Chris Brown (Smartfootball) on Baylor and Art Briles

Submitted by dnak438 on

I'm sure that most of us read Smart Football, but in case anyone missed it, Chris Brown (=Smart Football) has a great article on the Baylor offense and its architect, Art Briles:

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9861289/chris-brown-how-art-briles-potent-offense-made-baylor-national-title-contender

There's some really interesting stuff here. For me, this was the big eye-opener:

Superficially, Baylor is yet another shotgun spread that pushes the tempo and rarely huddles. But when you watch the Bears, it's evident that this is an offense unlike the others. While more and more college and NFL teams are adopting the same up-tempo spread philosophy Briles used at Stephenville, Baylor has stayed one step ahead by taking these ideas — from formations to play-calling aggressiveness to pace — to their extremes.

The first thing to notice when watching Baylor is the splits of the wide receivers. While most teams put their wide receivers on the numbers, the Bears line theirs up well outside, sometimes directly on the sideline. By doing this, they force defenses to account for the entire width of the field.

Mathis2

The fascinating advantage of Baylor's splits is the effect they have on pass coverage. Defenses now use lots of complex, hybrid pass coverages, but most still reduce to a basic distinction: Is it man-to-man or zone? By taking such wide splits, Baylor puts every pass defender on an island, transforming most zone defenses into a type of de facto one-on-one man coverage.

And this play (play-action inverted veer, with the inside receiver running a slant-and-go) is just plain nasty:

Space Coyote

October 24th, 2013 at 11:00 AM ^

Frankly, if WRs want to split that wide, I'd let them. Play your coverage but line up 5 yards inside that guy and stay in your same zone you always do. From that starting split there are only two directions a guy can run, straight or inside. You don't have to play directly over the top of him because you don't need to respect the fact that he can go every direction out of a route.

Now, that's an adjustment that still may cause some discomfort, especially with what you can do at the LOS. But once the play gets off the LOS you can run your defense the same way. And now it should be even easier to use the sideline as an extra defender.

So obviously there is something new here that appears to be giving Baylor an advantage. But like all things, defenses will adjust and take advantage of the inherent weaknesses of it. 

ak47

October 24th, 2013 at 12:04 PM ^

Since Briles took over an admittedly terrible team and program in 2008 he has gone 4-8,4-8,7-6,10-3,8-5 to this point.  If you care about wins, it seems like a lot of teams have figured out how to stop art briles. Last year against iowa state they put 21, against oklahoma 24, and against tcu 21.  Yes they also put up huge numbers on texas and kansas state and other teams but they also managed to lose a game they scored 63 points in partly because both teams had so many oppurtunities due to a fast pace.

Michigan4Life

October 24th, 2013 at 12:25 PM ^

because Baylor were terrible and were just beginning to establish their identity, culminating with RG3 winning the Hesiman.  Last year, they broke in a new starting QB and was still able to be productive on offense.  This year?  This may be the best Baylor team ever which isn't saying much considering their history but is only getting better with better recruits. 

ak47

October 24th, 2013 at 2:27 PM ^

It is, but that also doesn't include the second half of this year, if they lose 2 or 3 games the rest of the year (not saying this will happen, just that its a possibility) it will still be a good year but may somewhat be a product of a relatively weak schedule which is what they have had so far.  

TXmaizeNblue

October 25th, 2013 at 8:59 AM ^

the talent that Lloyd had far exceeded the talent that Art Briles has had, and he has been doing it in a conference that has been better than the Big Ten in the last decade.  My son went to Baylor and I watched a few of their games in 2010 & 2011.  What Briles has accomplished is amazing!  People need to keep in mind this program - up til maybe now, was 4th or 5th in the pecking order of recruiting in Texas.  They typically got the leftovers after UT, A&M, and Texas Tech, plucked the fruit in state.   That's not including the 6-10 Texas kids Oklahoma gets every year.  Then you have TCU, SMU, Houston, Rice, and now UTSA - which is a new program I expect to see making some noise within 2-3 years.  Just because a Robert Griffin came from Baylor, that does not mean the team is loaded with high caliber talent.  Far from it. 

Space Coyote

October 25th, 2013 at 9:36 AM ^

The talent is there. The athletes are there. But it's raw talent, sometimes very raw talent. The amount of talent coming from Texas is vast even when you take into account the insane amount of schools that try to dip into that talent.

But then you may ask, "then why aren't all the teams good from Texas." Well because it takes someone that fully understands his system, how it's designed, and how to teach these kids in an effective manner how to produce with their talent in that system. That's what Leech did at TTU, that's what Patterson has done at TCU, etc.

