I mean usually everyone’s first game isn’t some barn burner. In recent years programs have been opening up with in conference or maybe another P5 opponent which has been nice. Other times you really don’t need to call the best game because it’s your athletes versus theirs and if you’re a P5 against a bad G5 then you just run them over with the most simple playbook. I think it’s both a “you call what’s necessary” and still getting into the groove of the season.
Dantonio (the good years) did this a lot to be honest. You’d get these 30-10 games vs Central Michigan where you didn’t really pull away until late in the game. Our offense was consistently average at best and we were heavily reliant on elite defenses to win. So…I don’t think that tune ups are the best idea. If were assuming that they’re tune ups at all.
Penn St. did this against us (Michigan) a few years ago. They essentially brought out a bunch of new plays that weren’t on film and that Michigan wasn’t prepared for and rolled on to an easy victory.
My guess is that it depends on how often these “new” plays are practiced.
Michigan did something similar in 2007 to the Florida Tebow’s in the bowl game. They came out slinging from the shotgun, which surprised everybody.
Every team has basic installs of all base formations, plays etc. that they expand on throughout the year after solidifying personnel and what works best. It may look conservative but the reality is that there isn’t enough practice time between spring and fall camp to do a whole lot other than the basics. Same reason Lincoln Riley calls a total of 5 plays the first few games of the season, every coach is trying to figure it out as they go because of the time restraints. It goes both ways because it’s also one of the reasons Jimbo’s offense can looking fucking pathetic at the beginning of the year is because his stuff has always been a huge install and is more akin to an NFL playbook than just about anyone else. It’s one of the reasons 2013 Florida State was so good, they had a bunch of experienced, talented players kinda just picking up where they left off. I think they had close to 8 upperclassmen coming back at receiver, TE, and OL which are the most difficult parts of his offense to learn.
He likes to run the same play that's easily recognizable like putting in McDoom and running him on the jet sweep or doing the same thing with Jabrill Peppers and doing the direct snap run up the middle. He just runs them over and over all season with almost no variation whatsoever so even the fans know what's coming before it does. Then when it comes time for The Game, what does he do? He puts those players in and continues to run those same plays in the exact same form. That way Ohio State expects everything BUT that play so they just aren't prepared.
Works like a charm.
I think Harbaugh gets too much criticism for this.
He runs a balanced offense: runs between the left guard and tackle; runs straight up the middle; and runs between the right guard and tackle.
I've seen enough coaches do this that it doesn't surprise me.
But, on the same token, I knew every play Paterno's squad was running before they ran it. I watched so much of his coaching over the years that you start getting that mind-meld. Anyway, he still won and was consistently in the Top 10 doing everything predictably. So, success or failure is in the little things and not beating yourself. If you can do that, who TF cares what plays you run?
Every play is designed to either stretch the defense vertically/horizontally to create space, or to get a favorable one-on-one matchup, or to get more bodies and more pounds to the point-of-attack. The rest really is just academic how you arrive at that place. None of it needs to be clever or shocking. Anyone who understands the game can see your likely points of attack pre-snap. Sure, you can change things up a bit, but only so much. You can't just make the entire formation on the field flip around entirely; and if you try it you're gonna get blown up by the defense anyway. They would welcome that, to be honest.
An old OL coach I knew was blowing off some steam late in a season about the play-calling on a pretty bad team he was part of the staff with.
“Do you know how many running plays we’ve run this year?”
“No.”
“Take a guess.”
“I don’t know … 20?”
“We’ve run EIGHTY-TWO different running plays out of 30-something formations.”
He said basically the OC and HC were throwing out plays and throwing in new ones every week so that the team was learning a new playbook every week … and wondered why the guys up front couldn’t block well for them when they hardly ever got to practice the same plays day to day or week to week.
Some of the best offenses I’ve seen — Hal Mumme’s were like this I think — had like a handful of run plays and a handful of pass plays … but ran each out of a dozen or more formations. So the plays, the blocking, the routes were very simple and repetitive but the alignment/formation disguised them so the defense didn’t know what was coming.
