Time for tempo?

C

CP87

Well-Known Member
It seems like for the last few years all Iowa's offense has seen is a crowded LOS, tons of blitzing, and tons of disguising. Teams know that Iowa makes a lot of decisions at the LOS (especially line calls), and they want to make that as difficult as possible.

Is it time to borrow a page from 2013 Greg Davis and utilize more up-tempo during the game? It could be shortened-snap counts (just get to the line and go), or true no-huddle for portions of games. You miss the opportunity to make the optimal line call, but so often those calls are incorrect due to disguising of fronts. On the plus side, you would force the D to line up honestly, or potentially catch them off guard in the middle of their switching. It could also make QB reads simpler.

This could be especially difficult for the D to handle if you combine it with some good ol' fashioned assignment football (read-option or jet-sweep packages).

Realistic to add this to the game plan for a couple of series, or too much of a departure?
 
Like Indiana vs Ohio St. That was some of the fastest tempo I've seen in football. Looked like Grinnell basketball on the grid iron. Indiana must have ran over 100 plays.

I get what you are saying, though. Speed it up and make it more difficult for them to substitute and/or line up properly. Throw them off. I think you can do that with a veteran QB more than with an inexperienced QB. I guess other teams do, though.
 
MelroseHawkins said:
Yes, that is a point about a defense getting tired. A team has to have good depth to up the tempo.
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I think we have that depth at the important positions: OL, RB, DL, even LB (though unproven depth).

Regarding experienced vs. inexperienced QB, I actually think uptempo can make things simpler for the QB. It can make it tougher for the OL (less opportunity for the veterans to communicate at LOS with the young uns), so perhaps it would work better with Myers in there than Jackson.

What are the other options to deal with the hyper-aggressive, crowded LOS, disguising fronts we have seen constantly over the past 3 years?
 
CP87 said:
I think we have that depth at the important positions: OL, RB, DL, even LB (though unproven depth).

Regarding experienced vs. inexperienced QB, I actually think uptempo can make things simpler for the QB. It can make it tougher for the OL (less opportunity for the veterans to communicate at LOS with the young uns), so perhaps it would work better with Myers in there than Jackson.

What are the other options to deal with the hyper-aggressive, crowded LOS, disguising fronts we have seen constantly over the past 3 years?
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Sorry. I was mainly referring to defense.
 
I've always been a proponent of getting to the line and threatening the defense with the idea of a snap. You can very well get to the line 95% of the time and look to the sidelines, slowing everything down. But the defense has to respect (or take a calculated risk by not respecting if they want to move/disguise pre-snap) the fact you might actually snap the ball. I'm not sure if this is the week for it though; we're signaling in the plays to the QB now, who translates that to the players in the huddle. If we went without a huddle, do we have the appropriate hand signals from QB to OL/WR/RB to convey enough of our offense? You could certainly make the argument that a package be added, so long as it doesn't impact the general progression for Stanley. Not sure if this is the week you'd want to put something like that in or not...

On a related note, BF said during fall camp that his favorite formation was 22 personnel (2 TE's, 2 RB's, 1 WR). When we're in this set, or even when we're in different personnel groupings but in compressed formations, we are really susceptible to different blitz schemes that are more easily hidden. Putting more guys in the box allows them to get home with a blitz much easier. I somewhat remember one unsuccessful 3rd down play in particular...we were on the right hash and I don't recall exactly if we had 1 or 2 WR's in the game, but I am pretty sure we had at least 2 TE's in the game. The WR was to the field side of the formation (with a very small split), the 2 TE's were to the boundary, and if there were 2 RB's they were in an I (if there was a 2nd WR he was to the boundary...this is where it was a little cloudy). Point being, we only had the ability to release 1 eligible receiver immediately into a pattern to the field where we had 2/3 of the width of the field to play with. We put our offense in a shoe box and it really just narrows our margin for error because that's a lot of humanity in a very small space.
 
Whether it be tempo or something else . . . I like the idea of throwing something at our opponent that catches them off guard. Obviously it doesn't mean you have to run it the entire game . . . just have it as an option in your back-pocket.

How many of us before Saturday thought ALL OF OUR TDs would come via the air? I bet Wyoming didn't predict that. And I know we didn't throw the ball a lot . . . but that TD pass to Fant right after the turnover . . . or the long pass play to Easly . . . how much time did Wyoming devote to scheming for those plays??? Probably not a lot. But to their credit they did figure out how to stuff the run, LOL.
 
hawkfan2679 said:
I've always been a proponent of getting to the line and threatening the defense with the idea of a snap. You can very well get to the line 95% of the time and look to the sidelines, slowing everything down. But the defense has to respect (or take a calculated risk by not respecting if they want to move/disguise pre-snap) the fact you might actually snap the ball. I'm not sure if this is the week for it though; we're signaling in the plays to the QB now, who translates that to the players in the huddle. If we went without a huddle, do we have the appropriate hand signals from QB to OL/WR/RB to convey enough of our offense? You could certainly make the argument that a package be added, so long as it doesn't impact the general progression for Stanley. Not sure if this is the week you'd want to put something like that in or not...

