Comments on: Smart Notes 10/2/09

By: Jeremy Reed

Jeremy Reed — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:53:16 +0000

Not wrong to steal signs. That’s up to the team to find ways to keep them encrypted. In fact, if a team is good with their signals, they hope that someone wastes time trying to steal signals.

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:11:54 +0000

St X – Trinity is tomorrow. It is played in Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium, so playing it tonight might cause problems with the Louisville-Pitt game.

Having 22 extra players on the field running interference might help Louisville against Pitt though.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:51:14 +0000

tristan: I haven’t written much about Iowa because I agree they are kind of “surface level boring,” meaning nothing wacky jumps at you. But that doesn’t mean a closer look wouldn’t be a bad idea. Ferentz has a sound football mind and their ability to hang with the big boys typically and produce solid if unspectacular squads based on medium level talent implies that they are at least coaching their guys well. I’ll do some hunting and find some stuff out at some point. If they keep winning I’ll definitely end up covering what they do, at least defensively.

By: tristan

tristan — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:48:10 +0000

Chris, is there anything worth writing about in regards to Iowa. I wanna sound smart when I talk about the Hawkeye’s, but so much of what gets around about Iowa is about how boring they are. There’s always controversy about whether Offensive Coordinator Ken O’Keefe is good or bad, or what he is really up to. Norm Parker’s defense is always in the top half of 1-a in statistics, even though every team knows whats coming before the game even starts. I searched the blog and the old site for any articles on Iowa, but couldn’t find any.

By: Ross

Ross — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:55:41 +0000

Chris-

Good note on Tressel, I think you would be surprised by how much OSU’s offense has changed since USC. They were in the shotgun 95% of the time against Illinois. And even more significant then that, they actually focused almost entirely on using a series of plays that worked together off the initial zone read, action, including constraint plays. That is, they would run the initial zone read, with the H-Back blocking back across the formation, just as you described Michigan doing. But off of that, they would run what was essentially a counter sprint draw, with the linemen and RB taking initial zone steps. The H-Back would come backside to block, but he would then fold up onto the backside ILB. The running back would then counter back and follow his block. Illinois had no answer for this all day. Then off of both these actions, they ran bootlegs, both a designed run and a weak flood pass for Pryor, where the H-Back would continue on past the backside DE and either seal for Pryor running, or release into the weak flat.

It was quite a change to see OSU running really a series of plays where the Defense could not tell what was coming based on the initial action and where they attacked the whole field, rather then a hodge podge of plays from various formations. It will be interesting to see where they go from here…