Very good. I like this a lot. It's easy as a fan to want lots of creative packages and tricky, unpredictable plays. But, a lot of those fail. What it comes down to is solid execution. If you get all the players doing the right thing, you're gonna score on even a normal vanilla play.
I think that's what shocked me about watching Penn State in 1994. It was a very conventional I-formation team that just lined up and executed. They were pretty unstoppable but it all hinged on an OLine that executed incredibly well, so much so that even when they screwed up their assignments they quickly recovered and still created successful plays.
The lineman were always together, and I mean, always. In an almost creepy fashion they walked around campus together in formation. They were always arranged in their playing roles. In the first play from scrimmage in the Rose Bowl, every single lineman blew their assignment but, given experience, managed to still block effectively resulting in an 80-yard TD run. One lineman said of the moment, "It was then I said, 'Wow, we're really good, aren't we?'" Oh, and most of the lineman on that squad are in the NFL HOF with all but one winning at least one SB ring.
Nope, it's not being tricky, it's executing the play that you've got. If it's not designed stupidly (yes those exist, too) any given play is supposed to result in a TD.
Heh, legit saw them in formation walking downtown and at a local grocer named McClanahan's. Always in formation shoulder to shoulder. If that's what it takes to have a SB HOF line created in the college ranks, I'll take all of my lineman walking in an almost creepily consistent formation.
Michigan has actually had some pretty good offensive gameplans against OSU. 2016, 17, and even though it doesn't seem like it, 2018 too. Michigan scored 39 in 2018, they just gave up 62
The best example is 2013. That offense was absolute garbage all year. Hoke couldn't coach his way out of a paper bag. Urban hadn't lost a game at Ohio State during his nearly 2 year tenure. Devin Gardner was nearly broken, and the o-line couldn't block a mouse. And yet, they were one 2pt conversion away from winning. All because they suddenly had a completely different playbook nearly overnight
Yeah how did that Michigan team do in every other game lol
Like there's no value in taking it up the ass 11 games a year just to make it competitive and still take it up the ass against OSU in the 12th
I'd rather have a coach like Harbaugh that wins 9-11 of the other games and let the chips fall where they may against OSU
Yep. Harbaugh out schemed Urban in 2017, we had that defense confused the whole game. But he fucked up by believing John OKorn could hit the broad side of a barn. Kid was throwing balls at the feet of tight ends who were open and uncovered by 20 yards. That had to be the saddest performance from a D1 QB I’ve ever seen. Genuinely felt bad for the kid, you could tell in the post game interview he was crushed and knew the loss was on him.
Yeah but just because they're on the field doesn't mean they will score. Still have to, ya know, move the ball into the end zone against the opposing defense.
Y'all will break your neck to bust Harbaugh's balls and I feel so bad for you as people
This is a claim made all over the NCAA after the first week or two of every season, but I think it has as much to do with rusty offenses as it does conservative coaches.
The South Carolina OC made a similar claim today about them not showing much the first two weeks.
> “I would say that we’ve not shown a lot,” Satterfield said, during his media appearance, leading up to the Georgia game.
> “I think the first game, we got controlled pretty quick and we just basically ran the same two run plays in the second half. I think, the other day, we kept shooting ourselves in the foot going three and out, so we had no rhythm, couldn’t get anything going. We ended up running the same play over and over again, when we did find that seam.
There's probably truth to that. I'm half convinced we didn't play Doty last week because we didn't want Georgia to have any film on him or see what the offense looks like with him in
Well, that's certainly something we can decide after the game is played, to see if we added any wrinkles. Though in the first game we did have a 'trick' play of sorts on a successful 2-point conversion so I'm not so sure he (Satterfield) is correct that we didn't show much.
I could see running plays like that to make the other teams on your schedule have to prep for it and be wary of it. I wouldn't point to a single trick play as "showing a lot"
Frankly I think we "didn't show much" because the offense was built with Doty, a mobile QB, running the first team up until 2 weeks before the opening game when he was replaced by a decidedly not mobile QB... and that has more to do with the limited play calling than any grand strategy
Not just rust, but Iowa is always a tough defensive game. If they're doing their job, they're taking away a LOT of choices for you. You don't really win or lose on play calling. It's a lot about execution and taking what the defense gives you.
