Smart Notes – Clemson’s Offensive Playbook, Lamar Jackson’s Passing, Belichick, Match Quarters

Clemson’s offensive playbook. I’ve now had a few different sources send me Clemson’s offensive playbook from 2013 under then-offensive coordinator (and current SMU head coach) Chad Morris. From 2012 to 2013, the Tigers — led by quarterback Tajh Boyd and featuring weapons like DeAndre Hopkins, Sammy Watkins, Tajh Boyd and Martavis Bryant — averaged over 41 points per game while compiling a 23-4 record, which included bowl wins over LSU and Ohio State. More relevant to now, Clemson’s current co-offensive coordinators, Tony Elliott and Jeff Scott, were both on Clemson’s staff going back to 2011 and they have largely kept the offense the same, with the primary wrinkles being additional window dressing as well as a few additional passing concepts to play to quarterback Deshaun Watson’s strengths. As a result, the offense found in the the 2013 playbook is essentially the same one Ohio State will see on New Year’s Eve as they face off in the College Football Playoff.

Let’s not get fancy

You can download the part one of the playbook here and part two here.

The first things that should jump out to you about this playbook are:

  1. All of the terminology is built around being run from the no-huddle, so playcalls are limited and primarily use word concepts for play names, as Clemson will often use related words such as NFL team names, cities and mascots to all refer to the same concept;
  2. If you are familiar with Gus Malzahn’s offense it’s exceptionally similar to what Gus Malzahn has run — and not just the play concepts, but in how the offense itself is constructed, called and designed, right down to referring to receivers as numbers (“2”, “5” and “9” being the names for receivers, rather than X, Y and Z) — which should be no surprise given the long history between Morris and Malzahn; and
  3. It’s extremely simple to the point where there’s really just not that much there, as the whole philosophy is to keep it simple so it can all be run extremely fast.

I will admit to my biases in that, while I am always a proponent of simplicity, the sophistication of the passing game in this playbook — or, frankly, from much of Clemson’s film — leaves me a bit cold. Now, as I mentioned, Clemson’s staff has done a nice job adding more to the passing game to better feature Deshaun Watson’s skills, and there’s no reason for Clemson to drop in 500 of Bill Walsh’s favorite pass plays into the middle of a very streamlined, tightly organized offense, but it’s clear that the goal of Clemson’s offense is to make you defend Clemson’s tempo, formations, runs, “shot play” play-action passes behind your secondary and individual one-on-one matchups in the passing game, and only then do you worry about specific pass game concepts.

That said, there is some cool stuff in there in terms of the running game itself as well as packaged plays/run-pass options, such as the below play which combines inside zone with a simplified form of the “Levels” pass play that Peyton Manning made famous:

But in terms of the passing game the most sophisticated things I notice — again, both from watching Clemson and from the playbook — involve staple concepts like Snag where the QB can either read the three playside receivers or make a pre-snap decision to work the backside receiver one-on-one, as shown in the below diagram from the playbook.

There are also a limited number of “coverage reads” in Clemson’s offense, such as the below which combines a slant/flat concept (good against single safety coverages like Cover 1 man and Cover 3 zone) and double slants (good against 2 deep coverages like Cover 2 and Cover 2 man).

If I sound overly critical I don’t mean to be; if anything it’s a testament to the job Dabo Swinney has done building a program over a playbook, and ultimately wins and losses being about players over plays. That said, when you play against the best teams, players and coaches you need to bring your best stuff — and have the right answers when your opponent brings theirs.

The Art of Smart Football and The Essential Smart Football for 99 cents. Amazon is currently running a Kindle special on my books, The Art of Smart Football and The Essential Smart Football; both are currently only 99 cents for Kindle.

Lamar Jackson’s passing. Louisville quarterback and Heisman trophy winner Lamar Jackson is electric, tough, and just plain exciting, but no one is going to confuse him just yet for Tom Brady or Peyton Manning. But he’s also not Tim Tebow, as he has a tremendous amount of raw passing talent and fabulous arm strength (seriously, watch this throw), and he’s been growing and improving by leaps in bounds not only in his accuracy but also his footwork and reads. Jackson has at least one more year at Louisville to learn and develop in Bobby Petrino’s offense — as well as a matchup against LSU’s excellent defense to show his stuff — and I’m looking forward to seeing how another offseason and fall camp benefits him in terms of continuing to improve how he reads defenses, identifies blitzes and coverages and finds secondary and tertiary receivers. I put together a short clip on the Smart Football Instagram page earlier this season showing the early signs of his development; hopefully these trends continue.

