Has the spread offense hurt college football parity?
I happened to stumble across a video on Youtube titled ''The craziest college football season of all time'' this morning, which would have been the 2007 season. If you can stomach the bad parts which include us it's a fun watch to reminisce.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1-6DJ8JcPY
That got me thinking though. About that time is when we started to see a shift from teams running pro style I-formation offenses to spread options. USC, Michigan, Penn State, OSU(most of the time), Florida State, LSU, Tennessee, Auburn, were still trudging along with line up and beat you offenses while teams like Oregon, WVU, Missouri, Kansas, Cincinnati, Boise State, TCU, USF, Louisville, and Virginia Tech utilized speed, space, and fast pace, and were capable of beating anybody. Urban Meyer of course was ahead of the game which is why he won 2 national titles in 3 years at Florida. Texas and Oklahoma also had a lot of success. Texas with Vince Young and Oklahoma with multiple QBs.
Slowly the coaches at those schools either moved on or retired, and now most schools run different forms of the spread mixing in zone read, five wide shotgun, or RPOs including the top teams in LSU, Alabama, OSU, Clemson, and Oklahoma. Now these schools are getting a lot of the talent with potent offenses to boot. Now mid tier teams have no real advantage to try and out scheme top teams which seems to explain why there seems to be such a lack of upsets in the last couple years, and why the gap between the top six or so seems so large compared to back then.
So what do you guys think happens now? Will coaches find some way to counteract this?
January 31st, 2020 at 10:12 AM ^
Imo social media hurt parity in college football, stay with me for a second. I say this because everything is out there on social media, you see the wins, the fame, you see everything a team has from players posting pics of cars, money. It never stops, guys talk to other recruits more on social media see where they are going. Everyone says education their sophomore or JR year of high school but when senior year rolls around it’s all about winning.
January 31st, 2020 at 10:22 AM ^
When was there really parity? Things are cyclical, but USC had its run, and Texas interrupted it. Oklahoma used to dominate, Miami used to dominate, FSU had its moment, and then Florida and Bama and now Clemson with LSU jumping up for probably a year, but parity means a different team every year or every other year. I don't remember much parity.
January 31st, 2020 at 10:31 AM ^
Miami, USC, Michigan, OSU, Oklahoma, Texas, LSU, Tennessee, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, and Florida State were all good at the same time in the early to mid 2000s.
The 1990s we saw 10 different teams win national championships (split or not) with Colorado, Washington, Georgia Tech, Florida, and Florida State all winning their first ever.
The 2000s we saw 8.
The 2010s we saw 6
And as good as that USC run was they only won it twice due to dropping a game and being left out of the title game multiple times.
January 31st, 2020 at 12:06 PM ^
I think the CFP hurts parity. Up till recently it used to be that if you lost, you were almost knocked out of title contention. Now that a bunch of great teams can still sneak in with 1 or even 2 losses, it seems to further solidify and entrench the upper crust. 2007 nearly saw a West Virginia-Missouri national championship game. No way that happens now
January 31st, 2020 at 12:26 PM ^
2007 was wild.
LSU (led by Les Miles *sigh*) won the National Championship with 2 losses.
West Virginia, Kansas, Boston College, South Florida, Cal-Berkeley, and Oregon (pre-Chip Kelly as Head Coach) were all ranked #2 at one point, and Mizzou was #1 for a minute.
Illinois led by Ron Zook beat Ohio State and went to the Rose Bowl, and Hawai'i played in the Sugar Bowl.
Kentucky and Rutgers were top 10 that season, too, holy shit.
Nick Saban's Alabama lost to a school called Louisiana-Monroe.
Mike Gundy turned 40 ?
Before the season, UAB agreed to hire Jimbo Fisher as coach, but the University of Alabama Board of Trustees vetoed it.
That old Michigan QB Jim Harbaugh in his first year led Stanford (who went 1-11 the year prior and finished 4-8) to a win over Pete Carroll and the mighty #1 USC Trojans.
Mike Hart...mork...something something little brother?
Not to mention after The Horror, and getting mauled by Oregon, we were still playing Ohio State for the Big Ten title. At least we beat Urban Meyer (and the Heisman trophy winner, too, wtf) that year?
Oh yeah, #2 WVU chokes epically vs 4-7 Pitt the final week of the regular season, causing WVU coach Rich Rodriguez to say fuck it and take the Michigan job, after turning down Alabama the year before.
