Power Spread and Zone Read

[jrj84105]

First, the pro style offense is dead.  Every team in the NFL has largely abandoned it for spread formations on most downs.  And there simply aren’t enough high school QBs running that system at a high enough level to even have the raw materials for developing a game-changing pro style QB at the college level.  And if Tuttle coildn’t beat out Huntley in our spread to pass offense, he certainly isn’t ready to run a more complicated prostyle offense.

Spread offenses can still play smash mouth run-first football.  But it requires running the zone read/read option with the QB.  Meyer has said that it is the basis for his entire offense and nothing works without it.  If the OC sees the zone read as a useful wrinkle (ARod) or a necessary evil (Taylor) than you can’t run a power spread offense.

Huntley is a good athlete but he makes bad reads in the zone read (see the clip posted below) and he is now gun shy about taking hits. We can be a power spread team this year.  We can even continue to use our entire playbook.  But it means refocusing the offense around the read option and switching to a QB who can actually run it.  It’s time for Shelley.

[EagleMountainUte]

I have more clips to. I am going to post them through the week. I think Huntley hasn’t improved at all. Covey is making him the starter. 

[WhiteyFisk]

A pro-style offense does require being able to go through a proper progression, which Huntley can’t do. But more than that, it requires being able to make more certain difficult throws, like a TE seam, skinny post etc. Tuttle may not be able to run a prostyle offense, at least not yet, but I do think he is/will be more capable of making pro-level throws, at least more so than Huntley. 

There are some schools that run a partial pro-style offense cause they have QBs that can do it. And it pays huge dividends for them as long as they have the O-line who can run or pass block from a 3-point stance. Last year Alabama was shutout for the first half of the NC with their running QB, but then came back, dominated, and won in the second half with Tua who can go through a progression and make pro-level throws. It does make a huge difference. Alabama got to the NC with Hurts, but that’s because the rest of their personnel is so outstanding. Utah doesn’t have that luxury. 

Utah has no chance of ever winning the South until it attempts to at least incorporate some pro-style offense. I think they should take their chance to develope Tuttle for an adapted playbook in the next 2-3 years. We simply don’t out-recruit the PAC-12 enough to afford not to. Even if Shelley runs it well, that only gets us 7-8 wins at most. In 2015 and 2016 seasons, we had to have a stellar defense, very good running backs, NFL quality Oline, a QB that ran the zone read better than Huntley, and almost perfect special teams just to get to 9 wins. Imagine if we actually would have had a true QB that can throw. 

[jrj84105]

I’m not going to agree with this.

You’re going to cite one half of Tua and ignore:

Deshaun Watson

Cardale Jones

Jameis Winston

Cam Newton

Alabama is the only school that can win it all playing prostyle football.

[WhiteyFisk]

The QBs you cited are basically freaks of nature, NFL level talent. Let me know when we recruit a Cam Newton or Deshaun Watson. By the way, know why these read-option QBs make it in the NFL? They can throw. Read-option doesn’t take you far unless you can throw as well. Why? because teams will go cover 3 and stack the box. And no, only throwing swing passes, screens, or quick outs doesn’t count as a true passing game. This is why I say we need to incorporate at least some pro-style philosphies. Auburn does that in addition to their college-style offense, that’s why they’re usually Bama’s closest competitor. 

I cite one half of Tua because it perfectly demonstrates that, no matter how good your recruiting is, a true pro passing game will be required to push you over the top. 

[jrj84105]

You can’t win with pro style alone unless the 11 guys you put on the field are decidedly better than the 11 guys the other guys field.  Utah will never recruit at that level.

I agree that you can’t win it all with a QB that only runs the ball.  But trying to recruit and develop pro style QBs is a feast or famine proposition. You grab some elite 11 guy, give him the reigns early because it takes 4 years to really develop him, recruit the position poorly for those years because you already have an entrenched starter, and pray that he doesn’t flop or get hurt.  for every 1 or 2 years that you have a healthy senior prostyle QB, you have a few decades of having a bad prostyle QB, which is a losing record unless you’re a blue blood.

Or you can recruit the athletic freaks (much easier to recognize them as HS prospects), build your offense around their running ability (which is easy to evaluate and  project), and load up your roster because you don’t need to play true freshmen to get them 4 years of game experienc.  Eventually one of these guys will also pick up the complexities of a more nuanced pass game and take you to the top.  And in the interim, you’re still decent every year with a predictable running game which is why building around the read option and athletic QBs is the answer for every non-blue blood college football program.

[UtMtBiker]

Didn’t take 4 years to develope Rossen, Darnold, Faulk, Browning, or Montez.  They’ve all had success and the read option is only an after thought in those offenses.  You can’t tell me Washington State, UCLA and Colorado are “Blueblood” programs.  

Recuiting “athletic freaks” to play QB and hoping one of them picks up the complexities of passing might be one of the worst recuiting strategies I’ve ever heard.  

 

[jrj84105]

How many conference championships do those teams have this decade?  I count zero.

[UtMtBiker]

You don’t count USC last year?  Or Stanford’s 3? 

 

[EagleMountainUte]

Stanford is the best example for what Utah could be. 

[WhiteyFisk]

I get what you’re saying, but I think you may have a warped perception of how many pro-style QBs there are in college football. Or how many have existed in the past, which is a lot more. You believe there are way fewer than there are.

But you do bring up a good point, so I guess I’d say the more important thing for Utah right now is not necessarily the offensive scheme, but first we need to get a QB who can actually throw accurately downfield. I hope Tuttle is that guy, after watching his film, he makes better throws than Huntley even in high school. 

Also, I never said he had to run a full pro-style offense. There are degrees and things don’t have to be as complicated as a pro pro-style offense, but even just asking a D1 QB to go through a progression is not asking too much in my opinion. They should be able to. I think the college QB has evolved in some aspects and devolved in others. One of the devolutions, besides losing the ability to check down, is the losing the ability to make certain throws.