Is the 3/3/5 an inheirently less aggressive style of defense than the defense played by previous successful spread offense teams?

Is there any merit to a discussion around switching to a higher risk / reward approach given the fact that the offense is very likely to score if they get the ball more often?

Said a different way it might be prudent to gamble more with aggressive blitzing and hope for sacks or pressure that leads to fumbles / interceptions.

I think the least of our worries at this point is pissing away leads, but wouldn't that be more of a question posed to the defense? I find it hard for offenses to stop other offenses seeing they are not on the field at the same time

 

I've never been a time of possession guy, but it is nice to be able to drive the ball down the field on the ground late in a close game. I'm not convinced that a spread offense can do that. (Perhaps it doesn't matter if your good enough to just drive for a touch down when you need it.)

Seems to me we put up great yards, both passing and rushing, on a pretty good defense. I think this offense can move the ball on any defense. We just need to stop turning the ball over.

I agree...in fact we have done that two weeks in a row. I wonder if the spartans under JLS or the boilermakers under Joe Tiller had similar "success" against their opponents? (This isn't an attempt to be smarmy....I really don't know the answer)

Relative to the whole topic of penalties / mistakes....it seems to me that there are two likely possible causes:

• We have a talented but young team trying to master a very complex offensive scheme
• The coaching staff is not up to the task of preparing this team to run this complex offense

I don't think I'm able to start a new thread...not enough points

I’m a Michigan grad living in Iowa and my boss is a Spartan so the last couple of weeks have been a challenge! It’s my first post…so I should clarify upfront I am not a fan of the spread offense. I realize that most big ten teams have spread formations in at least some portion of their offensive sets which does give me some sense of confidence but I’m just not convinced you can use it to the degree coach Rodriguez does in the big ten.

Why I don’t like the spread:

Under previous regimes in any game, no matter how far behind we might be I always knew we were going to rally. Obviously we didn’t always come back, but I always believed we would.

This was never more true than when our in state brethren to the west were running the spread. It always seemed inevitable to me that they would falter when their gimmick offense misfired and we would take over the game and dominate the final quarters sealing yet another victory. Suffice to say my exposure to some version of the spread has been:

• Lions “Run & Shoot” – remember that epic collapse against Washington?
• Spartans under John L – I remember this fondly, but Spartans likely do not
• Wolverines under Rodriguez – 2 years of misery and now our 3^rd loss to Sparty 

We are now in our third year under coach Rodriguez and I have five questions for the stats lovers out there:

• From a spread offensive set are there teams that have success in inclement weather conditions?
• Are teams running spread offensive sets less likely to be able to hold a late game lead than teams running pro style offenses?
• Is there any statistical evidence that team which primarily employ the spread offense with typically have a sub par defense?
• Is there a statistically valid way to measure the production of NFL players between teams running pro set, and teams running primarily spread offense?
• Are teams running spread offensive sets more likely to have penalties on offense? 

Convince me that my longing for the good old days of Biakabutuka running roughshod over Bucky are just a sign I’ve become a football curmudgeon.