The spread option in college football

#1
skasper06

skasper06

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#1
Of say, the last 20 national football champions, who ran a spread offense? I don't mind that CBJ has brought it to UT, I just wonder if it can really win a national championship in today's college football world. I know Meyer has done it with Tebow and Florida...but who else?

Obviously several teams are successful with it... Oregon, Auburn, Texas A&M, Ohio State now with Meyer as well... But how often do those teams actually win a national title? It kinda feels like the best teams always run a really good pro-style offense scheme.
 
#2
#2
skasper06 said:
Of say, the last 20 national football champions, who ran a spread offense? I don't mind that CBJ has brought it to UT, I just wonder if it can really win a national championship in today's college football world. I know Meyer has done it with Tebow and Florida...but who else?

Obviously several teams are successful with it... Oregon, Auburn, Texas A&M, Ohio State now with Meyer as well... But how often do those teams actually win a national title? It kinda feels like the best teams always run a really good pro-style offense scheme.
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Auburn, Florida twice and Texas in the past few years.
 
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#3
#3
Florida won two titles with it. Auburn won a title with a version of it. Ohio State might win a title with it this year.
 
#6
#6
Option style football has won a LOT of National championships over the years...The spread option is exciting when you have the right players in place...It has proven it will work in any conference and can be hard to defend if its run right.
 
#7
#7
The main difference in option ball is the threat of the qb running. Designed qb runs and scrambles will kill undisciplined defenses. But, defenses who read their keys and play their gaps properly tend to shut down running qb's. Still boils down to who wins the los, no matter what style of offense you play.
 
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#8
#8
if we keep recruiting on the level that we are right now, the spread will work here (and we should be able to compete with the best)
 
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#9
#9
PimpVol said:
The main difference in option ball is the threat of the qb running. Designed qb runs and scrambles will kill undisciplined defenses. But, defenses who read their keys and play their gaps properly tend to shut down running qb's. Still boils down to who wins the los, no matter what style of offense you play.
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Like bammer last week...marshall ran on them....good oline is the key
 
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#10
#10
VOLnMiami said:
Option style football has won a LOT of National championships over the years...The spread option is exciting when you have the right players in place...It has proven it will work in any conference and can be hard to defend if its run right.
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Yes, viewed in this wider perspective, option offenses have won national championships going all the way back to the late 1960s, first with Texas, then, in the 1970s, by Alabama, and Oklahoma and Nebraska in the '70s, '80s and '90s. It may not have been as large a staple of their diet at the time, but, if memory serves me correctly, Notre Dame was also running it some during Lou Holtz's national title run there in the late 1980s.
 
#11
#11
If there was an offense that was better than all other offenses, everyone would run it. Thing is, every offense has its positives and negatives. As a coach, you have to run what you believe in and recruit the personnel to get it done. If you can get your guys to buy into it, you can win.....
 
#12
#12
Will someone that knows explain the difference between what CBJ calls his 'Power Spread' and the various other types of spread option and who runs them?
 
#13
#13
The "Power Spread" differs from the Air Raid type offenses of Mike Leach at Washington State/Dana Holgerson WVU - in the fact that they are looking to spread out the defense to be balanced and continue to run the football instead of airing it out everywhere. Now, how CBJ version of the spread option differs from say Auburn or Oregon is at this point hard to say. I really didn't see many Bearcat football games while he was there, and I don't think we've seen what this offense is supposed to look like here yet.
 
#14
#14
A successful spread has two major elements. A spread QB and RB. Very seldom will a team have both and furthermore most QBs with pro potential will stay away from spread systems. Have not seen Ferg but the other three QBS that we have are not good spread QBs..
 
#15
#15
jayski said:
A successful spread has two major elements. A spread QB and RB. Very seldom will a team have both and furthermore most QBs with pro potential will stay away from spread systems. Have not seen Ferg but the other three QBS that we have are not good spread QBs..
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Russell Wilson, Cam Newton and Colin Kapernick beg to differ. Most experts are picking two spread option teams to play one another in the Super Bowl this year.

I think it's the fact that every rule change protecting players hurts the defense. You can't do much to stop an offense anymore without getting a flag thrown on you. Offenses like the spread will probably continue to grow because of all the rule changes.
 
#16
#16
Spread options sucks.

Signed,
2000 Oklahoma
2005 Texas
2006 Florida
2008 Florida
2010 Auburn
 
#18
#18
jason3713 said:
Russell Wilson, Cam Newton and Colin Kapernick beg to differ. Most experts are picking two spread option teams to play one another in the Super Bowl this year.

I think it's the fact that every rule change protecting players hurts the defense. You can't do much to stop an offense anymore without getting a flag thrown on you. Offenses like the spread will probably continue to grow because of all the rule changes.
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I don't believe Russell Wilson played a spread in college- at NC State or Wisconsin. The NFL spread is a modified one. You simply cannot run the QB like the college spread does. Just ask RG3. They will call certain plays for it, but it is not run full time.
 
#19
#19
Orangedogsrule said:
Will someone that knows explain the difference between what CBJ calls his 'Power Spread' and the various other types of spread option and who runs them?
Click to expand...

Vol in said:
The "Power Spread" differs from the Air Raid type offenses of Mike Leach at Washington State/Dana Holgerson WVU - in the fact that they are looking to spread out the defense to be balanced and continue to run the football instead of airing it out everywhere. Now, how CBJ version of the spread option differs from say Auburn or Oregon is at this point hard to say. I really didn't see many Bearcat football games while he was there, and I don't think we've seen what this offense is supposed to look like here yet.
Click to expand...

