Question for football coaches around run schemes?

I don't know if its even about reads.

Cole Cublic was on Pate's show and he was talking about LSU's offense and he said mostly what we say. Traditional running plays are needed and that stuff.

But one thing he said stuck out to me . He said LSU needs to run more formations. He said its generally shotgun with RB offset to the right. He said they got away from that formation 7 times vs Ole Miss and that was the most we've done that this season.

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I don't know if its even about reads.

Cole Cublic was on Pate's show and he was talking about LSU's offense and he said mostly what we say. Traditional running plays are needed and that stuff.

But one thing he said stuck out to me . He said LSU needs to run more formations. He said its generally shotgun with RB offset to the right. He said they got away from that formation 7 times vs Ole Miss and that was the most we've done that this season.

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I love that Cole made that point and he's 100% correct. I saw Cam Newton doing a video about motion in the NFL and he explained to the audience that motions are not "just because" in the higher levels of football. They're designed to expose what the defense is doing and to also create leverage for an offense. Formations work in a similar way. You can run the same 4-6 plays but motion and formation them in a million different ways. Defenses see these formations on film and they have to spend a ton of prep time 1) identifying all of the different formations & 2) figuring out how they want to line up to it. This creates a ton of stress defensively because all it takes is to misalign one time to one of a billion formations that you see and you're out leveraged defensively. It's all a numbers game and it forces defenders to communicate and to think more.

I can come out in trips and run counter with the back going left and an rpo bubble to the inside receiver right or I can come out in Spread and orbit the receiver on the left to the right of the formation and basically run the same concept. I can also come out in twins with a te to the right and run that same concept with an rpo to the te in the flat instead of throwing to the inside receiver in trips. It's all the same really, but it looks different to a defense and they have to line up differently to it.

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You can run the same 4-6 plays but motion and formation them in a million different ways. Defenses see these formations on film and they have to spend a ton of prep time 1) identifying all of the different formations & 2) figuring out how they want to line up to it.

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Wasn’t Mike Leach well known for primarily running 6 plays? He just ran them out of different formations and looks.

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But one thing he said stuck out to me . He said LSU needs to run more formations. He said its generally shotgun with RB offset to the right. He said they got away from that formation 7 times vs Ole Miss and that was the most we've done that this season.

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That's a good point

Think back to 2019 when LSU would use a lot of different formations to create favorable matchups.

Under Sloan, it appears the approach is to use very few different formations (at least with the initial playcall) and allow Nussmeier to check into the right play at the line based upon what the defense is showing.

Analyst have talked about it, but Nussmeier and the offense do a LOT of pre-snap talking at the line. Moreso than a lot of other QBs/teams. Matt Flynn talked about it on he and Hester's radio show that it often looks like LSU/Nuss are trying to get into the "perfect play", which might be causing a lot of paralysis by analysis...which in turn causes guys to be unsure of what they are supposed to do.

Just run the damn play

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Wasn’t Mike Leach well known for primarily running 6 plays? He just ran them out of different formations and looks.

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Yep, ran his whole offense from an index card.

Yeah, I watched Cubelic and also Flynn's take on scheme and playcalling. It's really an indictment on Sloan. I thought Atkins was supposed to come in and help with the run game as the designated RGC and TE coach. On top of that Sharp and Green are doing horribly with run blocking. Then there's Brad Davis and the OL.

I'm convinced this offensive staff is failing the players more than players just not doing their job.

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Yep, ran his whole offense from an index card.

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The theory being 6 extremely well executed plays is better than 20+ moderately executed plays.

I believe his receivers could execute every route out of each position making it easier for them to go fast as well.

He really was ahead of his time.

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Analyst have talked about it, but Nussmeier and the offense do a LOT of pre-snap talking at the line. Moreso than a lot of other QBs/teams. Matt Flynn talked about it on he and Hester's radio show that it often looks like LSU/Nuss are trying to get into the "perfect play", which might be causing a lot of paralysis by analysis...which in turn causes guys to be unsure of what they are supposed to do.

Just run the damn play

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Both my kids play multiple sports, but were relatively a little late to playing them. (They go to a small school where they start/started on the JV as 7th graders). And they both “struggled” early on defense with not knowing what to do (basketball and football mainly). I kept preaching to them “it’s better to do the ‘wrong’ thing at 100% than the ‘right’ thing at anything less.”

If you don’t know who your man is, just pick somebody and guard them 100%. If you don’t know who to hit, just hit somebody as hard as you fricking can. You’ll probably get away with it and nobody will know. If you half arse it because you don’t know EXACTLY what to do, you will almost always get exposed, and you might as well not even be out there, you’re just getting in the way.

I think that is applicable to what you’re talking about here. Running the fricking “wrong” play with 100% conviction is better than running the “right” one at anything less. That goes for Nuss and all his checking, but also to Sloan. Pick a play and call it with conviction, don’t fumble around trying to find the “perfect” play, and it winds up getting sent down late and Nuss has no confidence in it.

It trickles down from Sloan to Nuss to the rest of the offense. Like you said, just pick a play and run the damn thing.

RUN YOUR PATH......GAP scheme and double-scrape to 2ed level....