Interesting take on IU O from Patrick Mayhorn
- Thread starter TomEric4756
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Makes me wonder why a guy who supposedly has been to practice, has insider access. and knows the players...; would need to ask such a question... Seems odd...😉
I asked V13 what he thought based on his history as a coach and his onservations of the program, on which he’s made specific comments regarding player performance. Not sure why you would find that troubling. I have my views based on what I’ve seen but was interested in his. It was a football related inquiry.
We all know why. Don't feed the troll
then they start throwing the ball, and QBs hesitant to scramble start scrambling more.
Dang V. I come back from the work day and find you in another X’s and O’s scrap.😂. I have to agree with Jack a bit. As an ex o lineman, there was a big difference for me going from a run heavy offense in h.s. to an air raid offense in college. Just the constant “fake” fire of a run play to a “sit” position of pass protection in the matter of a moment took me a bit to get used to. The techniques evolve to incorporate the dual action, especially against d-line stunts, etc. I get what you are saying, but us big guys get off balance at first. Of course, I was not a ballerina in the beginning. It grew on me.
I had a QB that ran as well as my RB and defenses had to account for him every play. I went to one foot splits even in shotgun and spread formations. I learned from Hobart that you didn't need big splits to run the ball contrary to the system I coached in before. If coach Bell will learn from coach Bostad he will find out to keep the splits down so OL can reach the defensive players and improve the running game. Defenses have changed and penetrate more which means offenses need to change too.
If I didn't have a running QB, I wouldn't have run the offense coach Bell ran last year. His idea of spreading the defense doesn't work very well with the speedy defenses in college now.
He’s spreading the field precisely to combat the speedy defenses in college now. Taking defensive players away from the box aids the offense and the running game. Eventually it’s about a numbers game and maximizing the Os advantage. Not sure if you watched any of them, but Oregon under Chip did this to perfection. And they did it with wide splits, as has been the norm for spread teams.
Good stuff. Appreciate your informative and original material posts
I played high school at Edgewood for Dick Ranard in Indiana from 79-82. Moved from tackle to guard in college at Hanover under Wayne Perry. Pre Air Raid, but very similar. Wide splits. One TE, if any. Pass heavy and move the clock. The pocket was life.
Have you ever thought about scheduling a meeting with Bostad? I'm serious. You have the bona fides to talk with him and you're an IU fan.
It would be interesting to have someone have a chat with him to discuss this stuff directly.
I know it sounds crazy, but you should just call the FB office and see if you could have a little skull session with him and maybe even Bell? I'll bet they don't get requests like that very often.
That’s great. The wide split stuff was a huge Hal Mumme, Mike Leach thing, and Chip Kelly reworked it (by running the ball a ton) with great success at UO.. I think Bostad’s challenges for us will be several, including working with a relatively lighter group. UW played big, and they had the benefit of wearing teams down with a multi-back attack, great blocking and receiving tight ends, just enough talent at receiver to stretch the field a bit, and killer defenses. We are a different animal, at least in the near term. Our quarterbacks are going to struggle for awhile, but we’ll need them to stay healthy to have a chance to be competitive.
Sounds like good coaching v. Like to believe Bell and Bostad both have enough mental offensive horsepower to pick and choose LOS scheming to give IU a shot at taking the ball down the field. In other words they'll figure out the most beneficial options available. Bostad is certainly more of what Bell needs instead of the Hiller whiff.
I know the reason why coaches do what Bell did but my experience says it doesn't work the way they think it does. How well did it work for Chip at the NFL and has he changed since then at UCLA?
Providing speed with the space it wants is not a good strategy.
What didn’t work for Chip in Philly is a longer list, but his tempo approach was ill-suited for the NFL given the relatively small rosters. Teams don’t want to run 85-90 plays when you can only carry 53 total players (that’s roughly 25 players for O and D each, with three specialists). There simply isn’t the depth to play that pace, so teams necessarily slow it down. There’s also a much greater balance of high level athletes in the NFL, which negates the advantage of spreading the D from boundary to boundary, as is the aim of college coaches.
It hasn’t worked so well for Bell because he hasn’t had the personnel at IU to run it, especially at QB. It worked great for Chip and plenty of others in the college game, though, and he’s getting it going at UCLA, too. Fundamentally, though, it’s a different game up front and not just a matter of firing out of your stance and hitting the nearest guy to you. Will be interesting to see how Bostad adapts to a new system. I know Coach Allen really likes Bell, in large part because he (Coach Allen) thinks Bell‘s system really stresses a D and makes it difficult to prepare.
The only place Bell made it work was Arkansas State so making it work in the B1G is doubtful. It takes elite players compared to your opponents to make it work, Kelly for example has taken 3 years to start to get the players in at UCLA. For IU to get those players in may never happen for Bell and he must adjust his style of play if he is to succeed. This year will be a success or bust for the offense with Bell needing to live up to his efforts.
Why do you think it takes elite players to make it work? Coach Allen and Coach Bell would tell you it is specifically designed to balance out the lack of elite players on O by spreading out the D. It’s why Coach Allen is and was so high on Coach Bell. It’s about creating numerical mismatches and exploiting them. Curious as to what offense you think we should be running? Thanks.
Because it takes elite players to block one on one and hard to block LBs along with the stunts. Good for Bell and see if the OL can do the job even with a great OL coach. If Bell would move the OL to one foot and let the OL bulldoze defense front off the LOS we would have a better running game. We saw it with Williams in after starting to see it and running gam took off. We will see if Bell is any better than last year if not then coach Allen needs to fire him after this season. Instead, I would like the offense to be exciting and scoring lots of points this year.
Using tier two OL to block tier one DL and backers is tough enough. Spread them and suddenly the faster defenders have more room to exploit the differences. Googling a coaching book is fine, but one needs to bake in the athletes involved on bnoth sides.
Interesting take since so many coaches have had success with it, and every coach looks to find ways to create numbers advantages. Why do you think Coach Allen is such a big fan of Bell?
Coach Allen sure wasn't during the season watching him on the sidelines. So Bell needs to do a better job on the field this year or he will be gone. IU has four QBs and could pull in another QB as another back up to Jackson and Sorsby.
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He is getting a lot of mileage from that 2016 season.
Not sure how many games you attended, but anyone that actually did knows that what you are saying is true.
Coach Allen has full confidence on Coach Bell. It’s why he hired him and why he continues to be a big fan. Nice to chat with you on this.
Yep. We need to continue to build a roster to make Bell’s or any other offense viable.
The guy is a 22 year old wanna be and disses IU.
Pleases me I've never wasted time on him.
He had full confidence in Sheridan also, who he hired based on DeBoer's recommendation. Can't blame him for taking that advice.
As I recall when Walt Bell was at Florida State he was an offensive coordinator who was not calling the plays. But he decided he was ready to be a head coach and took over the UMass program which looked much more like a high school program. And was fired at the end of the third season with a record of something like two wins and 43 losses. He was then hired by Tom Allen after the season was over. He was making more money than he was being paid at UMass and UMass was off the hook for a severance package.
I would call that blind faith rather than full confidence.
Certainly fair to wonder whether Coach Allen’s confidence is deserved.