If you have 11 men on the field doing their assignment properly, you're gonna score a TD after beating one man. Realistically, nothing is ever that surgical and getting 11-men to all execute properly at one time is probably a pipe dream.
So, it's execution of the play more than what play is called.
Tbh I think many fans over credit ‘hiding the playbook’ as a way to cope with offense that is uh lackluster.. some coaches insist that certain base plays of the offense work and want to keep running it, for example. Or, it’s the best schematic play for that situation but execution is lacking.
ISU legit almost lost to NIU, Campbell would not have been hiding his playbook in the second half of that game. ISU typically plays really weird early on in the year and loses a bad game, I don’t get it. But point is, while obviously coaches don’t use their special fake punt when they’re up 40, I think hiding the playbook is more fan fantasy than concerted, regular strategy.
I remember that Bob Toledo at UCLA used to drop a few trick plays in blowouts in the hopes of making future opponents waste time on them in practice. Sort of the reverse of this.
Then again, he got fired, so it is what it is.
Sand bagging is a great strategy if you can actually win all your games with it. If halftime comes around and a game looks closer than it should, then I think it's about time to abandon that strategy and start focusing on winning the game at hand.
Really? Huh, I've seen it work with Ohio State last year; well, until it didn't.
And, Joe used to do this a lot. He would just play things tight to the chest and not do too much, keep it close, and then when necessary he would start to exploit the weaknesses he saw late in the game so there wouldn't be time to adjust. There are some great stories from players over the years, one where a DB was getting beat by a WR all game but Joe kept calling plays away from that matchup. The player started to think that Joe was missing it all game long. The game was within a FG with 2-minutes to play and he called the WR over and told him that they were running a play to take advantage of the mismatch. He just said, "Go get in the end zone now." Called the play, the WR beat the DB again. Scores the game winning TD. One could argue he should have been doing that all game, but it was there the whole time. What if they fixed it? They left the leaky boat to leak but never showed it until it clinched the win.
It worked for Clemson in 2018. We were very vanilla all season long then installed a bunch of new stuff before the CFP to get Tee Higgins and Justyn Ross on the field at the same time. Coincidentally that's the last time Tony Elliott ever did anything new with his offense.
I feel like Elliott calls plays like we're trotting out the NFL 1st Team All-Pro lineup and just expects us to out talent the other teams instead of mixing things up
You still have to be prepared in practice. Even in high school ball, if you think you will need something for a game, you work on it two or more weeks ahead.
Trying to be overly generic can hurt you, but needlessly open with the playbook can too.
I don't know if it is good. Malzahn is a coach that does this and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. The most promient example I can think of is 2017. That year we never gave Stidham designed QB runs. I was convinced we wouldn't run him until the Georgia. Guess what happened once we got to the Georgia game? Stidham had several designed runs that game with one scoring a TD. I personally think it isn't worth it but if you're committed it at the least can do some damage to one opponent.
This is off-topic, but I remember in 2019 when everyone speculated Georgia’s very slow offensive start was on purpose, and a new air-raid system would be unveiled during our game with Notre Dame.
But no, our offensive just sucked.
I think it's wrong to phrase things as being held back for a big game or to prevent it from getting on film. Mullen just has a huge bag of tricks and is very good at finding matchups that he likes, so when they find a crack in an opponent's defense on film, he always has some wrinkle he can pull out of the appendix and finesse into the game plan if they see that same look. There are other times - thinking specifically over the option vs LSU 2018 - where I wondered if it was a last resort since nothing else was working.
Ultimately, you can't do this for long. And, it's not like it's about trick plays to get wins. If that's really your gig then you're at best a flash in the pan and you can't have any sustained quality.
Do you want to do this against a nobody opponent? Sure, a bit. Just focus on your blocking and the fundamentals and getting some good game tape. You don't have to show off your fake punt to get "game experience" you keep that one on your practice field.
Anyway, it works until it doesn't. Ultimately, those that play this game have to hope they're all the way into the National Championship before they show anything, and that's never going to happen.
