Hmmm, I thought this remark by Wats was interesting

[brophog]

In some many words, I think that the spread places too much of a premium on QBs.

You take just about any team and lose the starting QB and you're in for a world of hurt. Just look at all of the stupid rules the NFL has made up to protect QB's, and the majority of those offenses are just about as far from what you're describing as we can get in today's day and age. Even in a "balanced" offense, when the star QB goes down the team's season in all likelihood goes down with it.

You name your offense and you lose the QB and your offense likely went splat. If you have the road graters up front to pop off 5 yds a carry you can get by, but very few teams historically can do that against even competition.

The benefit of so many of these college offensive structures we see today is they take the premium off of having a top QB, rather than the other way around. You don't need the physical skills at that position because you're creating mismatches and easy throws through concept passing. Where your examples got hurt is in terms of reps that those QBs saw. That's independent of the offense. Take a 4 year starting QB out of the game and pop in a frosh and your offense goes to a crawl.

 

[brophog]

Spread - to open to a fuller extent.

The spread is a concept of putting people on "islands", meaning use the whole field and get playmakers in one-on-one situations more frequently. You can run from the spread AND you can pass from the spread.

Spread - an adjective to describe formations... in my opinion.

Roast away...

I have no desire to roast you. :cheers

However, let's play with these definitions a bit.

Which formations are we describing? We could be in 22 personnel, with one lone receiver at the wide sideline. Is that a "spread" formation? He's certainly on an island.

What about a jumbo set, but with the Backs and TE's running outside releases. That's going to create a lot of space and "spreads" the field. Is that a spread formation?

What about your stereotypical Pro Set, 21 personnel, with each WR in a wide split? Is that a spread formation?

What about Tight Trips RT, X receiver in a wide split? Is this a spread formation?

I'm not picking on you.......it's a tough descriptor, and therefore one I never use if I can help it. It's simply way, way too generic. Most people who use the term are not describing formations, but personnel groups (others are merely describing Shotgun oriented offenses vs those predominantly under center). If a team, regardless of offensive structure, is based out of 10 personnel then they tend to get the spread moniker. They could run nothing but power, counter, traps, IZ, and OZ and they'd still get that moniker just because of their base personnel......even though it would fly completely against what most associate with the term.

To get back to the original inquiry: My guess is Watson is referring to the Shotgun running game, and his reference is to a change in base personnel. There's no such thing as "spread running game" in coaching lingo.......that's mainstream talk there. He's trying to quickly take what they're doing and put it into mainstream language. The biggest difference in executing a run play comes in where the QB is lined up at because that changes your angles and your release vectors.

For instance, if we're running Power out of a 2RB Shotgun set vs a 2RB set from under center, the RB's angle drastically changes. In a Shotgun set he's coming across the formation to receive the handoff, from under center its a vertical release. There's no such change if we ran all of our plays from under center but in different formations. I'm taking context clues here, but the only way that statement makes any real sense is if he's differentiating the plays from a Shotgun set.