Uptempo Offenses, TOP, and Defense

[huskerinacaveman]

A question that has been bouncing between the ears the last year or so is....

If you have an Uptempo Offense, are you more likely to have a bad defense?

I haven't compiled stats from any year other than this year, This is what I found..

Here is kind of a key when looking at this, and how I based everything

Green = Good

Red = Bad

High Time of Possession (TOP) is Good, Low is Bad

Low Opponent Time of Possession is Good, High is bad

High Number of plays on Offense is Good, Low is Bad

Low Number of plays on Defense is good, High is Bad

Uptempo-TOP-Defense.pdf

As you can see the top 25 defensive teams have a lot more green than red.

Though the bottom 25 defensive teams are not quite as red.

I wish I could throw this up as excel so someone might have different information to throw in it and maybe get a different set of results, but it doesn't allow me too.

 

[huKSer]

ooo pretty colors!

 

[deedsker]

If you run a hurry up offense, your defense will be on the field longer. This means more opportunities for the other team to score.

If you run a slow TOP offense, your defense will be on the field less. This means your defense must be more efficient in stopping the other team.

 

[huskerinacaveman]

ooo pretty colors!

Should I have added yellow?

 

[walksalone]

If you run a hurry up offense, your defense will be on the field longer. This means more opportunities for the other team to score.

If you run a slow TOP offense, your defense will be on the field less. This means your defense must be more efficient in stopping the other team.

f*ckin' a...

 

[Sparker]

If you run a hurry up offense, your defense will be on the field longer. This means more opportunities for the other team to score.

If you run a slow TOP offense, your defense will be on the field less. This means your defense must be more efficient in stopping the other team.

More in a single game, yes, but stating it like that makes it sound like the other team gains an advantage. They don't. Both teams will have more opportunities to score.

 

[NU5XChamps]

As long as your defense is conditioned for the up tempo your going to be okay. The Ducks run one of the fastest schemes in the game and their defense isn't that bad. Comes down to conditioning. This is an area many of us fans have been questioning for some time.

 

[huskerinacaveman]

As long as your defense is conditioned for the up tempo your going to be okay. The Ducks run one of the fastest schemes in the game and their defense isn't that bad. Comes down to conditioning. This is an area many of us fans have been questioning for some time.

yeah, but the Pac-12 also among the worse in conference when it comes to offensive play. Stanford, Oregon State, USC, Arizona State, Washington, Washington State are all in the bottom half in total offense.

A conference like the B-12 has 6 or their 10 teams in the bottom half of the defensive rankings and most of those offenses are an uptempo O

 

[NUance]

If you run a hurry up offense, your defense will be on the field longer. This means more opportunities for the other team to score.

If you run a slow TOP offense, your defense will be on the field less. This means your defense must be more efficient in stopping the other team.

More in a single game, yes, but stating it like that makes it sound like the other team gains an advantage. They don't. Both teams will have more opportunities to score.

But what about a "hurry up" offense like we run? Where the offense gets up to the line right away, but then checks down and changes the play. Often waiting until just a few seconds on the clock to take the snap. Seems like we have the best of both with it. The defense can't substitute, while we get to see the alignment before calling a play.

 

[Mavric]

I compared the discrepancy between the offensive rankings and defensive rankings this year in both points and yards. It's tough to know what the ratio of spread to traditional should be without knowing the overall ratio in college football but here goes.

Teams that were much better on offense than defense in terms of points (difference in ranking in parenthesis):

Indiana (96), Texas A&M (83), New Mexico (78), Fresno St. (76), Troy (75), Oregon St. (65), Texas Tech (64), Georgia (62), Wyoming (58), San Jose St. (58)

Teams that were much better on offense than defense in terms of yards:

Indiana (113), Texas A&M (102), Wyoming (92), California (92), Fresno St. (89), San Jose St. (89), Troy (86), Northern Illinois (86), Auburn (78), Texas Tech (73)

Teams that were much better on defense than offense in terms of points:

Florida (96), Virginia Tech (88), Wake Forest (77), Tulane (69), Memphis (68), Iowa (63), Michigan St. (56), Minnesota (53), Florida Atlantic (53), Louisiana Tech (50)

Teams that were much better on defense than offense in terms of yards:

Florida (105), South Florida (101), Virginia Tech (95), Tulane (92), Wake Forest (87), Michigan St. (81), TCU (78), Memphis (77), Iowa (74), Florida Atlantic (71)

Again, it's tough to know what the ratios should be but it definitely seems that the teams that are much better on offense tend to be spread, up-tempo teams and teams better on defense tend to be more traditional offenses. However, as was pointed out earlier, a more traditional, slow-tempo offense leads to fewer plays and thus (presumably) fewer yards and points so they would have less opportunity to have as much of a difference in yards and points. The offensive list seems to include fewer good teams but being that much better on defense was no guarantee of success either.

