West Coast this, West Coast that

J

junior4949

All-American
Which of the elite teams actually runs the West Coast offense? When I hear of coaches and West Coast offense, the name Rick Neuhiesel comes to mind. He ruined the Colorado program, and was well on his way to ruining the Washington program. USC and Miami do somewhat run West Coast offenses, but hey they play in good conditions. Hell, Miami rarely ever even leaves the state.

Make no mistake about it, Oklahoma's offense is not a West Coast offense. Sure, they pass the ball more than the Nebraska of old. However, when they won their championship they had Quintin Griffin. Even Bob Stoopes will concede you need a stud at running back to win in the Big 12. Their runningback this year is a true freshman, and he was considered the best running back out of high school in the nation. You also need a mobile quarterback. This is what cost Oklahoma a championship last year. In my opinion, you need a Vincent Young type quarterback rather than a Jason White quarterback. Throwing quarterbacks who are extremely mobile who have good receivers and a stud running back have the best success.

When you have a running back who is averaging roughly 7 yards a carry, why continue passing the ball when your young quarterback has already thrown two interceptions? I always thought wins and losses meant a lot more to coaches than simply trying to prove a point. If Callahan thinks Dailey is having troubles now, wait until November when it's snowing, 20 degrees, and the wind is blowing 20 mph. If Dailey thinks these guys disguised their defense well, wait until we play Oklahoma.

I'm not against passing the ball, but come on. If we are successful passing the ball, by all means continue passing the ball. However, if passing is unsuccessful and running is successful then please run the ball.

 
West Coast offense comes in a variety of forms. There are not a lot of colleges that run the West Coast offense, because, of course, it is a PRO style offense. For a classic explanation of the west coast offense, try http://www.westcoastoffense.com/. If it is elite teams you want, try some of the Super Bowl champions of the last 10 years. This list is a couple years old, but

1. USC

2. BYU

3. CAL

4. Stanford

5. West Virginia

6. Texas

Good conditions? Lame excuse if you ask me. You can run and pass when it is colder.

If you didn't notice, Cory Ross had a great day saturday and Callahan did start running the ball more when the passing game just wasn't working out. But, you still can't be one dimensional anymore ala previous Husker teams IMO

 
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I see all of the teams you list are along the coast where they don't have "midwest" weather. Also, from the 6 teams listed in college; I would only consider 1 possibly 2 of them being elite teams.

Not a lot has changed in college football in the last 6 or 7 years. Tommie Frazier and Scott Frost couldn't pass very well at all, yet by golly we went undefeated those years winning National Championships. There have been a lot of one dimensional football teams win it all the past 10 years. Nebraska 3 out of the 10, Florida only passed and it won it all. When it comes right down to it, a team can be one dimensional and still win it all. It just takes the right personell and execution. Prior to the Frazier era, a lot of so called experts said Dr. T.O. would never win the big one because Nebraska just wasn't effective at passing. Yep, they were sure right because he didn't win one he won 3!

Some of the best coaches in either pro or college know you have to run the ball to be effective. Look at the Dallas cowboys or the Denver Broncos the past decade. They have been very successful because they won the trench war. You don't wear down a lot of defenses throwing the ball 42 times a game. The Baltimore Ravens won it all a few years back with a quarterback who was terrible. Yet, they had a great defense and an adequate running attack. These are pro teams in the past 10 years who have won, and quite frankly I don't see the fun and gun West Coast offense in any of these teams.

Quite frankly, I don't see the fun and gun West Coast offense at Texas any longer either. They have a very mobile quarterback, and they have a stud running back. The fun and gun with Sims, well that just worked out remarkably didn't it? One of the reasons most high school teams as well as college teams don't run the "pro style" offense is because they don't have the personell the pros do to run the offense. And, I don't think Nebraska has the pieces to run the offense either.

If you want to talk about great coaches and teams, you need to find the ones who took a team in shambles and made them into something. Our current coach was handed a Super Bowl caliber team, and he managed to mess it up in just two short years. Trust me, he's no Mike Shanahan, Bill Parcells, etc.

 
I see all of the teams you list are along the coast where they don't have "midwest" weather
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There is some validity to both of your points. Rain or the cold really won't bother a QB that much but rather the wind is the worst.

You also need a mobile quarterback
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No rather you need a smart quarterback, with great field awareness. Less than 50% of throws will be made when a QB has lots of time to set up and throw without interference. Which means most of the time, a QB has to move a step or two this way or shuffle up and over and then throw. You do not need Vick or Vince Young at all.

If Dailey thinks these guys disguised their defense well, wait until we play Oklahoma.
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Agree 100%, it's not even that they'll diguise there defense better but rather, those guys are going to cover more ground faster.

Good discussion

 
This is going to be a great week to test all those theories because of Hurricane Ivan it is suppose to rain hard the whole game.

Will the Huskers pass the weather test???

