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Tailbacks at UW have to contend with 8-9 man fronts almost all the time. 

Imagine what Taylor could have done with Russell Wilson at QB? 

Montee Ball made a killing working in that offense. Taylor would have been off the charts - even more off the charts than he already was.

Tailbacks at UW have to contend with 8-9 man fronts almost all the time.

Imagine what Taylor could have done with Russell Wilson at QB?

Montee Ball made a killing working in that offense. Taylor would have been off the charts - even more off the charts than he already was.

So that's not totally a thing, unless a offense wants it.

Box math tends to come down to this. 2-high, 1-high and 2-high that's functionally 0-high. 

Basically, UW can control if 3-4 players are in or close to the box, just by splits of TEs and WRs. If they keep a FB and TE in, they add two box defenders. So the defense's answers come at the safeties. If two stay high, no problem. If one drops down, you could have an 8-man box, assuming you drew those two defenders in. There's also defenses where both safeties can race up in run support. Illinois did a good job with that last year, having what looked like two high, but both raced into the box. Ideally you can punish with play-action.

So, you guys are saying that every running back in history has faced different scenarios in things like opposing teams, defenses, coaching, offensive schemes, QB talent on his side, blocking by the line, and quality of the turf and weather?

Huh.

Herschel started as a backup, he really only got into the first game because UGA was trailing 15-0 and not doing anything on offense.  He looked mediocre in practice.  I think he was third string.  He had some memorable runs when he got in and showed he was a different kind of player in a game.  The guys ahead of him were just average college RBs.

This really was before coaches devised the concept of rotating backs.  

Yeah, that goes back to coaching then. 
If jet sweeps and fly sweeps net so much yardage for the backup, why the hell aren't they doing it with the starter? 
I think HCs are married to this idea of starter/backup, and it's antiquated and asinine.  And if their play-calling is described as you've said, that HC doesn't know what he's doing.
No, I'm not saying I'd do a better job as HC of a major program, but I would be confident being the nerdy advisor, providing reports each week of how he could improve his offense with simple tweaks. 
For instance, if you have a starting RB getting a bulk of the carries with a lower ypc, and his carries are more traditional play-calls, that's an easy fix. 
A - you give the backup more carries, period
B - the more traditional carries the backup gets and the more dynamic, diverse carries the starter gets, the harder it will be for the defense to know which is in there to do which

You're aware that it's not always the case that when something works, doing more of it will work more, right?

While we've argued the idea of more carries vs ypc to death, the one thing I will say is that with many things in football, you reach a point of diminishing returns. 

Or, more accurately, it goes back to Chris Brown's constraint theory of offense: http://smartfootball.com/offense/why-every-team-should-apply-the-constraint-theory-of-offense

Wisconsin's base play is outside zone. It may not be flashy. It might not be a GREAT ypp call. But the yards per play are often enough to move the chains. But if you know that outside zone is coming, and you load the box against it selling out for outside zone, you might render it ineffective.

The throw in jet sweeps (and fake jet sweeps) as a constraint play. It's well described here: https://www.thedailystampede.com/2019/8/15/20806114/watching-film-the-refined-brutality-of-the-wisconsin-offense-badgers-usf-football-jonathan-taylor

Wisconsin loves to run it at you and they get in personnel groupings that reflect this style. You will often see only one or two receivers in the game for the Badgers. They run the ball with the backs to almost lull you to sleep and then they break out another one of their favorites, the jet sweep.
Jet motion involves a player coming full speed across the formation and either receiving or faking a handoff immediately after the ball is snapped. Wisconsin loves to use this as a restraint play.
Restraint plays are plays that you call to keep a defense honest. What do you do if you are running the ball inside a ton and the defense starts to load the box between the tackles? You would call something that would hit outside to force the defense to stop cheating for the inside run. Wisconsin did exactly this to Michigan in their game last year.

The zone running scheme is their bread and butter. They're going to run that right down your throat until you prove you can stop it, at which point they run constraint plays to punish you the defense selling out on one thing. 


You can't just say "well run more jet sweeps and fly sweeps" because unless the defense is selling out for the traditional runs, the jet sweeps and fly sweeps won't work well against a base defense that's trying to contain the edges. 

Same thing with the passing game. Wisconsin typically is pretty solid statistically in yards/attempt. Does that mean they should throw the ball more? Not if the run game is working the way they want to. They usually have high ypa and low attempts, specifically BECAUSE they're using downfield passing as a constraint on teams selling out for the run.

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This is basic offensive coaching. "What do we do well?" "What do we do when the opposing team tries to take away what we're doing well?"

If you're doing it right, the constraint plays look more successful than the base plays, because the opposing team is working so hard to stop the base that they leave vulnerabilities elsewhere. But it becomes a bad idea to think that you should then be using the constraint plays more often. You want to use them just enough that your base still works well, because the base is your identity.

You're aware that it's not always the case that when something works, doing more of it will work more, right?

While we've argued the idea of more carries vs ypc to death, the one thing I will say is that with many things in football, you reach a point of diminishing returns.

Or, more accurately, it goes back to Chris Brown's constraint theory of offense: http://smartfootball.com/offense/why-every-team-should-apply-the-constraint-theory-of-offense

Wisconsin's base play is outside zone. It may not be flashy. It might not be a GREAT ypp call. But the yards per play are often enough to move the chains. But if you know that outside zone is coming, and you load the box against it selling out for outside zone, you might render it ineffective.

The throw in jet sweeps (and fake jet sweeps) as a constraint play. It's well described here: https://www.thedailystampede.com/2019/8/15/20806114/watching-film-the-refined-brutality-of-the-wisconsin-offense-badgers-usf-football-jonathan-taylor


The zone running scheme is their bread and butter. They're going to run that right down your throat until you prove you can stop it, at which point they run constraint plays to punish you the defense selling out on one thing.


You can't just say "well run more jet sweeps and fly sweeps" because unless the defense is selling out for the traditional runs, the jet sweeps and fly sweeps won't work well against a base defense that's trying to contain the edges.

Same thing with the passing game. Wisconsin typically is pretty solid statistically in yards/attempt. Does that mean they should throw the ball more? Not if the run game is working the way they want to. They usually have high ypa and low attempts, specifically BECAUSE they're using downfield passing as a constraint on teams selling out for the run.

-------------

This is basic offensive coaching. "What do we do well?" "What do we do when the opposing team tries to take away what we're doing well?"

If you're doing it right, the constraint plays look more successful than the base plays, because the opposing team is working so hard to stop the base that they leave vulnerabilities elsewhere. But it becomes a bad idea to think that you should then be using the constraint plays more often. You want to use them just enough that your base still works well, because the base is your identity.

This is interesting because for the most part Wisconsin doesn’t bass out of outside zone. But if you watch that Western Kentucky game is referenced, they definitely run a lot of outside zone.

I feel like they also ran a decent amount of that against Purdue that year, but overall I think Wisconsin bases out of inside zone/pin and pull sweep/either power or counter depending on the year. You could probably argue inside zone Is the most basic those please. They also have certain heavy power plays that look weirdly like counter.

I don't know why that guy calls them "constraint" plays, they're all simply counters.  Meh.
What he lays out is exactly how I'd coach if I had a team, starting from scratch.  In practice, we'd start with one play, and we'd run it  and run it and run it until the defenders cheated, and I'd introduce the counter play off that play.  
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Now along these lines, and this may be 25 years too late, but teams SHOULD pass more.  They should pass more because the average pass attempt is much higher than the average rush attempt.  You should pass enough so that those numbers get close (diminishing return).  Same with the backup or more-talented RB....get him more carries until his ypc gets close to the starter's.