January 31st, 2020 at 1:42 PM ^
Great post!
January 31st, 2020 at 3:09 PM ^
D. Bush Sr departs.
January 31st, 2020 at 10:16 AM ^
Nope... I think the playoff system did.
January 31st, 2020 at 10:27 AM ^
I think the playoff system has played a part as well. It used to be incredibly difficult to make it to the national title game in back to back years. Now it's easier for teams to drop a game and still make it in every year i.e. Oklahoma or Clemson. But at the same time there's no real competition like there used to be in the Big XII or ACC.
Does this show a lack of coaching talent too? I'm not blaming Clemson because it's obvious they have one of the best staffs in college football, but it seems like the rest of the ACC is middling to poor when that was never the case. Virginia Tech and Florida State need to get better.
Also realignment has hurt the Big XII badly as Colorado, Nebraska, Missouri, and Texas A&M left, and you could argue it hasn't benefited any of those programs one bit either by leaving. At least not the play on the field.
January 31st, 2020 at 11:30 AM ^
Then...
Reorganize conferences. There would be limitations to a certain degree due to region, but you could mix up the ACC & SEC with little to no logistics/travel issues.
B1G and Big 12 could swap a few as well, and there would be almost no logistical issues. Bring in the independents, align them in respectable conferences or tell them to fuck off.
Mountain West and Pac12 could do the same... again with little to no logistical issues; Hawaii will always be fucked.
Just sayin' there are answers, that are simple but the hardcore fanbases won't like them. So... they can shit where they are and deal with the lack of parity.
*There's always a solution*
January 31st, 2020 at 1:06 PM ^
The playoff has also hurt in that it has devalued the traditional bowls. Before the playoffs, people cared and were happy if a Michigan team got to the Rose Bowl and beat a USC or UCLA. I suspect the same was true with other conferences and their traditional bowl matchups. Now, it’s all about being one of four teams in the CFP, and even a good bowl win outside the playoff means little. Kids want to play in those CFP games, and gravitate towards the teams they expect will give them the best chance to do so. And it feeds on itself.
January 31st, 2020 at 1:18 PM ^
It's basically CBB where top prospects choose one of Duke, UNC, Kentucky, Kansas, except swap out with Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, Oklahoma.
Except the CFP isn't nearly as captivating as March Madness.
January 31st, 2020 at 1:30 PM ^
Funny... Ironic...
How the "kids" want to play in the CFP games, up until they're on one of those teams and looking towards the NFL... then a good portion of them bail out! LMAO
January 31st, 2020 at 10:33 AM ^
I'll add to this in that I think the BCS started it then the 4 team playoff exacerbated it. Only 4 teams can make it so there is going to be one dominant team in each conference. An 8 team playoff would help. A 16 team playoff would be better.
I prefer the FCS model. 16 games played for the teams in the final. 11 regular season games, a conference title game, and potential for 4 playoff games.
January 31st, 2020 at 10:48 AM ^
I really don't think that helps though. How many times have the first round playoff games been blowouts?
Adding more teams with such gaps in coaching and talent won't produce different results.
January 31st, 2020 at 11:21 AM ^
I think the gap in talent is because the top players know that there are basically 5-6 schools in the country that have a realistic chance of going to the playoffs. Those 5-6 schools together sign more 5 stars than the rest of the country combined (probably, I'm drinking beer at work and too lazy to look it up).
January 31st, 2020 at 1:08 PM ^
I looked at 247 sports and per their rankings, there are 30, 5 star recruits in the 2020 class. Using the past two years of CFP teams, the 7 teams have signed 20 of these 5-Stars, (really 6 due to OU with 0):
Clemson: 5
Alabama: 4
Georgia: 4
OSU: 3
LSU: 3
Notre Dame: 1
Oklahoma: 0
Other teams to sign a 5-Star: S. Carolina, Washington, Oregon (3), Texas, Florida and Texas A & M (2)
January 31st, 2020 at 1:46 PM ^
oh holy shit I was right. CFP teams signed 20, the rest of the country signed 10.
January 31st, 2020 at 11:38 AM ^
Once there are more than 4 teams, the 5* won't only have to go to those 4 teams; they can stay closer to home or "education" or whatever. They could spread out among the top 16 teams, not just 4.
That's a theory, but it could be true.
