Whetting your Appetite?

[Drew4UTk]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fLbA86GrQA



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLYbIDo7tvQ



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2F6GsqOgvo

[longhorn320]

I like the trick plays

[Drew4UTk]

I love watching the trick plays too... it's their complication (in some instances) that makes them really interesting to me- you know good and dang well those boys practiced the snot out of those.   there was a triple reverse in that clip somewhere, though i can't recall who ran it, that ended in a pass downfield to a player standing on a parcel of cleared estate without neighbors for miles. 


but... alas... i generally dpn't approve of them... I have a deep respect for a dude by the name of John Madden, whom i believe to be one of the greatest football minds of all time once you get past his kinda goofy presentation- and he once said (paraphrased but close) "trick plays show players that their coach has an absolute lack of confidence in them".... watching the "David's" square against the "Goliath's" and using trickery is great... it's the equalizer... but it's kinda stupid if your team is capable of exacting their will...


they sure are fun to watch though... no? 

[MichiFan87]

Same here. Michigan's train play hasn't resulted in any unusual plays, but definitely throws off the defense since they don't have much time to see the actual formation. I'm not sure why they don't use it more (or why other teams haven't tried it).

[betarhoalphadelta]

but... alas... i generally dpn't approve of them... I have a deep respect for a dude by the name of John Madden, whom i believe to be one of the greatest football minds of all time once you get past his kinda goofy presentation- and he once said (paraphrased but close) "trick plays show players that their coach has an absolute lack of confidence in them".... watching the "David's" square against the "Goliath's" and using trickery is great... it's the equalizer... but it's kinda stupid if your team is capable of exacting their will...

I don't like that idea... I think "trick" plays are just the tail end of what Chris Brown at Smart Football called the Constraint Theory of Offense.

Think of it this way. Wisconsin knows what Wisconsin wants to do. They want to line up, beat you to death in the interior with 325-lb linemen who have been eating sausage since leaving the womb, and watch as their tailback dances through your secondary because he's not getting touched until 7 yards downfield.

How do you beat that offense? You load the box. Your safeties cheat up. Everyone keys on the run. If you're anywhere near the same talent level to Wisconsin, beating that offense is easy. If you know what they're going to do, you know how to stop it.

So they throw in trick plays, like a <gasp!> fake handoff to the RB and throw it over the heads of those safeties who have been cheating up. We tend not to refer to that as a "trick" play, we simply call it a play-action pass, but it's at its heart a trick play. You're faking one thing to get the defense out of position, then you make them pay for being out of position.

True, we call a flea-flicker a trick play because it's a little more complex than a simple play-action pass, but at its core it's no different. You show run; you execute pass.

"Trick" plays are just the extreme end of this concept. Make the defense think you're doing one thing, then don't do that thing.

[Drew4UTk]

that't the basic concept of offenses, period... and I agree to a point with your comment [member=19]bwarbiany[/member] , but realize the difference is based on my leaning. two approaches to offense is either power or deception.

i took great interest in the SEC championship game where Meyer was heading up UF, and playing Saban's Tide... To me, that was the best head-to-head of 'innovation (read: deception) vs. Power" at least in billing... and then Saban did something nobody expected by simply electing to receive and then coming at them through the air.  Meyer's O IS fundamental, it isn't loosey goosey at all- but he does things with the spread option that others hadn't adjusted to (yet)... As that game demonstrated, though, being able to 'exact your will' whenever however is the better option of the two (imo).

Nebraska under Osborne in the nineties is the best example of what I speak- Frazier or Frost could have walked to the line and looked the defense captain dead in the eye and said "off weak tackle on three", and went ahead and did it while daring the defense to 'just try and stop it'... they relied almost completely on power. however, they had tricks up their seeves, too- and usually when they played a team who could run an 80 D, and close the perimeter... they'd open the outside sweeps by throwing across center. 

Spurrier's 'fun and gun' or 'cock and fire' was deceptive, as he'd open the run with the pass... but... after he stretched a D for two quarters and busted the game open by two or more scores, he's fall back to super conservative running with sparse passing- all from a play action offense that could do either as they wanted.   

it has it's place... especially when your 'power' is matched by your opponents.

