Who gives a crap if college football causes a problem for pro scouts? The purpose of college football is to beat the pants off the team you are playing, not to display talent “properly” for NFL scouts. I hate pro football even more now.
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009 5:52 PM To: gatortalk googlegroups Subject: [gatortalk] RE: [gatornews] [NYTimes] Seeing Through the Smoke of Spread Offenses Dear Mr Hot Shot Pro Analyst, All you have to do is get the best athletes from college into the pros. Take a look at other Gator players running those same plays. How did they do? Now watch Harvin run the same plays. The differences are so HUGE - I'll bet even Kiffin can see them - without having to run his mouth and those other Gators could start for most other college teams. That's how special Percy Harvin is. Or you can talk with defensive coordinators from major college programs that played against Harvin. Ask them who was the best college football player they had to defend, other than Mr Tebow. Go Gators! Keith -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [gatornews] [NYTimes] Seeing Through the Smoke of Spread Offenses From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Date: Fri, April 17, 2009 5:29 pm To: [email protected] http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs_v3/fifthdown/fifthdown_post.png April 17, 2009, 10:00 am Seeing Through the Smoke of Spread Offenses By Mike Tanier <http://fifthdown.blogs.nytimes.com/author/mike-tanier/> Mike <http://footballoutsiders.com/info/meet> Tanier is a contributing editor at FootballOutsiders.com <http://footballoutsiders.com/> and a co-author of Pro Football Prospectus. <http://www.amazon.com/Pro-Football-Prospectus-2008-Essential/dp/0452289734> It’s Any Given Saturday in autumn, and the Florida Gators are beating up another hapless foe. Quarterback Tim Tebow takes a shotgun snap and fakes an inside handoff to Emmanuel Moody. Tebow then rolls to his right. Just when it seems as if the big quarterback is going to tuck and run, he floats a pass into the middle of the field, where Percy Harvin is completely uncovered on a shallow crossing route. Harvin catches the soft pass, makes a few cuts, and races for a touchdown. It’s an exciting play, and it’s a typical page out of Urban Meyer’s spread-option Florida playbook. Unfortunately, the play causes a major problem for scouts: it tells us almost nothing about Harvin’s N.F.L. potential. Spead-option offenses, like the one Meyer has perfected, use fakes and misdirection to stretch the defense so players like Harvin can get open. The scheme makes life easy for players. Too easy. In the example above, the fake to Moody draws a linebacker toward the line of scrimmage. The threat of a Tebow run draws another defender or two. That opens up the middle of the field for Harvin, who only has to drift into position. He doesn’t have to run a precise route or read the defensive coverage. He can simply rely on his raw athleticism and the design of the play itself. N.F.L. teams use fake draws, rollouts, and misdirection, too, but pro linebackers are faster and more capable of sniffing out fakes. To get open against an N.F.L. defense on the same shallow cross, Harvin might have to vary his route, slow down to sit in an empty zone, or even change his assignment completely to avoid the coverage. Scouts aren’t sure if he can do it, because he was rarely asked to do it in college. Wide-open spread offenses like the one used by Texas Tech pose similar problems. Michael Crabtree caught 233 passes for the Red Raiders in two years, and Graham Harrell threw for over 10,000 yards and 93 touchdowns in two years. Coach Mike Leach’s offense, however, bears little resemblance to an N.F.L. system. Harrell and Crabtree might connect on three or four “tunnel screens” per game: plays in which the wide receiver runs toward the quarterback to catch a short toss while other receivers create a “tunnel” of blocks. Such plays are a once-in-a-while wrinkle in the pros. Harrell and Crabtree also collaborated on lots of five-yard hitches: the receiver ran to a soft spot in the defensive zone coverage, and the quarterback delivered the pass just a split second after the snap. Such plays aren’t nearly as effective in the N.F.L., where defenders can read plays and close gaps more quickly. Crabtree won’t be able to drift into position against pro defenders: he’ll need precise footwork and technique to conceal his route and find a tiny patch of open turf. He may or may not have these refined skills. The problems caused by spread and spread-option offenses aren’t new, but they are becoming more prevalent every year. Few top wide receivers come from pro-style college offenses anymore. The spread-system problem gets worse when evaluating a lower-tier receiver like Austin Collie of Brigham Young or Marko Mitchell from Nevada, a team that runs a gadget-filled “Pistol” offense. Harvin and Crabtree at least have upper-echelon athleticism to offer. The spread conundrum doesn’t just affect receivers: despite his stats, Harrell is just a late-round prospect, and scouts are scratching their heads about what to do with Tebow when he leaves college. N.F.L. scouts have a few ways to see through the spread-offense smokescreen. They can concentrate solely on film of plays where the receivers were forced to run pro-style routes. They can interview the players and ask them to explain how to read a defense or alter a route. Analysts like me, reliant solely on television tape and the opinions of other experts, aren’t so lucky. We have no choice but to put a question mark next to Harvin, Crabtree and other receivers from pass-happy systems. They have so much to learn that their exceptional athleticism may not be enough. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY! 1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball Champions 2006 National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball Champions 2008 National Football Champions | Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier (1966), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Tim Tebow (2007) - Visit our website at www.gatornet.us -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