January 31st, 2020 at 12:10 PM ^
I think you see that in college basketball (although there are certainly other rea$on$ why guys select some schools) but you'll see talent more readily disperse I think because so many teams can make the tournament and make a run (and because the roster is smaller so signing one 5* is like signing 10 or so in CFB). Hard to imagine teams similar to Gonzaga, VCU, or Butler would be able to make similar sustained noise in FBS
January 31st, 2020 at 4:31 PM ^
No, too many junk games for 8 or 16 playoff teams. Max is 6 teams.
January 31st, 2020 at 10:21 AM ^
The game will change and adapt. Teams will rise and fall. If you know anything about football history, it’s that nobody stays on top forever.
January 31st, 2020 at 11:44 AM ^
Insert Dumb and Dumber... "So you're sayin' there is a change"
January 31st, 2020 at 10:23 AM ^
Spread football was around in 2007 for this crazy season. Also, this season was a fluke as college football has NEVER had parity. If it did, then we would truly never know who the national championship contenders are year-to-year.
If you want to use 2007 as your reference year for the end of parity and beginning of spread football, here's some data for you.
From 1977-2007, there were only 18 different teams who won the National Title. That's 30 different seasons, but only 18 different teams. If you then take it back for the previous 50 years (1957-2007), there's still only 22 different teams.
ONLY 22 DIFFERENT TEAMS WINNING IN A 50 YEAR SPAN.
There has never been parity in college football and there likely never will be.
January 31st, 2020 at 10:26 AM ^
It helped parity imo far more than it has hurt. However the last scholarship reduction down to 85 created the parity that would not have existed if we were even over 90 or say back to the 105 limit I believe. Spreading the talent more evenly created that divide imo.
Spread offenses are really just different schemes ran out of spread formations. It has taken defenses a little to catch up and both are always evolving. The spread today has evolved a bit out of the run and shoot offenses, inside power run, option offenses bone, I, veer, et cetera and coaches are constantly going back to see how those were defended before.
Take Urban Meyer for instance he was running a ton of straight veer and utilizing a wr motioning to the back field, ie speed, defenses had to adjust and when they did, by simply moving two players in the backfield inverted the veer taking the original adjustment by the defense away. Work inside zone and gap down and you have a devastating attack that's difficult to get different personal on the field to defend.
Defending the spread offense has made having a top level Dline even more important. Because your athletes are put into more space to cover. If you think of the best dline's of recent memory they have won or played in the cfp title game.
January 31st, 2020 at 10:35 AM ^
I think that social media, the get it now generation, and the playoff system has done a lot to concentrate the best players a very few schools. I also think that fan expectations as to what defines success has also changed. It used to be, try to win your conference and go and win your reward bowl game (Rose Bowl for Big Ten, Sugar Bowl for SEC etc..). If you did not win your conference you still got a decent bowl game to try and win. Now, anything less than making the CFP is viewed by most fans of big time schools as a disappointing season, and the other bowls are just shrugged off as exhibitions.
January 31st, 2020 at 10:36 AM ^
I think the way the college football playoff is set up has hurt parity more than anything. It's the same 3 or 4 teams every year that get to the playoff, and that's where the talent wants to go. Before that there would be one dynasty that would last a few years, then someone else would rise up. Now it's basically three or four teams that even have a shot.
January 31st, 2020 at 10:47 AM ^
It has always been this way. Dynasties still come and go, but every single season there have only ever been 3-4 teams that have a realistic shot.
Give or take a fluke year like 2007.
January 31st, 2020 at 10:50 AM ^
But it hasn't always been the same 3-4 teams
January 31st, 2020 at 11:06 AM ^
It essentially has...
1970s: Alabama, Notre Dame, and USC dominated the decade
1980s: Miami, Notre Dame, and Penn State
1990s: Nebraska and Florida State
2000s: USC, Florida, Ohio State, Oklahoma
2010s: Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State
There are other teams who were successful, but those are the teams that really controlled each decade. It's just more evident that only 3-4 teams can win because of the playoff format
January 31st, 2020 at 10:51 AM ^
That is not even close to true. Our own freaking team won the national title game after being picked #14 preseason.
