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-offenseWisconsin'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-taylorWisconsin 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.