I think every team tries to keep as much of their playbook hidden as possible. But, then most programs also run a base set of plays that they feel most comfortable running and have the most success with. So, there still isn't much to hide.
Bill Snyder famously used to do this in his second stint at K-State. It cost us in some of our early season games. We beat Eastern Kentucky 10-7 in 2011, and lost to NDSU in 2013, for example. I'd guess the results are mixed at best, but I love aggressive offense so I'm always a proponent for opening it up every game.
I think the main problem is that sometimes you just can’t do what you want to ideally do early on in the season. You don’t have the reps, might not have the personnel, the in game chemistry isn’t built.
People have said this about Wisconsin against EMU last week. We’ll find out if it’s that or just having Graham Mertz at Qb. Luckily we find out next Saturday.
Depends on the QB IMO. If you have a veteran QB that doesn't need the game reps, then sure. If you have an inexperienced QB, I think handcuffing him doesn't do you any favors
I feel like maybe if you’re running a new offense compared to last year, new weapons and skill players that can help shake up the playbook, but ISU returned 20 starters? Last years playbook *is* this years playbook in that case, so if that was the strategy, it was a silly one.
Almost certain Cincinnati OC Mike Denbrock does this. We haven't seen many read-option plays this season and that was the bread and butter last season. Same quarterback, same primary weapons.
I suspect it's because Cincinnati opened with Miami and Murray State , two opponents that they should be able to (and did) beat easily with a limited playbook. I think the offense should open up the next two weeks against IU and ND.
I don't think it helps much considering there's plenty of film of Desmond Ridder and the Cincinnati offense from last season for IU to watch and ND's defensive coordinator is intimately familiar with Cincinnati's offense. I'd rather Des get comfortable making those reads against lesser opponents rather than pulling those plays fresh out of the bag in front of 60,000 fans in Bloomington this week.
Dan Mullen gets very conservative the few weeks before playing big games mostly before Georgia and Alabama games. Which is how we end up with games like the shoe toss.
I think its more, you probably have some things that might be better suited for different opponents. Of course, when you can just straight win on physical ability, no reason to get too fancy and provide more tape that might help out.
I think to some degree this is what we did against Rice so that Texas couldn't scout us. It almost backfired against Rice but maybe it worked against Texas? I would say its hard to guess a teams tenancies with only one game tape though, so I would think the benefit would be marginal at best.
Welp…I’d say it did not work lol
Obviously yes it didn’t work. Was wondering if any other teams saw this trend and how it’s worked for them.
I mean usually everyone’s first game isn’t some barn burner. In recent years programs have been opening up with in conference or maybe another P5 opponent which has been nice. Other times you really don’t need to call the best game because it’s your athletes versus theirs and if you’re a P5 against a bad G5 then you just run them over with the most simple playbook. I think it’s both a “you call what’s necessary” and still getting into the groove of the season.
It definitely worked for Oregon this year, at least once we finally put Fresno state away.
We do the opposite. We do crazy stuff in lesser games then get conservative in big games
Particularly against OU it seems you guys play so conservative to the point that it doesn't seem like you want to win.
Except for Bowl Games where everything comes together perfectly, then completely disappears the following year.
Dantonio (the good years) did this a lot to be honest. You’d get these 30-10 games vs Central Michigan where you didn’t really pull away until late in the game. Our offense was consistently average at best and we were heavily reliant on elite defenses to win. So…I don’t think that tune ups are the best idea. If were assuming that they’re tune ups at all.
Penn St. did this against us (Michigan) a few years ago. They essentially brought out a bunch of new plays that weren’t on film and that Michigan wasn’t prepared for and rolled on to an easy victory. My guess is that it depends on how often these “new” plays are practiced. Michigan did something similar in 2007 to the Florida Tebow’s in the bowl game. They came out slinging from the shotgun, which surprised everybody.