The psychology of trick plays. Washington head coach Chris Petersen is — somewhat rightly, somewhat unfairly — branded as a “trick play coach,” largely because of his Boise State team’s amazing last second heroics against Oklahoma in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl. The New York Times (with a slight assist from some blogger) delves into the psychology of trick plays, when to use them and how they really benefit a team. Also, Lindsay Schnell at SI did a great piece on the history of that Boise State/Oklahoma game, and it’s also never a bad time to revisit those three crazy plays that led to a Boise win.

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Smart Notes — Harbaugh’s Coaches Clinic, Mouse Davis R&S Tapes, Twitter, Toenail Fungus

Clinic season. Springtime is when coaches get together and — to some extent against their own interests (though not entirely) — share information on the ins and outs of their schemes, personnel strategies and general program management. Sometimes this involves one staff visiting another, but the backbone are the clinics, where (typically) college and sometimes NFL coaches give presentations to (typically) high school and small school coaches. There’s an entire ecosystem around these, both as informal job fairs and also as increasingly corporatized events, but they remain tremendously valuable sources of information (even though coaches are more guarded in the age of the internet than they used to be) and an area where the culture of football coaching culture remains unique.

Just three guys talkin' ball

Just three guys talkin’ ball

While most of the name clinics are sponsored by coaches organizations or big companies such as Nike, many individual schools hold annual clinics, largely as a recruiting tool for the local high school coaches. Of course, anytime there’s a recruiting angle involved, you know Jim Harbaugh is going to up the ante, and his Michigan coaches clinic assembled a great roster of speakers — his brother John Harbaugh, Art Briles, Mike Martz, Teryl Austin, Dean Pees, etc. I wasn’t able to attend this year but fortunately another tradition in the coaching community involves the sharing of clinic notes. And, first, James Light picked up some interesting tidbits throughout, beginning with the joint panel with Jim and John Harbaugh and their father, longtime coach Jack Harbaugh (mgoblog has a full transcript of the panel here):

Jim Harbaugh – Coach Harbaugh talked about the type of coaches they’re looking for. Experts in their field. High character people that represent Michigan. Great motivators. Positive energy. Coach Harbaugh also talked about how to spot coaches that they don’t want. He doesn’t want people on his staff that “Coach like Costanza.” He talked about a Seinfeld episode where George reasoned that if you act frustrated and angry, everyone will assume you’re working harder. Doesn’t want coaches who are standoffish. Most times those coaches pretend to know everything because they’re afraid of getting exposed. Don’t be afraid to say I don’t know, but let’s work together to figure it out.

John Harbaugh – John went through a few of the staples of his coaching philosophy

  • Build it the way you believe in. Not what you think someone else wants. They’ll run you out either way.
  • Don’t do the job to keep the job. Do what you believe is right.
  • Coaches compete everyday. With each other (game plan) and against each other (practice)
  • Never stop learning, you can always get better. He talked about how he picked up some power run game ideas from one of the high school speakers, Akron Hoban (OH) Head Coach Tim Tyrrell.
  • It’s not about what you can’t do. Find what you can do. There is opportunity in everything and everywhere. He mentioned a free agent that they lost recently. Rather than dwelling on the loss, Coach Harbaugh said “We’ve got a different path now. Different opportunity. Maybe we can add another pass rusher now, or rebuild the OL to run some different schemes. Find a way.”
  • Football provides an opportunity that no other sport can. Everyone can be a part of the team and contribute in some type of meaningful way, scout team etc. Roster isn’t limited like basketball or baseball.

James Light also has good stuff from Detroit Lions defensive coordinator Teryl Austin (Austin: “We encourage good body language. Bad body language… fosters resent and divineness.” Light: “[Austin] use[d] specific plays from film as examples of bad body language to convey the point…. Coach Austin pointed out the reaction of Louis Delmas after the touchdown. That was the type of body language that they won’t tolerate…. It creates dissension within the team and shows weakness to the opponent.”) and new Michigan defensive coordinator Don Brown:

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Smart Notes — Christian McCaffrey’s Halfback Option, Holgorsen’s Power Football, Belichick on Marv Levy, Emory & Henry Formation

McCaffrey’s Y-Stick, Halfback Option

Stanford’s Christian McCaffrey narrowly missed out on the Heisman trophy in one of the most competitive races in recent years, as McCaffrey, Clemson’s Deshaun Watson and Alabama’s Derrick Henry each had remarkable seasons, with Henry taking home the trophy. But McCaffrey might be the most intriguing one of the bunch as he has tremendous skills but I’m still wrapping my mind around how he projects to the NFL, as while he weighs only around 205 pounds (by contrast, Rams rookie Todd Gurley is 225 pounds), he has preternatural agility and quickness, yet has thrived in Stanford’s bruising, power based system while rushing for 1,847 yards. But what makes McCaffrey truly special to me are his special skills as a receiver.