2000: Oklahoma #20
2001: Miami starts #2
2002: OSU starts #13
2003: LSU starts #14, USC stats #8
2004: USC starts #1
2005: Texas starts #2
2006: Florida starts #7
2007: LSU starts #2
2008: Florida starts #5
2009: Alabama starts #5
2010: Auburn starts #22
2011: Alabama starts #2
2012: Alabama starts #2
2013: Florida St starts #11
2014: OSU starts #5 (but falls all the way to 22)
2015: Alabama starts #3
2016: Clemson starts #2
2017: Alabama starts #1
2018: Clemson starts #1
2019: LSU starts #6
Can you see a team rising from anywhere past the top ten to win it all next year? I sure don't. It's only gotten worse since the 2010s.
January 31st, 2020 at 11:08 AM ^
You and I are arguing about different things. I am not talking about teams being underrated and winning it all or being successful.
I'm only saying that each season there are only 3-4 teams that can win and it has ALWAYS been that way. Whether that team started the season in the top 5 or top 25 is beyond what I'm saying.
January 31st, 2020 at 11:30 AM ^
3-4 is an exaggeration, but not much of one. The necessity of having at least 50% of a roster made up of 4/5-star recruits has been well documented, and each season there are fewer than 15 programs that fit that requirement (which has included Michigan, albeit barely the last couple of years). It is certainly possible for a team low in the polls to win a title, but it is, naturally, unlikely. I would suggest that the advancements in recruiting, both in the reporting of it and the scouting of it, have narrowed the windows just by making more information available to everyone.
We KNOW what teams are getting good players much earlier than we used to. With the nationalized recruiting landscape, players are also more likely to go to the power teams (this isn't new--the old Notre Dame teams had a national pull, for example--but gone are the days where Nebraska recruiting Florida players is considered an important novelty that could build them into a power). Those power teams have a much better idea of what they are getting, and so do we.
The major stars of most seasons are known well before they emerge into players. Chase Young was a dominant player this year, but people who were paying attention knew that he had that potential three years ago. Justin Fields and Trevor Lawrence had a rivalry that was documented back into their high school days. We knew Fields was a potential star when he went to OSU even though we hadn't seen anything to suggest that on the field.
We know who is going to be good in 2020. We might not know everything, and there is still room for surprises. But those surprises are more like "wow, LSU is finally putting those 4 and 5 stars into a great offense" than "who is this guy?" A good offseason and a couple of good hires could turn a Texas or a USC back into a power, because they've got athletes on the roster. But those are surprises that aren't surprises.
January 31st, 2020 at 11:53 AM ^
Every sport ever played has only had a few teams that COULD win it...they're just a lot easier to pick out now in college football.
January 31st, 2020 at 11:55 AM ^
Ok...so then how could you argue that the spread has ruined parity when you just admitted there really has never been true parity?
January 31st, 2020 at 12:09 PM ^
Are you defining these few teams that have the ability to win it all before the season or after?
January 31st, 2020 at 12:36 PM ^
The "ease of picking them out" has nothing to do with parity.
Parity does not equal a person's belief about the number of teams who can win it all in a given season. Parity is the actual amount of teams who are good enough to do it.
Maybe college football is more boring now, but that is not what parity is. Also, spread football has nothing to do with the possible increase in "boring" seasons. It's mostly due to recruiting.
January 31st, 2020 at 12:51 PM ^
The ''actual amount of teams who are good enough to do it'' is completely subjective though.
January 31st, 2020 at 12:56 PM ^
How is that completely subjective? The "actual amount" are those that have the talent and win enough games. Each year only a handful of teams are good enough to make the playoff based on stats. Everything is objective.
January 31st, 2020 at 1:09 PM ^
"Those that have the talent and win enough games''. How is that any different than any other sports league?
January 31st, 2020 at 1:59 PM ^
Your arguments are now not even about your original post. We are arguing whether or not the spread had decreased parity. I said no and argued that there was never parity in college football with stats to back it up.
Then you talked about teams starting seasons underrated and winning which has nothing to do with parity. Now you're arguing that every sports league has only a couple teams who can win each year.
January 31st, 2020 at 10:51 AM ^
Combination of three things:
- The playoffs...no one cares about anything other than the teams consistently making it
- Great teams embracing styles of play long thought of as gimmicks (air raid and tempo mainly)
- Rule changes favor a more wide open style of game, which means more possessions, which in turn means the team with better coaching and talent has even more of an advantage (the law of big numbers)
January 31st, 2020 at 11:25 AM ^
Agreed 100%
January 31st, 2020 at 10:51 AM ^
One thing that also blew up shortly around that time is social media & smart phones, which have had a big impact on recruiting and ensuring the majority of the top players only go to a handful of schools.