Or you can just pay a boat load of cash like SMU did to get the groomed talent. That works too.

But seriously, the reason these smaller or lesser Texas programs often get to the the higher level of play is because they have talent. Leech has a very simplified system in which a player learns only one position. Even the WRs only learn the X-WR spot for instance. And then at that position they are only asked to learn a limited amount of things, but enough things, and are asked to become great at them. They are maximizing what they can get out of talent, albeit raw talent, with limited practice. That doesn't necessarily help the players going forward to the NFL, as teams start talking to them and finding out they don't know a majority of the things they expect them to know, but it does allow them to produce, and ultimately, it still gives them a shot at being drafted higher than they would at a school that didn't take advantage of their talents. So it works both ways.

Space Coyote

October 24th, 2013 at 1:03 PM ^

That wasn't what I was intending to say. I think Briles has a great offenses and it's extremely fun to watch, all I was saying was something like the WR split that was pointed out is something defenses will adapt to, and I believe they will fairly easily. Briles has been good because he has continually developed and evolved his offense. At the end of the day, something like a WR almost playing on the sideline isn't a significant reason for his success, and may end up hindering success if he does it continually.

ak47

October 24th, 2013 at 11:11 AM ^

That play is a nice set up but works because the safety bites hard on the play action, as with all offense vs defense matchups its about execution, the safety made a mistake and got beat over the top, thats not so different from what the play action michigan runs does too, and against indiana it clearly worked, bad defenses make offenses look good/smart.

Has baylor played a good team yet this year? I honestly have no idea.

ak47

October 24th, 2013 at 11:39 AM ^

I should rephrase that, yes it is impressive, I wish our offense put up points like that and it is fun to watch.  I guess I meant it to mean that I'm not sure how good they really are quite yet.  Remeber when hawai'i put up like 60 points a game and then got smoked by georgia in the sugar bowl because it turned out offense is easier when you're just better prepared, faster, and stronger than everyone you played and it didn't really matter what you were doing? I think that might just be baylor right now.

ak47

October 24th, 2013 at 12:09 PM ^

Ok? They have played a bunch of teams so far that are worse than BAYLOR so far, art briles has been secretly recruiting pretty well so they have some talent and they have played some truly terrible teams so far.  Like I said, what they have done so far is impressive, just like what hawai'i did was impressive, 4 years ago hawai'i quarterbacks owned the ncaa record books, I'd like to see what happens when they play a defense ranked in the top 25.

edit: I said so far way too many times in this post, I apologize.

Pit2047

October 24th, 2013 at 2:25 PM ^

I'm waiting until their last 5 games until praising them because they have played NO ONE yet. If their putting up 70 on Oklahoma, Okie State, TCU and Texas then we might have something here. I do think their a good offense but I don't think they're starting revolution yet.

bronxblue

October 24th, 2013 at 4:22 PM ^

But 70 points against crappy defenses isn't nearly as impressive.  I'm not going to say they are overrated or anything, but before we crown them the new kings of offense lets see them put up decent performances against the better teams on their slate.

gwkrlghl

October 24th, 2013 at 11:15 AM ^

Baylor's got a real good shot to go undefeated. They're actually playing respectable defense this year and while they have three ranked teams left, all are very beatable (#10 TTU hasnt even played a difficult opponent yet).

Would be a great end of the BCS is somehow FSU, Oregon, Baylor, and an SEC team all finished undefeated at the end of the year

joeismyname

October 24th, 2013 at 11:44 AM ^

it would be even better if Bama and Mizzou both lose a game (maybe Mizzou's monster receiver's gives the bama defense fits in SECCG), but Baylor, FSU, and Oregon all go undefeated (maybe even OSU, but obviously we don't want that). How in the world could the BCS justify keeping 2 undefeated, BCS conference, but non-SEC opponents out of the game? It would be a hilarious circus to watch the media and ESPN implode on that one.

I also bet my girlfriend (a Kentucky fan) $5.00 that no SEC team would be in the NCG this year. Being amongst UK football fans who brag about the SEC all the time, this would leave a glorious feeling inside for me.

UMmasotta

October 24th, 2013 at 11:59 AM ^

I did my undergrad at UM and now I'm wrapping up my MBA at Baylor. I don't follow Baylor football anywhere near as closely as I do Michigan, but it's been interesting to be so closely connected to two totally different teams. 