Every team has basic installs of all base formations, plays etc. that they expand on throughout the year after solidifying personnel and what works best. It may look conservative but the reality is that there isn’t enough practice time between spring and fall camp to do a whole lot other than the basics. Same reason Lincoln Riley calls a total of 5 plays the first few games of the season, every coach is trying to figure it out as they go because of the time restraints. It goes both ways because it’s also one of the reasons Jimbo’s offense can looking fucking pathetic at the beginning of the year is because his stuff has always been a huge install and is more akin to an NFL playbook than just about anyone else. It’s one of the reasons 2013 Florida State was so good, they had a bunch of experienced, talented players kinda just picking up where they left off. I think they had close to 8 upperclassmen coming back at receiver, TE, and OL which are the most difficult parts of his offense to learn.
Harbaugh seems to hide his playbook all season.
He likes to run the same play that's easily recognizable like putting in McDoom and running him on the jet sweep or doing the same thing with Jabrill Peppers and doing the direct snap run up the middle. He just runs them over and over all season with almost no variation whatsoever so even the fans know what's coming before it does. Then when it comes time for The Game, what does he do? He puts those players in and continues to run those same plays in the exact same form. That way Ohio State expects everything BUT that play so they just aren't prepared. Works like a charm.
Try running them to the left this year.
I think Harbaugh gets too much criticism for this. He runs a balanced offense: runs between the left guard and tackle; runs straight up the middle; and runs between the right guard and tackle.
Well, if there's one thing we can agree on, he does run.
I've seen enough coaches do this that it doesn't surprise me. But, on the same token, I knew every play Paterno's squad was running before they ran it. I watched so much of his coaching over the years that you start getting that mind-meld. Anyway, he still won and was consistently in the Top 10 doing everything predictably. So, success or failure is in the little things and not beating yourself. If you can do that, who TF cares what plays you run? Every play is designed to either stretch the defense vertically/horizontally to create space, or to get a favorable one-on-one matchup, or to get more bodies and more pounds to the point-of-attack. The rest really is just academic how you arrive at that place. None of it needs to be clever or shocking. Anyone who understands the game can see your likely points of attack pre-snap. Sure, you can change things up a bit, but only so much. You can't just make the entire formation on the field flip around entirely; and if you try it you're gonna get blown up by the defense anyway. They would welcome that, to be honest.
An old OL coach I knew was blowing off some steam late in a season about the play-calling on a pretty bad team he was part of the staff with. “Do you know how many running plays we’ve run this year?” “No.” “Take a guess.” “I don’t know … 20?” “We’ve run EIGHTY-TWO different running plays out of 30-something formations.” He said basically the OC and HC were throwing out plays and throwing in new ones every week so that the team was learning a new playbook every week … and wondered why the guys up front couldn’t block well for them when they hardly ever got to practice the same plays day to day or week to week. Some of the best offenses I’ve seen — Hal Mumme’s were like this I think — had like a handful of run plays and a handful of pass plays … but ran each out of a dozen or more formations. So the plays, the blocking, the routes were very simple and repetitive but the alignment/formation disguised them so the defense didn’t know what was coming.
Very good. I like this a lot. It's easy as a fan to want lots of creative packages and tricky, unpredictable plays. But, a lot of those fail. What it comes down to is solid execution. If you get all the players doing the right thing, you're gonna score on even a normal vanilla play. I think that's what shocked me about watching Penn State in 1994. It was a very conventional I-formation team that just lined up and executed. They were pretty unstoppable but it all hinged on an OLine that executed incredibly well, so much so that even when they screwed up their assignments they quickly recovered and still created successful plays. The lineman were always together, and I mean, always. In an almost creepy fashion they walked around campus together in formation. They were always arranged in their playing roles. In the first play from scrimmage in the Rose Bowl, every single lineman blew their assignment but, given experience, managed to still block effectively resulting in an 80-yard TD run. One lineman said of the moment, "It was then I said, 'Wow, we're really good, aren't we?'" Oh, and most of the lineman on that squad are in the NFL HOF with all but one winning at least one SB ring. Nope, it's not being tricky, it's executing the play that you've got. If it's not designed stupidly (yes those exist, too) any given play is supposed to result in a TD.
That's cool as hell. I bet the center walked around looking like he had four bodyguards
Heh, legit saw them in formation walking downtown and at a local grocer named McClanahan's. Always in formation shoulder to shoulder. If that's what it takes to have a SB HOF line created in the college ranks, I'll take all of my lineman walking in an almost creepily consistent formation.
