Well, that about wraps this thread up. Good answer.
I came here to say the same
I wouldn't say it's fading away. I would say it faded away at least 10 years ago.
Harbaugh was one of the last coaches to routinely use a FB, and even he's gone away from that now in Gattis-land. I can't think of a single other contending team that uses a true FB or I-formation other than in goal line sets.
Not sure if serious
Alright, let me expand...
Do you think it truly is an obsolete formation, or do you think coaches are losing something valuable in discarding it as a mainstay?
It's not obsolete, just infrequent. And I don't think they're losing anything.
The people who get paid to do this for a living seem to think it's obsolete. I'll take their word for it.
Yet a team that played in the Superbowl used 21 or 22 personnel more than half the time, with a coach that is regarded as one of the smarter offensive minds calling plays.
It is not obsolete. Wisconsin lines up in it frequently. Because Wisconsin has a machine that clones offensive linemen and another machine that spits out great running backs, and their QB play is often fairly deplorable, it really works for them. But for the average CFB team, using spread formations, putting their best athletes in space, and creating favorable matchups, really stresses defense who now has to defend the whole field. Thus making the spread the most efficient offense for the majority of schools. That's not even taking into account that the rule book favors offense.
Yeah! Bring back the 'DB allowed to mug the receiver' rules, and let's let the big uglies smash heads with I-form tailbacks carrying the rock 35 times a game!
Too late. Genie out of the bottle.
It's the only way we could win a conference championship.
To expand on this, to match up with the spread, defenses are getting smaller and quicker. They are trying to get extra defensive back size players on the field in the form of hybrid space players. This is becoming an advantage for a team like Wisconsin, who can maul a lot of these undersize defenses up and down the field. It is also getting to the point where preparing for a team that runs mainly I formation concepts is similar to preparing for a team that runs the triple option in that they both want to shorten the game up with long, clock killing drives, and that, a teams defense has to use a full practice week preparing for concepts that they probably aren't going to see again the rest of the year.
If the defense goes too small and light, then a good FB can do real damage.
This is becoming an advantage for a team like Wisconsin, who can maul a lot of these undersize defenses up and down the field.
. . . until they run into a juggernaut like Ohio State, which has 4- and 5-star athletes all over the field. They're highly rated athletes because they're more than fast enough to cover any spread offense, and more than strong enough to stuff a power run game.
You have to recruit the personnel to run it years in advance, and there are entire libraries already written on how to run the I-form, and how to stop it. There's little left to innovate, so anything you rep will work for one game, if that. You can play a bit of Moneyball with FBs and O-linemen who are built to run it, but again, they won't have any physical advantage over 5-star athletes and if you're trying to recruit those 5-star athletes, you fool, they're not inclined to play a more physically punishing and less glamorous game at a non-elite school. A 250-pound monster with the speed of a gazelle isn't going to jump at the chance to violently collide with inside linebackers 30 times a game when the TE regularly splits out wide (which is a better use of that speed anyway) over at Spread U. If nothing else, it hurts their chances of getting drafted. HS coaches know this, so they're not teaching their best athletes the fine art of FB play. So you're kind of locked into the raw 3-stars you're settling for to run that offense. Like with the triple option, a lesser program can raise its floor with it, at the expense of lowering its ceiling. This sacrifice only makes sense if being elite is a pipe dream to begin with.
There's nothing tactically wrong with the I-form, in principle. Run it well (which is anything but slamming your head into a stacked box 40 times) and it doesn't have inherent weaknesses more glaring than the spread. The spread enjoyed a decade of dominance because it flipped conventional defensive principles into self-PWNage, but those days are long gone. That said, football trends are very much dictated by economics, which is anything but rational. Now, as a result of its success the best players and coaches want to run the spread because reasons, so the spread enjoys a talent advantage that I-form can't do anything about.
