Discussion of Offensive Schemes

I thought that, for a slight conversational change-up, it might be nice to momentarily stop lusting after the Harbaugh and discuss football as a sport. In particular, offense, since that was the big issue this year.

I will preface this by saying that I don't think Michigan should hire or not hire a coach based on that coaches play style. All good coaches can adjust to what they find on a roster; this time, my hope is that we are hiring someone who can do just that.

With that said, I wanted to look at a few offenses that have always intrigued me and why. I also wanted to open this up to other MgoReaders and posters, since as a whole, I think we are all pretty interested in football at a schematic level. 

Popular offenses now:

Pro-Style: This offense is generally mischaracterized as being "under-center" or "I-form" MANBALL. What a Pro-Style offense really is, as many successful NFL teams and College squads have shown, is any football scheme designed to be complex in its blocking and route running. Generally speaking, Pro-Style passing routes use a "Levels" concept, which forces defenders to commit to one particular level, those being shallow, middle and deep on every play. The advantages of this, is that it allows superior, NFL level talent to work. The downside, is that it forces a Quarterback to make complicated, multi-dimensional reads (both sides of the field, and depth) in less than three seconds, while also maintaining route timing (in regards to outs, slants, ins and curls).

Air-Raid: Air-Raid offenses are a form of the spread obviously, but when people say "spread" they usually think only of the Rich Rodriguez style read-option spread. Air-Raid then, for the purposes of my post, is the offense that is run by Mike Leach at Texas Tech and now at Washington State. This offense relies on the same match-up advantages seen in all spreads, with the goal being to put players with talent in space against sometimes superior talent in space, and see who wins in a one on one. However, the Air-Raid's major component is an option based system of route trees, which take years to actually ingrain in players, since the Quarterback and Receiver need to know which option the other will take in an instant. The beauty of the Air-Raid, from a coaching standpoint, is that it nullifies talent deficiencies, particularly at the Quartback position, by keeping all of the routes in a given pattern to relatively short patterns and giving "space" to throw to instead of relying on timing. Basically, receivers are taught to "find grass" and sit there against zone, or Mesh together against man, forcing defenders to essentially pick themselves out of the play, leaving to open grass for the QB to throw to.

Read-Option: This is an offense that most of us who have lived through the late 2000's remember well. When it works, it is perfect, (see OSU) when it does not, it looks bad (see us vs OSU in 2008-2010). The whole principal of the offense is to present the threat of a running quarterback, which evens the match-up numbers. Basically, in ANY other offense, the defense only has to worry about 10 men on a running play, since the QB serves only to hand the ball off. The read-option forces the numbers to at-least be even, since the QB himself is a legitimate running threat. Where the idea works to its ideal, is when the back-side defender is left unblocked and presented with a split second choice: take the RB and allow the QB to break contain (which usually results in a HUGE play when you have someone like Braxton Miller or Denard Robinson at QB) or you take the QB, which allows a back to break off the run inside--which, if everyone is blocked, should theoretically always allow the RB to get to the second level of the defense. 

These are all "sexy" offenses. Others that aren't:

Flexbone/Wing-T: This offense, to me, is very cool. That might because I don't know that much about it; it might also be because watching Georgia Tech and Navy run it to perfection is beautiful. It literally neutralizes superior talent at the DLine positions, because it relies on schematic cut-blocking, the idea being that they can't penetrate your OLine or disrupt a play if they are on their backs. It then forces receivers to block, as the play could come to their side of the field depending on a pitch or dive. If any one else knows anything about this offense, please post, I love watching it.

My whole point with this, besides generating some non-CC football talk (since I love football but am stressing out massively during this search) and see what people think. I personally don't care what a coach runs, as long as it works. If Harbaugh wants to come in and run a Wing-T or an Air-Raid or whatever, I will let him. If Dan Mullen wants to come here and install his spread, I will want him to. 

I just want to win. Period.