Jones doesn't actually like to call it a spread. He referred to it as a pro-style in his opening presser, and when somebody asked him about his "power spread" offense, he said something to the effect of "I haven't heard that before, but it's a catchy name, maybe we'll use it". If you ask me, the closest thing to a "Power Spread" going on today is Gus Malzahn's offense at Auburn. He would run it all day if he could.

As for our offense, you're correct that we haven't seen very much of it yet. There was a lot of talk pre-season about whether Jones would adapt the offense for the strengths of our personnel. He actually did - just not the way many were expecting. What were the strengths of our personnel this year? Our senior O-line and our decent RBs. So, their version of "offensive adaptation" meant making the offense very run-heavy, to fit our current personnel package. Jones and Bajakian do like to throw the ball around, but not unless they know they can trust their QB to get the job done. Their offense at Cincy was very balanced, IMO.

I guess the best way to explain CBJ's offense is that they spread to run and they run to set up the throw. They take a page right out of the Petrino playbook and hit you with a million short passes until the safeties go to sleep, then bomb it over their heads for the big play.
 
#20
#20
I think it is more fair to look at the past decade. the spread option as we know it is a more recent phenomenon.
 
#21
#21
I think the only difference in the spread option and the Option Nebraska won with in the 90s is instead of having 2 TE set and a wr there is 3-4 WR and the occasional TE. I could be wrong though
 
#22
#22
Vol in said:
The "Power Spread" differs from the Air Raid type offenses of Mike Leach at Washington State/Dana Holgerson WVU - in the fact that they are looking to spread out the defense to be balanced and continue to run the football instead of airing it out everywhere. Now, how CBJ version of the spread option differs from say Auburn or Oregon is at this point hard to say. I really didn't see many Bearcat football games while he was there, and I don't think we've seen what this offense is supposed to look like here yet.
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What will we run if we land the pro style qbs we have been after? Cornwell, the Kentucky commit or the qb from California? They arent option qbs with the speed and quickness of most dt qbs. Just wondering.
 
#23
#23
There are so many different variations of the "spread" though. There is the read option, air raid, the triple option, the power option, etc.
 
#24
#24
Orangedogsrule said:
Will someone that knows explain the difference between what CBJ calls his 'Power Spread' and the various other types of spread option and who runs them?
Click to expand...

There isn't a difference. Someone along the lines of Gregg Easterbook decided to start calling something aesthetically differing a different title.

Vol in said:
The "Power Spread" differs from the Air Raid type offenses of Mike Leach at Washington State/Dana Holgerson WVU - in the fact that they are looking to spread out the defense to be balanced and continue to run the football instead of airing it out everywhere. Now, how CBJ version of the spread option differs from say Auburn or Oregon is at this point hard to say. I really didn't see many Bearcat football games while he was there, and I don't think we've seen what this offense is supposed to look like here yet.
Click to expand...

Sounds like something verbatim from a wikipedia article. Power spread was originally coined for Petrino at Louisville. It is nothing but advertisement and selling a program. Much of the like that Kentucky now blares 'Air Raid' sirens every time they score. Neal Brown the Franklin prodigy child is probably closer to Chip Kelly than Hal Mumme and Leach at this stage.

NashVOL93 said:
Jones doesn't actually like to call it a spread. He referred to it as a pro-style in his opening presser, and when somebody asked him about his "power spread" offense, he said something to the effect of "I haven't heard that before, but it's a catchy name, maybe we'll use it". If you ask me, the closest thing to a "Power Spread" going on today is Gus Malzahn's offense at Auburn. He would run it all day if he could.

As for our offense, you're correct that we haven't seen very much of it yet. There was a lot of talk pre-season about whether Jones would adapt the offense for the strengths of our personnel. He actually did - just not the way many were expecting. What were the strengths of our personnel this year? Our senior O-line and our decent RBs. So, their version of "offensive adaptation" meant making the offense very run-heavy, to fit our current personnel package. Jones and Bajakian do like to throw the ball around, but not unless they know they can trust their QB to get the job done. Their offense at Cincy was very balanced, IMO.

I guess the best way to explain CBJ's offense is that they spread to run and they run to set up the throw. They take a page right out of the Petrino playbook and hit you with a million short passes until the safeties go to sleep, then bomb it over their heads for the big play.
Click to expand...

Again, selling. Seriously here, what are we describing when we say "Power Spread?" Power, as in power the run play? Spread, 11, 10 personnel or large splits, vertical stems and horizontal stretching down the field? Armchair quarterbacks have degraded to labeling offenses as this or that based on what a clueless commentator on ESPN says.

I can tell you what Jones wants:

1. High repetition packages
2. Retardedly fast tempo, what they call Nascar in TFS
3. Vertical stemmed reliant passing game
4. Ton of misdirection on the boundaries instead of the field
5. Nomenclature a caveman can understand

I can assure you that he is knows what is working for other people and taking notes. That isn't applicable for a lot of coaches. Hell, half the garbage we do is an indirect copy of someone else.
 
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#25
#25
skasper06 said:
There are so many different variations of the "spread" though. There is the read option, air raid, the triple option, the power option, etc.
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Absolutely accurate.

Spread is a meaningless term.

Hilarious as it is, McElwain and Nussmeier have their roots in the Petrino system which came from the "Spread guru" Denny Erickson. So much for that pro-style.
 
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