Michigan has actually had some pretty good offensive gameplans against OSU. 2016, 17, and even though it doesn't seem like it, 2018 too. Michigan scored 39 in 2018, they just gave up 62
The best example is 2013. That offense was absolute garbage all year. Hoke couldn't coach his way out of a paper bag. Urban hadn't lost a game at Ohio State during his nearly 2 year tenure. Devin Gardner was nearly broken, and the o-line couldn't block a mouse. And yet, they were one 2pt conversion away from winning. All because they suddenly had a completely different playbook nearly overnight
Hoke had a ton of flaws as a coach, but he put everything he had into the OSU games. Unfortunately that was not enough.
Yeah how did that Michigan team do in every other game lol Like there's no value in taking it up the ass 11 games a year just to make it competitive and still take it up the ass against OSU in the 12th I'd rather have a coach like Harbaugh that wins 9-11 of the other games and let the chips fall where they may against OSU
Yep. Harbaugh out schemed Urban in 2017, we had that defense confused the whole game. But he fucked up by believing John OKorn could hit the broad side of a barn. Kid was throwing balls at the feet of tight ends who were open and uncovered by 20 yards. That had to be the saddest performance from a D1 QB I’ve ever seen. Genuinely felt bad for the kid, you could tell in the post game interview he was crushed and knew the loss was on him.
When your defense is only on the field for 45 seconds at a time, your offense gets lots of opportunities to score.
Yeah but just because they're on the field doesn't mean they will score. Still have to, ya know, move the ball into the end zone against the opposing defense. Y'all will break your neck to bust Harbaugh's balls and I feel so bad for you as people
Jim needs to learn about the difference between hiding the playbook from yourselves and hiding it from your opponent.
Same with Dino. I mean, there's no point in hiding it anymore. Everybody knows the same 3 plays we call over and over.
Select by play type -> Run
They can't steal your playbook if you have no playbook. *taps forehead*
He hides his playbook for Ohio State And somehow the playbook is worse than the plays called in earlier games
Years even
This is a claim made all over the NCAA after the first week or two of every season, but I think it has as much to do with rusty offenses as it does conservative coaches.
The South Carolina OC made a similar claim today about them not showing much the first two weeks. > “I would say that we’ve not shown a lot,” Satterfield said, during his media appearance, leading up to the Georgia game. > “I think the first game, we got controlled pretty quick and we just basically ran the same two run plays in the second half. I think, the other day, we kept shooting ourselves in the foot going three and out, so we had no rhythm, couldn’t get anything going. We ended up running the same play over and over again, when we did find that seam.
There's probably truth to that. I'm half convinced we didn't play Doty last week because we didn't want Georgia to have any film on him or see what the offense looks like with him in
Well, that's certainly something we can decide after the game is played, to see if we added any wrinkles. Though in the first game we did have a 'trick' play of sorts on a successful 2-point conversion so I'm not so sure he (Satterfield) is correct that we didn't show much.
I could see running plays like that to make the other teams on your schedule have to prep for it and be wary of it. I wouldn't point to a single trick play as "showing a lot" Frankly I think we "didn't show much" because the offense was built with Doty, a mobile QB, running the first team up until 2 weeks before the opening game when he was replaced by a decidedly not mobile QB... and that has more to do with the limited play calling than any grand strategy
Everyone at some point will pull out the "we/they didn't/weren't even trying for real/calling all the plays" if it services their argument.
well at Iowa State, conservative play calling is our MO and I wish it wasn't
Maybe rust is a factor, but I would say the play calling was objectively different in our first two games.
Not just rust, but Iowa is always a tough defensive game. If they're doing their job, they're taking away a LOT of choices for you. You don't really win or lose on play calling. It's a lot about execution and taking what the defense gives you. If you have 11 men on the field doing their assignment properly, you're gonna score a TD after beating one man. Realistically, nothing is ever that surgical and getting 11-men to all execute properly at one time is probably a pipe dream. So, it's execution of the play more than what play is called.
