find more ways to run similar plays to that. Fitz is a pretty darn good coach. I've always respected how he's done things. If you're going to play macho football against them you have to be physically superior to overcome the math. We aren't that and haven't been since the 'Bullys of the BIG' days.

We sprinkle in some of the good stuff every now and then but not as a rule of thumb and BF for every game he's called as good as the USC game was he's called 2 like the NW game. He's just not totally figured it out yet
 
A little bit of what Iowa does is the reason our players make such an easy transition to the pros. We put a shitload of kids in the NFL who get a whole lot of playing time, but we're a mostly bottom feeder team except for a good year once every couple quarterbacks. I'd be hard pressed to find a college team that has as much success at the NFL but so little at the college level.

The difference is Iowa plays NFL style ball but with none of the talent at skill positions (minus TE). In the NFL quarterbacks can hit those tight passing windows that go along with our offensive scheme, and they also get rid of the ball in less than two seconds. Our OL and TE groups excel at the next level because they've learned that style of play even though our teams typically suck more years than not. Wirfs, Scherff, Blythe, Daniels, and others slide right into starting roles because they're doing exactly what they learned under Kurt and Brain Fairentz. They just didn't have QBs and receivers that could get the job done behind them.
 
Fryowa said:
A little bit of what Iowa does is the reason our players make such an easy transition to the pros. We put a shitload of kids in the NFL who get a whole lot of playing time, but we're a mostly bottom feeder team except for a good year once every couple quarterbacks. I'd be hard pressed to find a college team that has as much success at the NFL but so little at the college level.

The difference is Iowa plays NFL style ball but with none of the talent at skill positions (minus TE). In the NFL quarterbacks can hit those tight passing windows that go along with our offensive scheme, and they also get rid of the ball in less than two seconds. Our OL and TE groups excel at the next level because they've learned that style of play even though our teams typically suck more years than not. Wirfs, Scherff, Blythe, Daniels, and others slide right into starting roles because they're doing exactly what they learned under Kurt and Brain Fairentz. They just didn't have QBs and receivers that could get the job done behind them.
Click to expand...

This is really an anomaly.
 
MelroseHawkins said:
Ok. I admit. Iowa's offense is antiquated for the college game. We all know KF and BF rely on the old school blocking and play action. That is what they know and recruit to. I really enjoy Urban Myers break it down segments on the BIG network and just happened to catch one the other day (I don't typically watch unless for games). He did a really good job in describing the goals of the spread offenses, more than the obvious goals. It made one think.

- Iowa's philosophy is to load up and block to open holes.
Spread offense is to spread out and put athletes into space to make plays.
- Iowa's philosophy is to get the defense to move to the ball to gang tackle
Spread is to create confusion and run away from defenders and to create one-on-one tackling attempts which may break for gains
- Iowa's philosophy is to suck in defenses to trick with miss direction plays or play action pass to cross up defenses.
Spread is to get the ball into the best athletes hands in space and/or the best mismatch vs defender. Create mismatches. See David Bell vs Iowa's LB's.

When breaking it down, it is a completely different philosophy. Unfortunately, recruiting to each philosophy makes it difficult to be able to change easily. I presume the spread you would want maybe a bit more athletic lineman than just the big beefy guys. I admit now the I actually enjoy watching Iowa's States offense now more than Iowa's. They seem to always get their RB running in space or going thru a 5 ft hole for gains.
Click to expand...
The purpose of a spread offense is to create multiple stress points along the defense scheme and to attack the weakest point based on that.

clemson is a run-first mentality.
Alabama is a run-heavy mentality.
Even ISU is a run-tilt scheme.

Alabama’s OC says it’s about controlling the LOS, rushing the ball, and maximizing scoring when given the opportunity.

Iowa’s offensive philosophy, along with every offensive philosophy is to create a one-on-one matchup: ball carrier vs one defender.

Every defensive philosophy is to swarm multiple tacklers to the ball. Every single one.

Iowa passed 50+ times vs NW. I thought passing was exciting?
 
Fryowa said:
A little bit of what Iowa does is the reason our players make such an easy transition to the pros. We put a shitload of kids in the NFL who get a whole lot of playing time, but we're a mostly bottom feeder team except for a good year once every couple quarterbacks. I'd be hard pressed to find a college team that has as much success at the NFL but so little at the college level.

The difference is Iowa plays NFL style ball but with none of the talent at skill positions (minus TE). In the NFL quarterbacks can hit those tight passing windows that go along with our offensive scheme, and they also get rid of the ball in less than two seconds. Our OL and TE groups excel at the next level because they've learned that style of play even though our teams typically suck more years than not. Wirfs, Scherff, Blythe, Daniels, and others slide right into starting roles because they're doing exactly what they learned under Kurt and Brain Fairentz. They just didn't have QBs and receivers that could get the job done behind them.
Click to expand...
Exactly. It means it doesn't work here. Iowa isn't a Chicago Bears farm team.
 
Zone blocking isn't antiquated at all. Its done all over college and pro football. Its done in spread and west-coast style offenses.

maybe before pontificating posters should begin by saying "I'm no X's and O's guy, but here's what I'm thinking"

ok?
 
NCHawker said:
Zone blocking isn't antiquated at all. Its done all over college and pro football. Its done in spread and west-coast style offenses.

maybe before pontificating posters should begin by saying "I'm no X's and O's guy, but here's what I'm thinking"

ok?
Click to expand...
I didn't explicitly state zone blocking was antiquated.

I'm trying to mostly point out the difference in philosophy each offense uses to deceive the defense. I.E. How the spread is designed to create more one one one mismatches and to force more one-on-one open field tackles.

Try to catch the Urban Meyer segment. He is obviously going to summarize it and explain it better.
 
NCHawker said:
Zone blocking isn't antiquated at all. Its done all over college and pro football. Its done in spread and west-coast style offenses.

maybe before pontificating posters should begin by saying "I'm no X's and O's guy, but here's what I'm thinking"

ok?
Click to expand...
Actually, Iowa has a very diverse offense with a lot of pre-snap motion to information gather for the QB. People think it is a simple offense but it is not and very much modeled after NFL offenses, I don't disagree there. I pointed out how it is antiquated for today's "college game". I explicitly stated college game in the OP.
 
My two cents is whatever offense you go with you have to mix things up and throw different looks, personnel, and sets. The goal is still to keep the opponent guessing and I think that is where we struggle regardless of what philosophy we use.
 
How many times have we heard opposing coaches say they understand perfectly what Iowa is trying to do, but the trick is to stop it. If you have superior players, which despite an NFL bound player or two on the Hawks squad, many teams do, it makes it a lot easier to stop.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Share this page

Top