Les Miles vs Oregon Spread

Not a diary, but interesting.

Did you really mean to make this a diary?

Size and speed. I was astounded at the size differential between LSU D and Oregon O. Not necessarily weights but the height. LSU was also just as fast. The Cajun swamps produce some of most rangy strongmen around. The nerd in me likens them to the Dunedain.

Thanks to Charlie Weis, I always cringe when i see/hear the phrase "schematic advantage."

Someone needs to make a gif of Les running out with the team that they showed on college football final. He was just running around like he had no idea!

great game plan, but OSU and Auburn did too.  I just think that against the great teams the spread has to run perfect to work.  The spread is fun to watch, but you need to mix in a little MANBALL (like LSU, Auburn, Florida, Oklahoma, USC and now UM) to be a Champion.

Ohio State did the "two offenses vs one defense" prep before their Rose Bowl game as well.  I suspect many Pac10 opponents do the same.

Oregon seems to have trouble with big and fast D Lines.  LSU, Auburn, OSU and even Boise and Cal.  USC is probably the only talented D line they haven't had trouble with in the last 3 years.

I think Oregon's spread tends to be overrated by this blog.  Since Chip Kelly has been there I can only think of one real impressive victory they've had.  Against Stanford last year, and that was as much a results of a huge turnover than anything else.  Maybe Utah in 2009 and maybe USC in 2009, but I wouldn't consider those teams great.  Most of the success of the amazing spread at Oregon has been against pretty medocre, smaller defenses. 

2nd game in a row I've watched Oregons Oline get dominated by an SEC Dline.  Their weakness is pretty obvious, just not a lot of teams on their schedule with the time of athletes to take advantage of it.

The winning strategy appeared to be all the fat guys lay down on the field when you get tired.

This worked out pretty well for LSU in the first half, since there is apparently no rule against that kind of delay tactic in college football.

Amazingly Lou Holtz for once made a insightfull observation regarding the spread and more specifically the tempo feature of it. Basically he was saying the going fast to confuse a defense or take advantage of a personel advantage via no time for substitution is very effective but when its 3rd and 9 you better get your crap together and make sure you dont have any breakdowns or its punt.

This was one of the(many) frustrating things about watching our offense under the previous coach. It seemed like we'd lose 2 on first, gain 5 on 2nd and then he'd be rolling his arm signaling & yelling "hurry up" only to quickly surrender the ball due to poor execution on 3rd down. Blame this on younger players or whatever but if you know your players are young and not fundamentally sound enough yet to cleanly execute regardless of situation, then you best slow the fuck down and make sure everyones on the same page instead of trying to teach the tempo before nailing the basics of your offense. If the response is "but you need the tempo for the spread/read option/ Pat White thing to be effective at all?? Then I'm glad we're transitioning away from it now, hopefully just cherry picking the best plays/formations and leaving it at that.

The tempo thing is a gimmick, one thats being figured out and prepared for better as each week passes. Better athletes properly coached & prepared will still win the day more times than any scheme or gimmick.

Congrats to Les the "crazy grazer". I actually had Oregon picked in my office pool so his team overachieved given circumstances IMO. I guess the weeks ahead will determine if they can sustain.