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The Sergeant's Office: The Spread Offense and PSU vs OSU
The Spread Offense - Good or Bad for Football? Maybe we'll see tomorrow.
Not to show my age, but I remember it well. The "K Gun" and "Run and Shoot" were as distant memories football wise as the triple option today. The year was 1996. Joel Berry and his Rogers, Texas High School Eagles football team were coming off a 6-6 season. Berry's Eagles had talent, but just not enough to compete with the big boys in Class 2A football at that time. Rogers had made the playoffs in each of his three seasons, going 8-4, 6-6, and 6-6. He needed a spark...something to bridge the talent gap between his Eagles and the bigger powers in Class 2A.
An experiment began. Berry knew he had a pretty good QB in Patrick Hutka and one of the more dominant offensive tackles in small school Texas High School Football, future Oklahoma State starter Kyle Eaton...all 6-8 350lbs of him. He also found a WR who could catch anything in Josh Whatley.
Over the next few months leading in to training camp in 1997, Berry installed an offense that would allow his guys to level the playing field with the 300 lb - run it 40 times a game - gorillas.
On the first play of the 1997 season against perennial Class 1A powerhouse Bartlett, a team the Eagles could not beat, who had blown them out the last two years by a combined score of 76-9, Patrick Hutka lined up in the shotgun. Massive Kyle Eaton to his blindside. Sure handed Josh Whatley in the slot. The powerful Bulldog defense was staring in the face of the spread offense. The end result was a 37-27 Rogers victory.
The Eagles cruised to a 14-2 record that year. Rogers lost the state championship game 33-7 to Stanton in what was the only defense that year to stop the spread. Heavy Rain. Hutka and Whatley set numerous national records. The 1997 Eagles went down in history as one of the greatest offenses in Texas History. What came en vogue with the Eagles is now seen on a daily basis.
Gone are the days of 50 carry a game power football. Teams like Georgia Tech and the Tennessee Titans are the novelty acts of innovative offense that Rogers was because..... well lets face it. No one plays power football anymore.
Each and every one of you remember watching in awe as Tom Osborne's 1994 and 1995 Nebraska Cornhuskers absolutely killed everyone. Lawrence Phillips and Co hammering anything in their patch. "Gasp!" a team averaging more rushing yards than passing yards. Ability to control the clock. Unheard of now....unfathomable.
Moving on in my rant, while the spread offense may be the equal opportunity employer of football, because almost any player can fit into it some place, it has all but killed the "tradionalist" fantasy football player, both on the college and professional level.
Tradition and prudence demand you go RB RB in the first two rounds. You want to win, you better have a couple studs in the backfield. Now you better get a QB and WR, because you can grab a QB and a couple of stud WRs to go with two so so RBs and beat guys who go RB RB now. Running back by committee dominates the land scape. A 5-7 150 back in the Steve Slaton / Noel Devine mold can draw as much or more for your team as a traditional pounder like Chris Wells or LenDale White.....and God help you....you just never quite know when to pull the trigger on some of these guys, and be damned if you miss.
Your beloved professional teams are blowing cash on guys like Tim Couch, Kliff Kingsbury, and Ryan Leaf trying to find that big time spread passer who can finally make the jump to a pro style offense while a team like the Titans quietly build an entire team of guys that could kick Chuck Liddells ass. Then you drop the back down the standings because your team cant afford to compete with all the wasted cash tied up on a guy that wont make the jump.
Even the stalwarts of tradional football are scrapping running games for the spread. Look no further than the elder statesman of football, a guy who actually made a surprise start with Moses ( who ran for 225 and 4 TDs that day) against the Egyptians... Joe Paterno!
On Saturday, when the biggest football game in the Big Ten in the last decade (sorry Michigan, you forgot how to beat Ohio State ranked or not), #3 8-0 Penn State vs #9 7-1 Ohio State unfolds.....even JoePa's boys are coming out with an offense called Spread HD.
Get to the point I know......I guess what Im saying is yeah..the Spread is fun to watch, and yeah, we all run it in everything from the sandlot to the PS3, but how much good has it really done for football.
Kids in the little leagues still learn the fundamentals of blocking and tackling. Running out of the I formation. Man to man mano e mano blocking. By the time they get to high school. we throw away the lesson that hard work and whipping the man in front of you pays off, and replace it with an addage of just finding a way to massage the system if you don't want to work hard.
So.......will we get an entire answer tomorrow. Nope, but we will see the Spread vs Traditional power football tomorrow when Penn State and Ohio State square off. As much as I think the story of Joe Pa going undefeated and riding off in the sunset is a fitting tribute to the man who defines what a coach should be...somehow I just see 3 yards, a cloud of dust, and a tastefully pulled off sweater vest beating a sore hip and spread offense.