[betarhoalphadelta]

Well, there are a lot of people who really enjoy the "smashmouth" style of football. And no P5 team IMHO embodies that nearly as much as Wisconsin today. That's one of the reasons that Wisconsin had the fewest passing attempts per game in the B1G in 2016 and was simultaneously tied for 2nd-highest Y/A, and in first place in completion percentage. They "exert their will", but understand that they can't do it every down. But because teams are selling out so heavily for the run, their passing game is extremely effective when they use it.

But I feel like you're making my point with the UF/Bama game you mention. Saban and Bama is another team that comes into the game saying "we've out-recruited you, we have better players at every position, and we're going to stuff it down your throat." Saban (and Tressel) had the idea of playing great defense, playing a field position battle, and being okay with not scoring on any given possession because they were going to strangle you to death for 4 quarters. But they realized that UF had the offensive talent and scheme to break a game open on nearly any play, so they were forced to be more aggressive.

My only point was to say that I disagree that "trick plays" are somehow a lesser part of the game than "power". And I completely disagree that it tells your players you don't have confidence in them. It tells your players that "if the other team sells out to stop what we're trying to do best, we're going to make them pay for it so that they have to go back to a base scheme which lets us do what we do best."

[Drew4UTk]

“There’s a lot of letters in Ladanian Tomlinson”
“A team should never practice on a field that is not lined. Your players have to become aware of the field’s boundaries.”
“The best way to gain more yards is advance the ball down the field from the line of scrimmage.”
“If you lose your best cornerback and punter, I’d say that’s a double loss.”
“It’s 3rd and 20..They need a good play here.”
“See, well ya see, the thing is, he should have caught that ball. But the ball is bigger than his hands.”
“When you have great players, playing great, well that’s great football!”
“Ruben Brown made that play there….well I mean he missed the guy completley but he was able to create just enough room for Thomas Jones by whiffing. The air he created on the miss gave Jones enough space to score.”

“If the quaterback throws the ball in the endzone and the Wide Receiver catches it……. It’s a touchdown.”
“If this team doesn’t put points on the board I don’t see how they can win.”
“Whenever you talk about a Mike Shanahan offense, you’re always going to be talking about his offense.”
“Some yards is better than none yards?”
“Here’s a guy, here’s a guy who when he puts his contacts in, he can see better”
“Usually the team that scores the most points wins the game.”
“Mark Brunell usually likes to soak his balls before a rainy game.”
“When your arm gets hit, the ball is not going to go where you want it to.”
“They’re either going to run the ball here or their going to pass it.”
“The Dallas Cowboys have 2 types of plays in their playbook. Passing plays, and running plays.”
“When its raining the field gets wet, then all of a sudden everyone's running slower”

yeah.... I'm going to crawl back in my hole, now.

[Drew4UTk]

Well, there are a lot of people who really enjoy the "smashmouth" style of football. And no P5 team IMHO embodies that nearly as much as Wisconsin today. That's one of the reasons that Wisconsin had the fewest passing attempts per game in the B1G in 2016 and was simultaneously tied for 2nd-highest Y/A, and in first place in completion percentage. They "exert their will", but understand that they can't do it every down. But because teams are selling out so heavily for the run, their passing game is extremely effective when they use it.

But I feel like you're making my point with the UF/Bama game you mention. Saban and Bama is another team that comes into the game saying "we've out-recruited you, we have better players at every position, and we're going to stuff it down your throat." Saban (and Tressel) had the idea of playing great defense, playing a field position battle, and being okay with not scoring on any given possession because they were going to strangle you to death for 4 quarters. But they realized that UF had the offensive talent and scheme to break a game open on nearly any play, so they were forced to be more aggressive.

My only point was to say that I disagree that "trick plays" are somehow a lesser part of the game than "power". And I completely disagree that it tells your players you don't have confidence in them. It tells your players that "if the other team sells out to stop what we're trying to do best, we're going to make them pay for it so that they have to go back to a base scheme which lets us do what we do best."

by my reckoning, this game at this level is about cohesion and playing in what i've often called 'comfort zone'... the entire gambit is to take the other team outside their comfort zone, where they are a lot more apt to make mistakes that can be capitalized on... when the chemistry on a team is right and the players are being utilized to their strengths, you can see it.  they look like they're having fun- not struggling. 

in that light, trick plays actually assist in chemistry and confidence i don't think anyone would disagree..

i'd just rather have 'my' team capable of plain jane in your face power to get the job done.  though i like tubberville's play, spurrier's, miles, all of the great modern 'tricksters'.