First, a quick write up regarding my trip to Baylor last week, which I’ll get into more on the podcast that will be coming this weekend.
My apologies for those waiting on #MooresLaw2, but I spent much of my time in Texas taking notes and actually preparing the format that I’m going to use for the podcast. I needed the bit of a brain break that I got over the last two weeks in Texas. With all the stuff I have going on right now trying to finish Caponomics and launch a podcast at the same time, while still trying to create some articles for Over The Cap, I needed to get out of Jersey, get off the computer and experience somewhere else.
I’ve finally created a bit of a format for myself on the podcast and you can expect a lot more Caponomics on this podcast as I’ve started to use my personal notes for the podcast as a place where I gather the notes for each team that I will use throughout the year to project things and then look back after the season. Andrew Wright, my awesome Aussie apprentice, is in the process of putting together the 2015 Excel sheets for every team, which will help me get deeper into the Caponomics conversations.
This podcast should take off with all the Caponomics stuff we can discuss, so I really look forward to sharing this with you. There are many other issues we’ll get into, but I’m excited to start at Caponomics.
If you want to be a part of the Caponomics and #MooresLaw podcast e-mail list, e-mail Caponomics at Gmail(dot)com.
If you work for an NFL, college team (or even another sport), please feel free to contact me regarding meeting if you’re coming to the NYC area to play the Jets, Giants, Patriots, Eagles, etc. I’ve been having wonderful conversations with various teams the last few months and it’s been great to exchange ideas with some NFL minds that I really, really admire. So if you’d be interested in grabbing a cup of coffee, I’m usually available to meet.
As I told someone recently, in the process of writing this Caponomics book and developing these ideas, I want to talk to people in NFL front offices, so that I can figure out if some ideas that I have line up with what real decision makers are thinking.
Of course, I won’t write about what we discuss on here, I’m just looking to take advantage of the opportunity to meet people who are going to make me smarter.
Art Briles and Baylor’s Offense…
Man, that was a lot of fun to watch on Saturday as Baylor gave West Virginia a real beat down in the third quarter that reminded me of the offense that Tweeder or whoever drew up in Varsity Blues. They even use a big guy like they used Billy Bob. Seriously…is Varsity Blues about Art Briles?
So this was the basic formation that Baylor used to pull away in the third quarter, the one that reminds me of Varsity Blues and that spread formation they used with four on one side and Tweeder on the other, taking advantage of a one-on-one match-up as the team’s best receiver.
This created “constraint” plays of a bubble or smoke screen to the three receiver side, a read option by the quarterback and running back with a guy like Corey Coleman facing someone one-on-one on the outside. So in this formation, Seth Russell has three or four options of what to do with the football. He can throw to the three receiver side, he can hand it off, keep it or throw to Coleman, or someone else, one-on-one.
Russell even became the only Baylor QB other than RG3 to throw for 300 yards and run for 100 on the day as spread formations like this one allow him to take off for huge runs. This is the future of the spread offense, formations that S P R E A D the defense and allow you to gash them in the holes that are created with the athletes you have on the field.
What I love to do with coaches now after this offseason of Caponomics study is study their history, so I looked at Art Briles, someone I didn’t know much about and found a gold mine of information that allows me to start to put myself in his shoes and try to imagine how he developed his offensive system and philosophies. Most of this comes from his Wikipedia
Here’s a great Sporting News article on the Baylor offense by Matt Hayes, with some great takeaways below:
So taking in the ideas from both the Wikipedia on his background and then that second article, it leads me into the conversation about how a coach creates his system and why I find that to be so important to know their back story, so you can understand what they’re trying to build. With all that information, we know that Briles started as a more run oriented offensive guy, but was able to see the potential in the spread all the way back in the 1990s. While he surely became more of a passing coach when he moved to the spread, that emphasis on running proves to be really the key to all of the successful spreads of 2015. As I’ve said many times before, the West Coast spreads defenses horizontally, the Air Coryell spreads them vertically and the spread spreads them in every direction. To take advantage of a defense that is spread in every direction, you have to be able to run the football and having a mobile quarterback only adds to the craziness and the stress that’s on a defense.
Another interesting aspect of Texas college football? Considering the competition within the state for recruits, every college team has their own thing, their own thing that entices recruits. It’s a very interesting example of competition.
There is much more to discuss regarding Baylor’s offense and what Art Briles has built there, so I hope you’ll tune in and listen to #MooresLaw2! I’ll be digging into what this all means for Briles, Baylor, the Big 12, Texas football, and so much more. Really looking forward to diving into the audio format as I think it will give me a lot more freedom to explore various ideas and delve into more topics than I could ever get to here.
I look forward to sharing this with you over on SoundCloud.
Tweet me: @ZackMooreNFL
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