January 31st, 2020 at 12:22 PM ^
I much preferred to pre-BCS system. Win the B1G and go to the Rose. Win the Rose and likely win a share of a NC. I could care less if it's split. Back then being in the top 12 (NY6 Bowl) was the same as the top 4 (playoffs) now. There were three times as many relevant teams and being a fringe top 10 team seemed great. Now it seems like going from a fringe top 10 team to a top 4 team is insurmountable.
January 31st, 2020 at 1:05 PM ^
Absolutely agree with this.
The BCS and Plaoff systems have created several negatives (examples are parity problems/dynasty creation, destruction of interest in bowls other than playoffs etc.), and other than making broadcast money, the only positive is that NCs are thought to be more legit. A bragging rights benefit doesn’t seem to me worth the trade-offs.
In basketball, the limited number of players gives numerous schools a chance to get great talent.
But football has an 85 scholarship limitation, which means a handful of teams can accumulate an awful lot of elite players, and that’s exactly what has happened. And where does talent thinking of a pro career want to enroll? Well, a place where they can win, get national attention, etc. What better showcase than a televised NC or playoff game that everyone watches, not just fans of a particular school?
Watching that OSU game, it was the talent disparity that struck me. In the second half, it looked like Michigan was a college team playing a pro team, and the score reflected it. We can bitch about lots of things that aren’t as essential, and aren’t clearly understood, but the more talented team is pretty easy to spot. I thought the talent disparity in crucial positions was quite large.
January 31st, 2020 at 11:03 AM ^
There has never been parity in college football.
January 31st, 2020 at 11:08 AM ^
As others have stated, these things are cyclical.
However, I do think they should tweak the rules in both college and pro ball a bit to help defenses. Honestly, the basketball on grass stuff is boring.
January 31st, 2020 at 11:16 AM ^
I don't think the explosion of spread offenses necessarily hurt parity in college football but it did help diminish the likelihood of your random upsets. It's sort of like how elite college basketball teams moving toward the positionless, everyone can shoot basketball style you see from guys like Beilein cut down on the craziness (and yes, I realize there was the first 16-over-1 upset a couple years ago). The conventional wisdom changed and an unexploited inefficiency in the system (shooting 3s at a slightly lower rate than shooting 2s still netted you a better return overall) suddenly became the norm, and the teams that relied on that gap to make up for talent deficiencies were hurt the most.
But for every shift there will be inefficiencies left behind, and smart coaches will figure out how to exploit them. Wisconsin sort of does that with their run-heavy offense; if they had slightly more top-line talent on both sides of the ball they'd have probably made the playoffs one of these years. For all the doom and gloom around these parts Michigan was probably a couple of inches away from the playoffs a couple seasons ago, running a different offense than a lot of other teams around here. College football in general has never been particularly open; historically an elite program will have a run, then fall back and be replaced with another institutional power. There rarely are sustained power vacuums, and I don't think you can trace it back to any one factor.
January 31st, 2020 at 11:17 AM ^
The spread has nothing to do with lack of parity. Offensive innovation is cyclical, and always has been. And "spread" as you use it is a catch-all that appears to include any offense that uses fewer tight ends, since you include teams like Louisville and Boise State in that category.
2007 was unique because it was 2007. In 2005, Texas won the title, USC was #1 for much of the year, OSU was a dynastic power, and Florida was building a champion. In 2006 Florida won the title, OSU was #1 for much of the year, and USC was a dynastic power. In 2008 Florida won the title, Oklahoma was #1 for much of the year, and OSU and USC and Texas were dynastic powers. In 2009 Alabama won the national title over Texas, OSU was a dynastic power, and Oregon was busy taking over for USC as a dynastic power in the Pac 1x.
A couple of the teams change, but the story remains the same: Elite teams have better players and tend to stay elite. The situation is exacerbated now, but not because of the spread offense. The wishbone was invented in the late 60s and swept college football in the 70s. Teams that dominated that decade using that offense included... Alabama and Oklahoma. In the 80s Miami was the power, with teams like Nebraska and Oklahoma also featuring heavily. In the 90s Miami popped up at either end of the decade, bookending a run of dominance by Florida State and Florida.
The schemes change. The players get bigger and faster. But the sport hasn't really changed all that much at all.
The spread has nothing at all to do with the current lack of parity.