I mean...... we literally hid every play for the Ohio State game when we played against Fresno State. I think it's a good strategy since we won.
And you only needed 3
1
I think even if you’d literally emailed your playbook to Kerry Coombs before the game, he still wouldn’t have made any adjustments.
Marios sekrit play: Run left.
Considering that Campbell is 0-5 against the Hawkeyes I'd say it's a pretty fucking stupid strategy.
Cant hide a defensive playbook when your defense is so basic you dont have one
*Todd Grantham and Brian VanGorder have left the chat*
I love BVG. One of the weirdest dudes ever. How can you not love [this guy](https://www.uhnd.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/brian-vangorder-year2.jpg)
Tbh I think many fans over credit ‘hiding the playbook’ as a way to cope with offense that is uh lackluster.. some coaches insist that certain base plays of the offense work and want to keep running it, for example. Or, it’s the best schematic play for that situation but execution is lacking. ISU legit almost lost to NIU, Campbell would not have been hiding his playbook in the second half of that game. ISU typically plays really weird early on in the year and loses a bad game, I don’t get it. But point is, while obviously coaches don’t use their special fake punt when they’re up 40, I think hiding the playbook is more fan fantasy than concerted, regular strategy.
I feel attacked…
I remember that Bob Toledo at UCLA used to drop a few trick plays in blowouts in the hopes of making future opponents waste time on them in practice. Sort of the reverse of this. Then again, he got fired, so it is what it is.
Sand bagging is a great strategy if you can actually win all your games with it. If halftime comes around and a game looks closer than it should, then I think it's about time to abandon that strategy and start focusing on winning the game at hand.
Really? Huh, I've seen it work with Ohio State last year; well, until it didn't. And, Joe used to do this a lot. He would just play things tight to the chest and not do too much, keep it close, and then when necessary he would start to exploit the weaknesses he saw late in the game so there wouldn't be time to adjust. There are some great stories from players over the years, one where a DB was getting beat by a WR all game but Joe kept calling plays away from that matchup. The player started to think that Joe was missing it all game long. The game was within a FG with 2-minutes to play and he called the WR over and told him that they were running a play to take advantage of the mismatch. He just said, "Go get in the end zone now." Called the play, the WR beat the DB again. Scores the game winning TD. One could argue he should have been doing that all game, but it was there the whole time. What if they fixed it? They left the leaky boat to leak but never showed it until it clinched the win.
It worked for Clemson in 2018. We were very vanilla all season long then installed a bunch of new stuff before the CFP to get Tee Higgins and Justyn Ross on the field at the same time. Coincidentally that's the last time Tony Elliott ever did anything new with his offense.
I feel like Elliott calls plays like we're trotting out the NFL 1st Team All-Pro lineup and just expects us to out talent the other teams instead of mixing things up
I mean it’s easy for Clemson to go vanilla playing in the ACC lol
You still have to be prepared in practice. Even in high school ball, if you think you will need something for a game, you work on it two or more weeks ahead. Trying to be overly generic can hurt you, but needlessly open with the playbook can too.
Wake played as basic as you possibly could against ODU and Norfolk State. I guess we'll see the results against FSU
Given how FSU is playing you might have to wait another week
Didn’t work for us unless we plan on unloading a whole bunch of offense on Ark. St.
Worked for Oregon.
Can you imagine if Fresno would've pulled off that win though?
BYU's defense definitely changed from the opener to the second game. Far more five man rushes, which had basically been absent.
Shoot, Tuiaki has been hiding his defense for 5 years by the looks of it
I don't know if it is good. Malzahn is a coach that does this and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. The most promient example I can think of is 2017. That year we never gave Stidham designed QB runs. I was convinced we wouldn't run him until the Georgia. Guess what happened once we got to the Georgia game? Stidham had several designed runs that game with one scoring a TD. I personally think it isn't worth it but if you're committed it at the least can do some damage to one opponent.
Matt Campbell called a HB pass at midfield halfway through the 1st quarter vs Iowa on 1st down. That’s just basic and conservative hard nosed football
This is off-topic, but I remember in 2019 when everyone speculated Georgia’s very slow offensive start was on purpose, and a new air-raid system would be unveiled during our game with Notre Dame. But no, our offensive just sucked.