Wisconsin uses I-form because it's the best they can do with the corn-fed man-tanks they recruit from their backyard, and they get some extra mileage out of the fact that schools like Purdue or Northwestern have to pick and choose its defensive recruits with the prevalence of spread in mind. Ohio State doesn't have that dilemma, so that advantage dissolves in big games. On that note, Harbaugh knows he has to beat Ohio State. The odds are grim but he ain't paid millions to give up. But he can't do that by emulating Wisconsin in a conference that already has a Wisconsin, either, so spread it is. He gets a lot of shit around here but he's doing one thing his critics wouldn't dare do themselves: change.
If Wisconsin is your example, doesn't that sort of prove the opposite?
You mean a team that has been very successful despite very mediocre talent at the most important position on the field and also mediocre WRs? No.
I was actually fine with Harbaugh still running a power offense. I still would be fine with it, especially with what the above poster said about how defenses are more and more geared towards stopping a very different kind of offense. Spread offenses can be bad too if your players suck and they're not run well. See early last year. Michigan's offense would have been really good a few years ago if they had really good QB play. Poor QB and OL play were going to sink any offense. I still cringe about Michigan running the most basic Wildcat zone read plays with Peppers. Ugh.
Does anyone think a team like Wisconsin with a big upgrade at QB and WR wouldn't be killer?
April 29th, 2020 at 10:54 PM ^
We seem to have a different definition of very successful.
It's just a wild coincidence/some strange bias that none of the teams competing for titles run the kill the clock offense. It's an underdog strategy now, which to me your reference to Wisconsin proves. If they had an upgrade at QB and WR they wouldn't run that offense.
The best offense in college football would be a flexbone team that could good recruit WRs, but that won't ever happen because 5 star wideouts won't play in the bone, and we're at the point where running the I is about as big a liability for recruiting top end wideouts as the flexbone is.
Jim Harbaugh was able to do it for a couple of years straight off the NFL and even he realized he was going to have to change to get the level of talent he was getting, let alone if he wants to upgrade talent. 5 star wideouts and quarterbacks want to play in NFL offenses, not throwbacks.
I think there's still room for teams that aren't going to get elite recruits anywhere to still base their offense around the old school stuff. Wisconsin obviously springs to mind, they will never have Ohio State recruiting, but by being different and brutal they give themselves an edge especially as EVERYBODY is spread, so defensive personnel looks different than it did 35 years ago when everyone was in the I.
But the basic reality is, you have to make choices on how you build your team. It's not NCAA Football, you can't just go spread when you wanna come back and then pile in tight when you want to run. You have to make sacrifices when you're building a team and certain personnel is just not gonna fit with a more spread out offense, and you're going to have to live with that.
The biggest change is if high level recruits see more old school looking sets, they will write your program off as not getting them ready for the NFL. The NFL is a 3 WR spread league, so spread is pro style now.
49ers ran it down everyone's throat all year using variants of the I. It's not going anywhere.
What year was that?
Long time ago. 2019.
I guess that depends on how far you want to stretch variants of the I. I thought the I formation meant you know the I formation.
I get it. You don't understand the I formation and the multiple variations in which it is deployed.
Ahhh, 2019...we were so young and innocent then.
This past year, when they went to the Super Bowl. They used 21 personnel 33% of the time, and 22 another 13%.
That's still less than 50%, and 2 backs doesn't mean I formation all the time, but it still has a place.
The NFL doesn't have to recruit, so an odd NFL team deciding to run more old school sets can get away with that in a way a college just can't. If I got an NFL coaching job tomorrow, I could run the flexbone and everyone would call me insane but the guys would have to do it. If I showed up at Ohio State and said we're running the bone, the entire team transfers and my class craters.
April 29th, 2020 at 10:12 PM ^
I love the way they use Debo as a pseudo tailback, they are creative in the run game.