 
This is about the worst case scenario for a team trying with shaking the TO bug. :(

 
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***SNIP***
Not a lot has changed in college football in the last 6 or 7 years. Tommie Frazier and Scott Frost couldn't pass very well at all, yet by golly we went undefeated those years winning National Championships. There have been a lot of one dimensional football teams win it all the past 10 years. Nebraska 3 out of the 10, Florida only passed and it won it all. When it comes right down to it, a team can be one dimensional and still win it all. It just takes the right personell and execution. Prior to the Frazier era, a lot of so called experts said Dr. T.O. would never win the big one because Nebraska just wasn't effective at passing. Yep, they were sure right because he didn't win one he won 3!

Some of the best coaches in either pro or college know you have to run the ball to be effective. Look at the Dallas cowboys or the Denver Broncos the past decade. They have been very successful because they won the trench war. You don't wear down a lot of defenses throwing the ball 42 times a game. The Baltimore Ravens won it all a few years back with a quarterback who was terrible. Yet, they had a great defense and an adequate running attack. These are pro teams in the past 10 years who have won, and quite frankly I don't see the fun and gun West Coast offense in any of these teams.

***SNIP***
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The trouble with being one-dimensional on offense, though, is that you have to have superior players. In just about every example you cited, the team that won it all had clearly superior players. In Florida's case, the year they won it all they had perhaps their best, most dominate defense - something that they rarely had under Spurrier, who liked to put his best players on offense and basically ceded control of the defense to the corrodinator.

But when you use that formula, you run a real risk. A slight dip in talent - a key recruit lost, a key injury - and suddenly your personnel is not superior. At that point, you've basically taken yourself out of the national title picture.

Don't get me wrong - no one wins it all without excellent players. But if your offense is one dimensional, you become so dependent on having superior players that one lost player can cripple you. With a diversified offense, you have a fall back. Star running back goes down? Plug in the next best, and rely a bit more on the pass. Star receiver goes down? Continue to throw enough to keep the running lanes open, and hand it to the running back. Star quarterback goes down? Rely on the star receiver to catch less than perfect passes, and rely heavily on the running game.

In this regard, I look to Miami as the example. Year in and year out (with some exceptions, as will always happen) they tend to have a diversified attack. Drives defenses crazy - they never can be sure from which direction the attack will come. Florida State's best teams - the ones that have always been in the hunt - followed the same formula.

 
Balance IS the key. It's kind of funny that people seem to be so uncomfortable with us passing the ball - it's so foreign to us after 25 years of power option running.

Yes, we have many kinks in our passing game, but it will take these growing pains to eventually become proficient chucking the pig down the field.

 
***SNIP***
Not a lot has changed in college football in the last 6 or 7 years.  Tommie Frazier and Scott Frost couldn't pass very well at all, yet by golly we went undefeated those years winning National Championships.  There have been a lot of one dimensional football teams win it all the past 10 years.  Nebraska 3 out of the 10, Florida only passed and it won it all.  When it comes right down to it, a team can be one dimensional and still win it all.  It just takes the right personell and execution.  Prior to the Frazier era, a lot of so called experts said Dr. T.O. would never win the big one because Nebraska just wasn't effective at passing.  Yep, they were sure right because he didn't win one he won 3!

Some of the best coaches in either pro or college know you have to run the ball to be effective.  Look at the Dallas cowboys or the Denver Broncos the past decade.  They have been very successful because they won the trench war.  You don't wear down a lot of defenses throwing the ball 42 times a game.  The Baltimore Ravens won it all a few years back with a quarterback who was terrible.  Yet, they had a great defense and an adequate running attack.  These are pro teams in the past 10 years who have won, and quite frankly I don't see the fun and gun West Coast offense in any of these teams. 

***SNIP***
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The trouble with being one-dimensional on offense, though, is that you have to have superior players. In just about every example you cited, the team that won it all had clearly superior players. In Florida's case, the year they won it all they had perhaps their best, most dominate defense - something that they rarely had under Spurrier, who liked to put his best players on offense and basically ceded control of the defense to the corrodinator.

But when you use that formula, you run a real risk. A slight dip in talent - a key recruit lost, a key injury - and suddenly your personnel is not superior. At that point, you've basically taken yourself out of the national title picture.

Don't get me wrong - no one wins it all without excellent players. But if your offense is one dimensional, you become so dependent on having superior players that one lost player can cripple you. With a diversified offense, you have a fall back. Star running back goes down? Plug in the next best, and rely a bit more on the pass. Star receiver goes down? Continue to throw enough to keep the running lanes open, and hand it to the running back. Star quarterback goes down? Rely on the star receiver to catch less than perfect passes, and rely heavily on the running game.

In this regard, I look to Miami as the example. Year in and year out (with some exceptions, as will always happen) they tend to have a diversified attack. Drives defenses crazy - they never can be sure from which direction the attack will come. Florida State's best teams - the ones that have always been in the hunt - followed the same formula.
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:horns2

 
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