ESPN.COM On the Spread O

Hate to be argumentative but you still must not be clicking on all the links. The stuff ESPN has is very in depth. Just the section alone where is interview all the defenses coaches on how they defend spread is worth it.

 

What is this guy spreading and why?

 

When I got to my latest school 5 years ago, we were a veer team. that changed about halfway through when we went to the spread and haven't looked back. The past couple of seasons we had a pretty good QB and threw a lot. Last season we were abouut 50/50 in runs-passes. As was stated earlier, you force the defense to spread the field, creating openings. Its also so verstile, one back, two-back, no back, TE, no TE, and we were able to develop a nice runnning game with a bruising fullback who we would switch off with a scat-back type runner.

 

Veer was the rage till the defenses caught up. Seems like it's going to take a lot longer to catch up to the spread.

I got my football fix in the winter watching Fla/ Texas Tech/ Ok game tapes.

What makes Fla so tough to defend is that they both pass and run out of spread equally well. If you completely commit to stopping pass Fla will spread you running tackle to tackle.

If you put more guys in the box to stop run you will be burned by their short passing game. I love what they do with the H back as a blocker / TE.

 

The thing is, the spread is not a new offense. Teams were running it in the early 50s before there were facemasks. My guess is it didn't catch on back then because pure athletes were few and far between, the passing game wasn't as developed as it is today and coaches eventually became convinced that "three things happen when you pass, and two of them are bad."

I covered one high school district in the early 2000s where all six teams ran the spread. The first week of district play, the scores were 60-56, 55-21 and 56-24. The flipping track meet I happened to cover ended at 11:30 p.m., well after copy deadline. Defenses eventually caught up and coaches eventually learned that ball control and shortening the game win a lot more times than getting jiggy with the pill all night long.

 

I know a lot of HS coaches that were board with shortening the game and have found that the spread has renergized them.

 

The spread has its plusses. Once upon a time, it allowed you as a mid-major to sneak up on people and take advantage of teams with better depth by creating favorable matchups in space. Now that everyone runs it, no one is surprised.

The key to defending it is to have smaller, quicker defenders. A 3-4 would probably be ideal for countering it, but you run the risk of getting mashed by the few teams (Ohio State, LSU, Alabama, Georgia) that run a conventional power-based offense.

The advantages are that you don't need the hulking lineman and big backs you need to run a conventional offense. You get a lot of plays and fans traditionally like gun-based offenses.

The disadvantages to me are an inability to run the ball in the four-minute drill (see Troy vs. LSU last season) and a tendency to score too quickly in the pass-oriented spread, thus forcing a defense to stay on the field far too long.