christian

Of course, McCaffrey has the pedigree of an outstanding “space player“: McCaffrey’s father was Ed McCaffrey, a thirteen year NFL veteran wide receiver (who could really ball); his grandfather, Dave Sime, was “ranked one of the fastest humans of all time“, won an Olympic silver medal in the 100 meter dash and at one point held the world record in the 100 meter dash; and his mother, Lisa, was a soccer player at Stanford who once (jokingly?) told Sports Illustrated, “That’s why Ed and I got together — so we could breed fast white guys.”

But it’s not just that McCaffrey is great in the open field, a fact evidenced by his insane 3,469 all purpose yards, which broke the record set by none other than Barry Sanders. McCaffrey also has a tremendous feel for the passing game and for running routes, as evidenced by how often Stanford used him in their “HBO” or “half-back option” schemes.

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Smart Notes – Defending Packaged Plays, Baylor’s Lazy Offense, Buck Sweep, Murder

Defending Packaged Plays.

Packaged plays are among the most deadly tools in the modern offense’s arsenal. These plays, sometimes also referred to as run-pass options, combine different types of plays into one while giving the QB the option to choose; they are a type of read-option that don’t require the QB to run the ball at all. They started years ago with combining inside runs with a built-in bubble screen, but they have grown and expanded over recent years and now frequently feature running plays — complete with the offensive line blocking for the run — with downfield passing routes designed to be open if the defense plays the run, which in turn keeps them honest and thus opens up the run.

This is why just about every team in college football now uses these plays, with teams as diverse as Baylor and Alabama alike profiting from them, and in the NFL the Steelers, Patriots, Eagles, Packers and many others have been using packaged plays repeatedly. And when they work, they are awful pretty.

run slant

Yet, like anything else new, defenses are getting better at defending packaged plays. Their purpose is to isolate a defender who is responsible for both the run and the pass, such as a safety or a linebacker, to put him in conflict, and to make him wrong. But if the defense simplifies itself and defines who is doing what — in other words, playing man-to-man coverage in the secondary while committing everyone else to the run — then there is no conflict and hence no read, and the defense should have numbers to defend the run. This is a sound response, and the rise of packaged plays is one reason defenses are playing more and more man coverage.

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College Football Playoff: Should the Committee Pick the “Best” or the “Most Deserving” Teams?

While the College Football Playoff is an improvement over the old BCS system it, unsurprisingly, has not done away with controversy or debate regarding the identities of the top teams in the country. The College Football Playoff Selection Committee released their first ranking today, and the predictable result was a lot of back and forth on television and online regarding what the committee got right and what it got wrong. The problem is not the fact of the arguing — quite nakedly, engendering “debate” is the sole purpose of releasing ineffectual rankings rather than waiting to release the ones that matter — it’s that the arguments usually involve people talking past each other.

There’s nothing wrong with this opinion; indeed, it’s probably even in some circumstances correct: some people do think that a team being undefeated means it’s good enough to beat any team that isn’t. But that’s probably a minority view, and if someone is ranking the undefeated team over the one or two loss team it’s probably not because they necessarily think the undefeated team would beat the other team it’s that, being undefeated, they deserve being in the playoff more than a team with a loss.

Most people don’t always express their arguments in these terms — “best team” versus “most deserving” — but that’s essentially all it comes down to. This tension is why the playoff, despite being an improvement over the BCS, is not a panacea, either. I wrote about all of this for Grantland right after the end of the BCS era, and, two years into the College Footbal Playoff experiment, I continue to stand by every word:

The larger issue is figuring out how we should determine a sport’s “champion.” The wildly unpopular BCS was one method, while the new College Football Playoff will be another, but I’m referring to something more fundamental: What criteria should we use to determine who gets the title?

One answer is that the champion should be the season’s “best team,” possibly defined as the best overall team or the team we think would be favored to beat every other team on a neutral field. Another answer is the “most deserving team,” loosely defined as the team that produced the best overall season. These two things are not always the same. It’s perfectly possible for the best team — i.e., the most formidable — to lose a close game or even two on a bad kick or a fluke play, while another team runs the table by winning close games.

