OT: Into the mind of Malzahn, the guy is a football savant

Submitted by iawolve on

I don't normally find these stories very interesting, however this guy is quirky, wierd and incredibly smart which makes this a good read. He has this strange compulsive nature combined with a sort of photographic memory that has combined to create the uber-coach.

The evolution into his current philosophy while as a high school coach is summed up really well in a single paragraph and punctuated by a line a bit further down regarding teenage thinking that also applies to college.

"He found the enduring cliché of "defense wins championships!" to be trite and frequently false. His team didn't have a lot of speed, but Floyd could throw a beautiful ball, and he had plenty of receivers who could catch. Shiloh's players would have to be in the best shape of their lives, so conditioning would be brutal, but if it worked, the advantages would be enormous: His team would control the tempo, no one could pick up their tendencies, the quarterback would be able to see the defensive alignment before every play, the players would have more fun (meaning more kids would come out for football), and opposing defenses would forever struggle to simulate in practice the week leading up to a game."

"The secret was to simplify things, to take teenage thinking out of the equation and let athleticism take over."

Can't argue with the guy considering he was a HS coach only 7 years ago and in the NC with a DB from Georgia as QB and a little luck. Will be a heck of a NC game.

 

Edit: Forgot to add this

http://espn.go.com/college-football/bowls13/story/_/id/10231905/book-malzahn

 

 

Galapula

January 3rd, 2014 at 5:09 PM ^

Thank you. I was very capable of doing that but when posting things on mgoboard about an article it's cool to have the link there too for reference (i.e. if it isn't something easy to query). Regardless, Gus Malzahn makes me feel like Grant from Jurassic Park, "The world's just changed so radically and we're all trying to catchup."

Ron Utah

January 3rd, 2014 at 5:31 PM ^

I tend to agree, but one season doesn't make a good coach.  A certain someone went 11-2 and won the Sugar Bowl in his first season, and things haven't gone as well since.

If Malzahn can produce sustained success--and I think he can--only then will I call him a great coach.

jsquigg

January 3rd, 2014 at 5:42 PM ^

His success isn't just this year.  He was successful as a high school coach and was the OC on many successful college squads, including Auburn's last NC.  He didn't take a team with a 7-6 record and go 11-2, he took a 3 win team without a conference win to the title game the next year.  I don't need even one more year to tell you he is and will be a great coach.

Reader71

January 3rd, 2014 at 10:42 PM ^

Well, he is certainly a great offensive coach. But you can't tell if he is a great head coach yet. He hasn't ever coached his own recruits. This is Chizik's roster, and at Arkansas State, he had Freeze's roster.

I think the odds are high that he will prove to be a good head coach, but recruiting is a big part of that battle and we have no idea if that is a strength.

Hobbes

January 3rd, 2014 at 5:18 PM ^

There's a similar article up at Grantland about Gus Malzahn and the evolution of his offensive philosophy - http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/10236856/gus-malzahn-offensive-evolution

What's interesting to me about the article is the contrast to be made between Malzahn and Borges.  Several times Brian has opined that Borges' philosphy appears to be a Boise State "just plays" approach, i.e. a grab-bag of different plays that don't necessarily have any relationship to one another.  The idea, I think, is that when your players can properly execute all the plays it makes it hard for the defense because there is no context or pattern to try and discern what the next play will be.  Malzahn, on the other hand, has apparently embraced a "sequential" approach to offensive playcalling.  Malzahn has a base play or two with counters and counters to the counters, and the idea (if I understand the article right) is that as the defense adapts to the base plays, that dictates the next play called.  All the plays are tightly interrelated and make up a coherent whole.

I'd love to hear from some of the coaching types (Magnus, Space Coyote, etc.) about the pros and cons of each.  I'm sure both approaches can be successful given the right conditions.  But one of the things the article repeats is Malzahn's willingness and even desire to adapt and tailor his offense to the players he has.  Many have criticized Borges for not doing the same - is that something that, on some level, Borges (and probably Hoke as well) is just philosophically opposed to?

Galapula

January 3rd, 2014 at 5:26 PM ^

I didn't know Borges actually had that kind of philosophy. Thanks for the insight as that makes sense, though we do have a tendency to tell the defense our play presnap so that would mitigate whatever advantage this approach lends.

snarling wolverine

January 3rd, 2014 at 5:37 PM ^

Borges hasn't stated that that is his philosophy; that's just what people have surmised from watching his offenses.  I don't agree that there is nothing sequential about his playcalling - some plays are definitely based on others.  There does seem to be a lack of overall coherence at times though.

EDIT: Ron Utah explains this better below.

 

 

Ron Utah

January 3rd, 2014 at 5:30 PM ^

AB spent more than a season-and-a-half adapting to Denard.  He spent this whole season trying EVERYTHING in a desperate attempt to find SOMETHING that would work.

But if you don't think Borges' plays are sequential, you're not paying attention.  He'll run the outside zone, then a bootleg off of it.  He'll run an inside zone and then play action off of it.  He'll run a WR screen, and then run inside zone off of that.  Then he'll run a throwback screen of of that.

Many criticize Borges (and fairly) for running too many different types of plays this year.  He tried spread concepts, zone concepts, power concepts--he ran many of the plays that make Wisconsin, Stanford, Alabama, and, yes, even Arizona, effective.  I think he may have tried TOO hard to adapt to his players.