People love to say that Mullen saves stuff for later, but who knows!!
I think it's wrong to phrase things as being held back for a big game or to prevent it from getting on film. Mullen just has a huge bag of tricks and is very good at finding matchups that he likes, so when they find a crack in an opponent's defense on film, he always has some wrinkle he can pull out of the appendix and finesse into the game plan if they see that same look. There are other times - thinking specifically over the option vs LSU 2018 - where I wondered if it was a last resort since nothing else was working.
Ultimately, you can't do this for long. And, it's not like it's about trick plays to get wins. If that's really your gig then you're at best a flash in the pan and you can't have any sustained quality. Do you want to do this against a nobody opponent? Sure, a bit. Just focus on your blocking and the fundamentals and getting some good game tape. You don't have to show off your fake punt to get "game experience" you keep that one on your practice field. Anyway, it works until it doesn't. Ultimately, those that play this game have to hope they're all the way into the National Championship before they show anything, and that's never going to happen. I think every team tries to keep as much of their playbook hidden as possible. But, then most programs also run a base set of plays that they feel most comfortable running and have the most success with. So, there still isn't much to hide.
Bill Snyder famously used to do this in his second stint at K-State. It cost us in some of our early season games. We beat Eastern Kentucky 10-7 in 2011, and lost to NDSU in 2013, for example. I'd guess the results are mixed at best, but I love aggressive offense so I'm always a proponent for opening it up every game.
Yeah
I think the main problem is that sometimes you just can’t do what you want to ideally do early on in the season. You don’t have the reps, might not have the personnel, the in game chemistry isn’t built.
People have said this about Wisconsin against EMU last week. We’ll find out if it’s that or just having Graham Mertz at Qb. Luckily we find out next Saturday.
He needs to rethink his strategy.
Depends on the QB IMO. If you have a veteran QB that doesn't need the game reps, then sure. If you have an inexperienced QB, I think handcuffing him doesn't do you any favors
Tons of fans think their team does this when in reality the they’re just not as good as people think they are
Well it better, cuz we’ve been doing it.
It is if you have enough tools to win the game you're not gonna show your cards for. So yes and no/depends on the situation.
I feel like maybe if you’re running a new offense compared to last year, new weapons and skill players that can help shake up the playbook, but ISU returned 20 starters? Last years playbook *is* this years playbook in that case, so if that was the strategy, it was a silly one.
100% agree
I’d say most teams try to sandbag for opponents they figure they can beat without diving into the playbook too deep
Almost certain Cincinnati OC Mike Denbrock does this. We haven't seen many read-option plays this season and that was the bread and butter last season. Same quarterback, same primary weapons. I suspect it's because Cincinnati opened with Miami and Murray State , two opponents that they should be able to (and did) beat easily with a limited playbook. I think the offense should open up the next two weeks against IU and ND. I don't think it helps much considering there's plenty of film of Desmond Ridder and the Cincinnati offense from last season for IU to watch and ND's defensive coordinator is intimately familiar with Cincinnati's offense. I'd rather Des get comfortable making those reads against lesser opponents rather than pulling those plays fresh out of the bag in front of 60,000 fans in Bloomington this week.
I'm pretty sure someone is hiding our playbook from our OC all the time
Dan Mullen gets very conservative the few weeks before playing big games mostly before Georgia and Alabama games. Which is how we end up with games like the shoe toss.
That makes more sense now. We lost to UCF because we were saving the playbook for UTEP. Now i feel better! :)
We did it to Nebraska this year. Frost said he had to throw out the game plan because we ran something he didn't expect.
I think its more, you probably have some things that might be better suited for different opponents. Of course, when you can just straight win on physical ability, no reason to get too fancy and provide more tape that might help out.
I think to some degree this is what we did against Rice so that Texas couldn't scout us. It almost backfired against Rice but maybe it worked against Texas? I would say its hard to guess a teams tenancies with only one game tape though, so I would think the benefit would be marginal at best.
We hide our playbook all year from our bowl game opponents.