On a related note, BF said during fall camp that his favorite formation was 22 personnel (2 TE's, 2 RB's, 1 WR). When we're in this set, or even when we're in different personnel groupings but in compressed formations, we are really susceptible to different blitz schemes that are more easily hidden. Putting more guys in the box allows them to get home with a blitz much easier. I somewhat remember one unsuccessful 3rd down play in particular...we were on the right hash and I don't recall exactly if we had 1 or 2 WR's in the game, but I am pretty sure we had at least 2 TE's in the game. The WR was to the field side of the formation (with a very small split), the 2 TE's were to the boundary, and if there were 2 RB's they were in an I (if there was a 2nd WR he was to the boundary...this is where it was a little cloudy). Point being, we only had the ability to release 1 eligible receiver immediately into a pattern to the field where we had 2/3 of the width of the field to play with. We put our offense in a shoe box and it really just narrows our margin for error because that's a lot of humanity in a very small space.
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But in that same formation (22), we sent Fant and Easley out on a deep crossers and that's what scored the long TD pass to Easley. I like the 22 formation, if we are willing to break tendencies like we did there and pass out of it. But under GD, I think we ran something like 85-90% of the time out of 22. It was an easy "tell" for the defense when we were in that formation.
 
SpiderRico said:
But in that same formation (22), we sent Fant and Easley out on a deep crossers and that's what scored the long TD pass to Easley. I like the 22 formation, if we are willing to break tendencies like we did there and pass out of it. But under GD, I think we ran something like 85-90% of the time out of 22. It was an easy "tell" for the defense when we were in that formation.
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Correct, but that formation wasn't compressed. I don't love the 22 formation, but it's an effective formation for us because we can do quite a bit out of it in our PA game; IMO what makes it ineffective for us (for now) is when we bring WR splits into it, enabling a defense to bring anywhere from 3-8 without really altering their defensive front/look.
 
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I'd be for it like say one or two possessions a half kinda thing... I don't think going crazy fast all the time or even half the time is a good thing for this group. But to randomly bust it out for a possession now and then especially like in the 2nd q if you notice the other team has some 2nd teamers in there to take advantage of I think it'd be a brilliant move. It'd be an easy way to force them to burn a timeout or two they wouldn't want also... It'd certainly have it's benefits
 
hawkfan2679 said:
I've always been a proponent of getting to the line and threatening the defense with the idea of a snap. You can very well get to the line 95% of the time and look to the sidelines, slowing everything down. But the defense has to respect (or take a calculated risk by not respecting if they want to move/disguise pre-snap) the fact you might actually snap the ball. I'm not sure if this is the week for it though; we're signaling in the plays to the QB now, who translates that to the players in the huddle. If we went without a huddle, do we have the appropriate hand signals from QB to OL/WR/RB to convey enough of our offense? You could certainly make the argument that a package be added, so long as it doesn't impact the general progression for Stanley. Not sure if this is the week you'd want to put something like that in or not...

On a related note, BF said during fall camp that his favorite formation was 22 personnel (2 TE's, 2 RB's, 1 WR). When we're in this set, or even when we're in different personnel groupings but in compressed formations, we are really susceptible to different blitz schemes that are more easily hidden. Putting more guys in the box allows them to get home with a blitz much easier. I somewhat remember one unsuccessful 3rd down play in particular...we were on the right hash and I don't recall exactly if we had 1 or 2 WR's in the game, but I am pretty sure we had at least 2 TE's in the game. The WR was to the field side of the formation (with a very small split), the 2 TE's were to the boundary, and if there were 2 RB's they were in an I (if there was a 2nd WR he was to the boundary...this is where it was a little cloudy). Point being, we only had the ability to release 1 eligible receiver immediately into a pattern to the field where we had 2/3 of the width of the field to play with. We put our offense in a shoe box and it really just narrows our margin for error because that's a lot of humanity in a very small space.
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Thanks, I always enjoy hearing opinions from those in the coaching ranks and feel like I almost always learn something from your posts.
 
I don't see anything wrong with being methodical and running out the clock when you're behind.;)
But seriously Iowa usually does well with Tempo . . . I hope BF experiments with it going forward.
 
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