Sarge
Not to show my age, but I remember it well. The "K Gun" and "Run and Shoot" were as distant memories football wise as the triple option today. The year was 1996. Joel Berry and his Rogers, Texas High School Eagles football team were coming off a 6-6 season. Berry's Eagles had talent, but just not enough to compete with the big boys in Class 2A football at that time. Rogers had made the playoffs in each of his three seasons, going 8-4, 6-6, and 6-6. He needed a spark...something to bridge the talent gap between his Eagles and the bigger powers in Class 2A.
An experiment began. Berry knew he had a pretty good QB in Patrick Hutka and one of the more dominant offensive tackles in small school Texas High School Football, future Oklahoma State starter Kyle Eaton...all 6-8 350lbs of him. He also found a WR who could catch anything in Josh Whatley.
Over the next few months leading in to training camp in 1997, Berry installed an offense that would allow his guys to level the playing field with the 300 lb - run it 40 times a game - gorillas.
On the first play of the 1997 season against perennial Class 1A powerhouse Bartlett, a team the Eagles could not beat, who had blown them out the last two years by a combined score of 76-9, Patrick Hutka lined up in the shotgun. Massive Kyle Eaton to his blindside. Sure handed Josh Whatley in the slot. The powerful Bulldog defense was staring in the face of the spread offense. The end result was a 37-27 Rogers victory.
The Eagles cruised to a 14-2 record that year. Rogers lost the state championship game 33-7 to Stanton in what was the only defense that year to stop the spread. Heavy Rain. Hutka and Whatley set numerous national records. The 1997 Eagles went down in history as one of the greatest offenses in Texas History. What came en vogue with the Eagles is now seen on a daily basis.
Gone are the days of 50 carry a game power football. Teams like Georgia Tech and the Tennessee Titans are the novelty acts of innovative offense that Rogers was because..... well lets face it. No one plays power football anymore.
Each and every one of you remember watching in awe as Tom Osborne's 1994 and 1995 Nebraska Cornhuskers absolutely killed everyone. Lawrence Phillips and Co hammering anything in their patch. "Gasp!" a team averaging more rushing yards than passing yards. Ability to control the clock. Unheard of now....unfathomable.
Moving on in my rant, while the spread offense may be the equal opportunity employer of football, because almost any player can fit into it some place, it has all but killed the "tradionalist" fantasy football player, both on the college and professional level.
Tradition and prudence demand you go RB RB in the first two rounds. You want to win, you better have a couple studs in the backfield. Now you better get a QB and WR, because you can grab a QB and a couple of stud WRs to go with two so so RBs and beat guys who go RB RB now. Running back by committee dominates the land scape. A 5-7 150 back in the Steve Slaton / Noel Devine mold can draw as much or more for your team as a traditional pounder like Chris Wells or LenDale White.....and God help you....you just never quite know when to pull the trigger on some of these guys, and be damned if you miss.
Your beloved professional teams are blowing cash on guys like Tim Couch, Kliff Kingsbury, and Ryan Leaf trying to find that big time spread passer who can finally make the jump to a pro style offense while a team like the Titans quietly build an entire team of guys that could kick Chuck Liddells ass. Then you drop the back down the standings because your team cant afford to compete with all the wasted cash tied up on a guy that wont make the jump.
Even the stalwarts of tradional football are scrapping running games for the spread. Look no further than the elder statesman of football, a guy who actually made a surprise start with Moses ( who ran for 225 and 4 TDs that day) against the Egyptians... Joe Paterno!
On Saturday, when the biggest football game in the Big Ten in the last decade (sorry Michigan, you forgot how to beat Ohio State ranked or not), #3 8-0 Penn State vs #9 7-1 Ohio State unfolds.....even JoePa's boys are coming out with an offense called Spread HD.
Get to the point I know......I guess what Im saying is yeah..the Spread is fun to watch, and yeah, we all run it in everything from the sandlot to the PS3, but how much good has it really done for football.
Kids in the little leagues still learn the fundamentals of blocking and tackling. Running out of the I formation. Man to man mano e mano blocking. By the time they get to high school. we throw away the lesson that hard work and whipping the man in front of you pays off, and replace it with an addage of just finding a way to massage the system if you don't want to work hard.
So.......will we get an entire answer tomorrow. Nope, but we will see the Spread vs Traditional power football tomorrow when Penn State and Ohio State square off. As much as I think the story of Joe Pa going undefeated and riding off in the sunset is a fitting tribute to the man who defines what a coach should be...somehow I just see 3 yards, a cloud of dust, and a tastefully pulled off sweater vest beating a sore hip and spread offense.
Sarge
Total Comments 1
Comments
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Write on Sarge. Write on.Posted 10-25-2008 at 12:02 AM by Mustang Jones