 

[deedsker]

If you run a hurry up offense, your defense will be on the field longer. This means more opportunities for the other team to score.

If you run a slow TOP offense, your defense will be on the field less. This means your defense must be more efficient in stopping the other team.

More in a single game, yes, but stating it like that makes it sound like the other team gains an advantage. They don't. Both teams will have more opportunities to score.

But what about a "hurry up" offense like we run? Where the offense gets up to the line right away, but then checks down and changes the play. Often waiting until just a few seconds on the clock to take the snap. Seems like we have the best of both with it. The defense can't substitute, while we get to see the alignment before calling a play.

I was commenting on quick passing, no huddle, hike the ball as fast as you can (see Oregon, Arizona, etc.). You run your offense in a way that allows you to score as many times as possible and allows both teams to possess the ball more times. This means your defense, even when you score, are on the field more often. However, because both teams have more possessions, your defense does not have to be as statistically superior to allow you to win. They do still have to be more efficient than the other teams defense is at stopping your offense (minus turnovers and special teams touchdowns that create alternative ways to look terrible and still win.)

When you run a ball control offense and milk the clock throughout the game, you provide less possessions for both teams which means fewer snaps and lower overall statistics. You still have to be more efficient at stopping the other team than they are at stopping you (see note above).

It comes down to how many opportunities you want the game to come down to. This is generally why a TOP offense is paired with an exceptional defense. You believe your defense will win most battles and want to limit the number of possessions the other team has to break them. Hurry up offenses tend to pair with lower performing defenses as a way to maximize their attempts at stopping the other team when you feel your offense will score almost every time they hit the field.

Also, Nebraska's way of running a hurry up offense is great for ensuring a personnel mismatch, but doesn't bring the schematic mismatch that a true hurry up offers. Nebraska, when not substituting, does ensure that the defense will have difficulty switching personnel, but does allow time for coverage changes and other adjustments from the coaches. This means coverages can change between plays and may not create vanilla play calling. Hurry up offense that hike the ball as quickly as possible, while not substituting, create difficult situations for both the inability to switch personnel, as well as, not allow much changes in coverage between plays. There is limited time for the defense to both align itself and get information from the sideline.

 

[Ulty]

Wasn't it 2008 when the defense was struggling, so Pelini and Watson changed the offensive scheme to more of a ball control/clock management style to give the D a break? IIRC, that change happened after a couple of blowouts, and we immediately became a team that took a top 5 Texas Tech squad to the brink and then finished on a great winning streak. The ball control idea then seemed to really help the defense.

I now often wonder, when we do an up-tempo, hurry-up style or whatever the current offensive identity is, if we would have fewer procedure penalties and turnovers if the offense slowed it down and had a moment to focus before each play. Yeah, the quicker tempo is supposed to keep defenses from making quick adjustments, but so often when we shoot ourselves in the foot, I'd rather tone it down just to see if it would translate to better fundamental football. Might help the D get more of a break too.

Then again, I know almost nothing about X's and O's. I just know I don't like sloppiness at any tempo.

 

[Hoosker]

You'd think with Bo being a defensive coach, he'd rather have an offense similar to Sparty or Wisconsin instead of Oregon.

It sure as hell would help with the turnover problem that has plagued us.

 

[huskerinacaveman]

You'd think with Bo being a defensive coach, he'd rather have an offense similar to Sparty or Wisconsin instead of Oregon.

It sure as hell would help with the turnover problem that has plagued us.

I have thought the same thing. It seems like the offense that we have now tries to highlight the better parts of many offenses.

Kind of uptempo, generally uses the clock, Can be a quick strike offense. Efficiency is the key problem, and if we could increase our points per possession we could have a really really formidable offense. Include a top 25 defense and we could be a very good team.

So maybe we are on to something, and it is just taking time to find the right mix to smooth it out..

Gives me a lot of hope for the future.

 

[Danimal]

We run a no-huddle, but not so much of a hurry-up. I'd say when TOP becomes an issue it's more a product of our garbage turnover-ratio. Just one more way that it kills us.