I believe Borges problem is that he simply could not teach well enough to get his players to do what he wanted them to do.  A good teacher and good players can execute any scheme; a bad teacher and bad players can make any scheme worthy of execution.

Malzahn's plays aren't those of a savant, they are simply well-taught, well-executed plays.  See my other post for more, but if you can coach your team well enough to get them to do anything well, then you look like a genius.

It's a fair criticism of Borges that perhaps he can't teach his players well enough, but it's got very little to do with his preferred style.

HipsterCat

January 3rd, 2014 at 5:54 PM ^

the differnce to me between the two is that malzhans plays are built in with different options and if the qb make the correct decision the play has a high likelyhood of succeeding. its all about disguising when the ball is going with various motions and ball fakes. so it looks like it's fancier and seems more exciting to watch, at least in my opinion.

borges is the more traditional approach to offense, similar to the ncaa "set up" plays that show you the counter. he's shown the creativity to come up with different plays and various formations to run a very explosive diverse offense. 

ca_prophet

January 3rd, 2014 at 8:18 PM ^

Watch the ND game this year. We would run zone left/stretch left, then play action off that, and Gardner would be sitting in the middle of this lovely arc of blockers finding Gallon for 45 yards.

Of course, we blocked just well enough that game. Funny how much better things look when we actually block people ...

Space Coyote

January 3rd, 2014 at 9:38 PM ^

This pretty much sums up what you need to know. Very well written Mr Utah.

To add to it, having a simplified scheme allows you to become very good at that one scheme. Think MSU's defense. Think Stanford's offense. You learn that scheme inside and out and you learn to adjust in that scheme with the idea that within that scheme you can do enough to beat any team. But when you can't beat the opponent, well, look at Stanford's offense. People begged Stanford to do something different against MSU, but they didn't really have much different, they didn't rep it enough, they weren't multiple enough, and they couldn't execute well enough in their scheme. 

That's not just a Stanford thing, it happens with Spread offenses too. If FSU dominates up front and bottles things inside, Auburn isn't good enough in their pass concepts to keep up. The only way to be able to beat anything thrown at you is to become more multiple. But to become more multiple you risk not executing as well.

So it's a balance.

 

Ron Utah

January 3rd, 2014 at 5:21 PM ^

The Grantland article is a fun read, but it really doesn't explain Malzahn's success beyond many of his spread peers.  He's not using plays or techniques that are appreciably different from lots of other spreads out there, or even other option attacks that come from under center.

What he is doing--and clearly doing it pretty well--is teaching the techniques.  The last gif in the Grantland article talks about "arc-blocking" like it's some kind of revolutionary concept, when it's really just using TEs and FBs to block a running play.  What stands out to me on that play is that nine, count 'em NINE Auburn players are able to execute effective blocks.  Um, yeah, that's going to get you a successful play.

Scheme is vastly overrated.  Malzahn's works because he's able to teach his players well enough to get them to execute it.  Time will tell if he's able to sustain that success.

jsquigg

January 3rd, 2014 at 5:47 PM ^

Good explanation, but I disagree that scheme is overrated.  Some schemes are easier to teach and are taught in ways that get players more reps in practice.  These teachings, IMO, are inseperable from scheme.  I agree that almost any scheme can be successful, but I would argue that some schemes give players more room for error.  Just my two cents.

Reader71

January 3rd, 2014 at 10:55 PM ^

I think a lot of people believe that some schemes are easier to teach. I don't think it is true, though. What Malzahn's approach does is pare down the playbook, essentially allowing his teams to rep their base plays more often.

The plays themselves are not any easier to teach. The techniques are not any easier to teach. At a certain point, football is football; that lineman has to block that guy, and there is a proper way to do it, and all coaches try to teach that one proper way for that play/concept/scheme with tiny variations. The difference isn't in the technique, but in the ability to get the players to *gasp* execute.

The stuff above is all about the running game. Passing concepts CAN get a lot more complicated. For example, Borges's passing playbook isn't just larger than Coach Rod's, each play is harder to master. We don't run 4 verts much anymore, and we almost never run spacing or 4 stops. I'll leave the discussion of the passing game to smarter guys, though. I am a novice.

LSAClassOf2000

January 3rd, 2014 at 5:49 PM ^

"The secret was to simplify things, to take teenage thinking out of the equation and let athleticism take over. Instead of running the play call into the game with a wide receiver, or signaling plays to the quarterback (and then asking the quarterback to relay them to the team), Malzahn demanded every player watch the signals from the sideline."

I find that very interesting actually, and I can see the tremendous advantage in letting everyone see the same thing at the same time so they can ideally be on the same page with each play. If you keep it simple enough - as Malzahn seems to do - you can teach the palybook pretty quickly and get more reps doing so in the process, I would think. 

Magnus

January 4th, 2014 at 6:35 AM ^

Recently, our program's head coach told us that we would be studying Malzahn this offseason and implementing a lot of his offensive philosophy. I'm looking forward to spending some more time learning about the offense, but also learning about how his teams practice.

Reader71

January 4th, 2014 at 1:20 PM ^

I don't know if Malzahn does this, but Chip Kelly was of a mind that very little coaching is necessary in practice. They just run a ton of plays, get them on tape, and coach them up in the film room or in post-film walkthroughs. I think if anything going on is potentially paradigm-shifting, this is it.

It let's the players get more reps, which is a plus. But how valuable are those reps if the problems aren't corrected right there, on the spot? To me, this is THE issue in football at the moment. More important than scheme or tempo, this gets at the very nature of practice and player development.