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New Grantland (Shootaround): Alabama’s Spread Offense and Requiem for Mike Leach

I participated in Grantland’s shootaround following week one of the college football season, and I wrote about Alabama potentially embracing the spread offense and the inauspicious start to the season by Washington State under head coach Mike Leach. Some excerpts:

But Saban also likes winning, and after troubling losses to Texas A&M in 2012, Auburn in 2013, and Ohio State in 2014 — plus limited sympathy for his public complaints — it appears that he’s settled on an “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” approach. Alabama’s offensive transformation began two years ago and took a big step forward last season under new offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin, with the Crimson Tide setting school records in numerous categories. But the Tide’s Week 1 win over Wisconsin was the best evidence yet that Saban is a spread offense convert in practice, if not entirely in spirit.

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Smart Football Round-Up 9/2/2015

In connection with the start of the season (and the new book), I’ve been doing some Q&As and podcasts. Below are some links:

  • Solid Verbal Podcast: Talking defense and the start of the college football season with Dan Rubenstein.
  • RotoViz Radio: A fun discussion with Josh Norris and Matthew Freedman about trends in the NFL, quarterback reads and progressions and the potential of some young receivers.
  • AndtheValleyShook Q&A: Q&A with Billy Gomila on LSU’s new defense, pro-style versus spread and college football trends.
  • The Oklahoman Q&A: A Q&A with Jason Kersey regarding the Big 12, Oklahoma, and the Air Raid offense Lincoln Riley is bringing to Norman.

Amazon drops Kindle price of The Art of Smart Football to 99 cents

Amazon has dropped the price of the Kindle edition of my new book, The Art of Smart Football, to 99 cents.

My old book, The Essential Smart Football, is also only 99 cents right now. Note that you can read Kindle books on non-Kindle devices by downloading the free Kindle app for your computer or for iOS or Android.

The Smart Football Glossary

Football is bathed in jargon. Other sports have their wonky terms but anyone who even casually watches a football game is bombarded with a cascade of code words, while even experienced fans usually can’t make heads or tails of what coaches and players say to each other on the sidelines. Some of this is inherent in a game made up of a few seconds of action interrupted by breaks for communication. And the phenomenon of platooning — where offensive players don’t play defense and vice versa — creates additional opportunities for coaches and players to communicate, and, like any other pressure filled profession, from the armed forces to medicine, communication in these circumstances is condensed so that the most information is conveyed in the fewest syllables.

wordcloud1All too often, however, discussing even the most rudimentary and fundamental football concepts is needlessly offputting, something exacerbated as too many announcers and analysts use streams of buzzwords to sound intelligent without actually conveying any information (something I try very hard to not do, though undoubtedly with inconsistent success). Unless you’re sitting on an NFL sideline trying to tell your position coach what the defense is doing, you are better off using as little jargon as possible and instead trying to explain what you see in English.

But in football, terminology is often destiny, and some terms have become so ingrained that being familiar with them is critical for any intelligent fan; on the other hand, others have become so misused that using them actually deters rather than enhances understanding. The goal of this football glossary is simply to unpack a limited set of football buzzwords in a way that will make watching games on Saturday and Sunday more enjoyable. The important thing, however, is not to focus on the terms but instead on the explanations: if we’re all on the same page with those, the names we given the underlying ideas — whether you call it Smash, China or Shakes — what we end up calling it is simply detail, not substance. I’m sure your high school coach had his own name for each of these below.

Arm Talent: A notorious bit of scout-speak that is either a pseudo-scientific way to describe something obvious (“That quarterback has a strong, accurate arm”) or an extremely clumsy way to describe something better served with colloqiual english (“He has the ability to throw the ball from different angles to avoid oncoming rushers and still find an open throwing lane through which he can deliver the football”).

Bang 8 Post: A particular version of the “skinny post” or “glance” routes, the “Bang 8” or “Bang 8 Post” was developed by former San Diego Chargers head coach Don Coryell and calls for the receiver to run seven-steps straight downfield before breaking inside at an angle. The particular angle the receiver takes, however, depends on the leverage of the defender covering him: the receiver’s job is to take whatever angle is necessary to ensure he is between the quarterback and the nearest defender. (“8” is the number for a post in the Coryell route tree, see “Route Tree” below.) “Bang” indicates that the route is not thrown as a deep bomb but instead is a rhythm throw thrown by the quarterback on rhythm as soon as he hit the fifth step in his dropback. Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin of the Cowboys ran the Bang 8 better than anyone in NFL history:

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Audio Round-up — The Art of Smart Football

I’ve spent the last few days doing a few selected podcasts and radio hits (and there’s more to come). They were all fun; links are below.

It also looks like Amazon has dropped the price on the paperback copy of The Art of Smart Football to $8.99 and the Kindle edition to $6.99.