I won't say much since I'm not all that familiar with Baylor's scheme (other than knowing that failing to score in under 2 minutes is a disappointment), I simply want to share a resource that some users might be interested in checking out. "Bears Truth" is a blog that is supposed to have some pretty good, in-depth stuff on Baylor football. 

buddha

October 24th, 2013 at 12:01 PM ^

If Mack Brown does decided to leave after this season (or gets nudged out), it will be interesting to see how much of a look Art Briles gets. I know he is not the household name that most UT fans would look for, but he has a legendary status in Texas high school football and has proven he can recruit and win at a high level. 

If he does go to UT, I think the Longhorns could be real contenders in a relatively short period of time.

markusr2007

October 24th, 2013 at 12:07 PM ^

in introducing the sideline as your 12th and 13th defenders.

But I'm a big fan of Art Briles and Baylor's offense. They are a lot of fun to watch, and I'm pleased to know that more NFL teams may try to adopt this faster pace, spread methodology too. 45 years of pro-set run-run-pass-punting on Sunday's is boring as hell.

 

LSAClassOf2000

October 24th, 2013 at 2:09 PM ^

The segment breaking down how Baylor is able to create one-on-one matchups against a zone scheme using splits was pretty entertaining actually. The example is a great one too, the Bryce Petty TD reception in the Kansas State game. 

The message was pretty clear - it's the structure and how the entire offense works as a unit that makes what Briles does here so successful. The discussion on how simple the play-action calls are but how Baylor makes them work well is a good illustration of that. 

Great article. Thanks for sharing. 

BILG

October 24th, 2013 at 4:26 PM ^

Another flash in the pan that defenses will catch up to.  The ebb and flow of offensive or defensive innovation means that you can find inefficencies in the short run, but the invisible hand will eventually return the football market to equilibrium.  Over the long run its about the resources you bring in and how you develop them...recruits/players.  When Leach, Rodriguez, Broyles, etc have disproportionate success over a 10 year period relative to their peers (not just yards and points, but wins since that is the ultimate goal and such high paced offense exposes your defense) then we should take notice.

markusr2007

October 24th, 2013 at 6:38 PM ^

and the consequences. Not entirely unfamiliar to Michigan football either in recent years.

What it means for a football program to get "BAYLORED" by Phil Steele, written at the time Guy Morriss was the the coach at BU:



"OK let's take a look at the Baylor situation. Constant head coaching changes are a bad thing. I mentioned earlier that when a new head coach comes in he struggles early as the players have to learn his systems and he has to learn the players strengths and weaknesses. He also inherits another coaches players and many times they not only do not fit his system but they signed with the school because of the other coaching staff. Many times personality or disciplinary conflicts arise and many players depart a program after the coaching change, leaving a team short on scholarships as well. I call this section "Baylored" because that school provides the most prominent example of how constant head coaching changes hurt a program. Lets go back to 1996. Baylor had 5 winning years out of 6 despite facing their tough SWC foes on a weekly basis. They were 7-5 in 1994 and 7-4 in 1995 and the amazing part was that HC Chuck Reedy was bringing in recruiting classes on par with teams like Texas and Texas A&M, even finishing ahead of the big boys some years! In this day and age a winning record for a Big 12 team would make them a perennial bowl team. In 1996 they had a nightmare season as the team was besieged by injuries and also dropped some close games like a 28-24 loss to Oklahoma, a 28-23 loss to Texas and a triple OT loss 49-42 to Missouri (those type of losses would look pretty good currently). They still finished 4-7 and clearly, if not for the injuries, could have had a winning season. Amazingly Baylor FIRED coach Reedy! That was 1996. They have played NINE years of football since and have topped THREE WINS just once in that span (last year)(5)! First they brought in Dave Roberts in 1997 and then after two losing seasons FIRED him! They brought in Kevin Steele and gave him 4 years before the axe fell. As mentioned with constant coaching changes keeping the full compliment of scholarship players has been a problem. Baylor has a record of 8-72 in the Big 12 and some years has been outgained by an avg of over 200 ypg in league play. Hopefully they will give Guy Morriss some time as he made strides with this team that has been handicapped by constant coaching turnover."

B-Nut-GoBlue

October 24th, 2013 at 8:05 PM ^

There's talk about spreading out too much brings in a 12th defender so to speak and there is some truth to that.  However, the defense also has to actually stop the receiver that's out there. If they guy is faster than the DB or even if he's not necessarily a better athlete than the DB, one mis-step by him is all it takes to wave bye-bye and have anywhere from a 40 yard gain to a touchdown thrown over him.  And that's just one (or two) of the offensive weapons that are spread across the field on an island with a defender i.e. pick the weak-spot, all defenses have 'em.

SJ Steve

October 25th, 2013 at 1:40 AM ^

That team is legit and I'll be shocked if Texas or Oklahoma stays within 14 points of them. They're not Kansas State of past years - they are GOOD.