Warning: This only makes sense if you've seen "The Nice Guys"**
This reminds of one of the last scenes when they go to Misty Mountains' house after the shootout with Mrs. Glenn and they have the big reveal about the film. And after it is covered multiple times Mrs. Glenn asks confused, "Does that mean my niece is dead?" To which Ryan Gosling's character exasperatedly goes, "YES!" You are Mrs. Glenn.
**If you haven't seen "The Nice Guys" stop reading this and go watch it right now. It is a perfect movie.
Are typewriters fading away from business use? Are mid-range jumpers fading from basketball? Are landlines fading from residential use?
Found Brady Hoke’s burner
Traditional 21 and 22 Personnel is still used quite a bit and even the Air Raid type teams have warmed up to more 20 personnel as opposed to straight 10 type stuff.
The offset FB just gives you so much more variety--easier to run Power, Counter, still run Iso, lead zone, split zone, quicker to get FB into pass routes--can run rub or bunch type routes with him, etc.
I'd say it started to fade away 5 or so years ago. I really hate it when we line up at the goalline in the shotgun though.
I mean it depends, if you mean the traditional, FB with hand on turf behind the QB Osborne/Nebraska style then yes that’s long gone.
But if you broaden scope to include shotgun and pistol formations with two backs or with an F-Back, and ace formations with offset H-Back, then I-formation concepts are alive and well.
Everyone in Urban Meyer’s coaching tree ran what was essentially a “Spread I” offense, and even the Air Raid was invented with I-form compatibility. Dana Holgorsen’s version of the Air Raid uses two backs out of the pistol quite frequently.
Was Osborne more of a wishbone guy? It was a bit before my time when I was seriously dissecting football so it could have been Solich but I remember 3 backs in those 90s Nebraska teams.
Osborne ran the option out of I-back sets. Oklahoma ran the wishbone through the 80s--up until Switzer left for the Cowboys.
This is the most Michigan post in MGoBlog history.
I think you missed WD’s thread on Michigan-themed mask apparel.
I really don't think it's an issue of formation. It's an issue of execution. JH used the Fullback position effectively. My favorite was Khalid Hill and of course Bench Mason.
Unless your Lloyd Carr who had a fullback that he never handed off to. Then it's just a waste of a position.
The I formation will never be completely removed from football. Football is cyclical, case in point the Wildcat was all the rage for some years, but conceptually the wildcat is a wing T out of shotgun with a RB taking the snap. All the core plays are the same blocking assignments the same. Look at the pro game it’s adopting a lot of spread concepts and zone read, which forced defenses from base to multiple sub packages, teams like the Patriots see coverage safeties playing money backer in the box and rode the I-form and with the assistance of Mr. James Devlin to the Super Bowl win over the high flying rams. This post is getting long but I form concepts essentially lead to the Pistol formation so teams could run still run those plays from a semblance of shotgun. In football there is nothing new, just borrowed, adapted, and refined.
Is water wet?
Define wet
Obviously, the shotgun QB is standing nearly where the I-FB did, and as more teams moved to that as a base or larger part of the offense, the FB had to move anyway.
The I-formation still has a place, primarily in short-yardage and goal line situations. Any off-set or H-back (U) formations are essentially descendants, just pre-positioning the FB closer to his assignment.
[Especially when defenses started bringing an eight (or ninth) man into the box versus two back sets, then it would only still make sense on normal downs if your FB was essentially a better athlete than the ILBers he was trying to block. Otherwise, it made more sense to close the distance (if it was a playside block), or to put him to the backside, as it would make the defense adjust shifting slightly away from the POA, or moving back to two deep]
I'd imagine it's difficult to recruit good FBs these days anyway. "We basically want you to block 50 or 60 plays a game. But hey, we might throw an occasional screen pass or in the flat on a bootleg, and if you're lucky, we'll hand to ball off to you a couple of times a game."
Frankly, if he's a good enough athlete to be an effective FB, there are other more pressing needs for him (LB, TE, etc.) where he can be of better use. And any athlete who would be really good also knows he has better options.