Utah's Spread Option is Spreading

[Air Raid]

Looks like Oregon will be running an offensive system modeled after Utah's and Urban Meyer.....very interesting....

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=2050752

[djwill13]

i'm not surprised one bit. coaches see how effective a type of offense is and they copy it (putting thier own little twist on it of course). look at how successful meyer's been with it at both bowling green and utah. lord knows he's gonna perfect it even more with the athletes he's gonna have down at UF. very interesting stuff though Air

[mad_bomber]

I've also read where Missouri, New Mexico, and even Rice will use many of those Utah principles. Seemingly everywhere you look in college football, teams are spreading the field horizontally and vertically.

[kbell97]

once something works other teams will follow

[Run and Shoot]

The next step is bringing it to the NFL :) Does anyone here know how Meyer's system works? Can anyone diagram a typical Utah spread formation??? For example, below is a typical RNS formation.



wr..........t.....g.....c.....g....t.............. wr

.........w..............qb................y

..........................hb

[mad_bomber]

The next step is bringing it to the NFL :) Does anyone here know how Meyer's system works? Can anyone diagram a typical Utah spread formation??? For example, below is a typical RNS formation.



wr..........t.....g.....c.....g....t.............. wr

.........w..............qb................y

..........................hb

Shoot,

They're typically in the gun with four wide and five wides. They're usually in 2x2, 3x1, 3x2, and some two back gun sets. They generally will motion receivers from the line of scrimmage into the backfield and run the crazy and veer option game. They also run other typical spread run plays such as the qb wrap, counter trap, gun triple, zone read, etc.

[Run and Shoot]

Shoot,

They're typically in the gun with four wide and five wides. They're usually in 2x2, 3x1, 3x2, and some two back gun sets. They generally will motion receivers from the line of scrimmage into the backfield and run the crazy and veer option game. They also run other typical spread run plays such as the qb wrap, counter trap, gun triple, zone read, etc.


Personally, I don't like the veer option game (I don't see how FSU's Chris Leak is gonna do this since he's bassically a passing Qb)....how much do they do this. I thought Meyer's offense was more passing oriented.

[mad_bomber]

I've heard Urban Meyer and his former offensive coordinator (now UNLV head coach) Mike Sanford describe the offense as an option offense that has a sophisticated passing game. As for Chris Leak we'll just have to wait until this fall to see how the UF coaches use his talents. Who would've ever thought Alex Smith would be the ideal quarterback to run that offense? :o

[Air Raid]

..That's what it unique about this offense...the QB doesn't need to be fast but he has to be very smart with his decision making with the running game and very accurate with his arm.....I think Leak will live and die by his decision making....he has the athletic ability to run this offense, but he has to show he can make the right reads 90% of the time for UF to succeed....

...Shoot- Meyer's offense is actually more run oriented then passing oriented (last year was about 60% run 40% pass)....they use the veer option and crazy option along with the zone running game and QB run game to set up thier passing game....Like Bomber said it's more of an option offense with a passing game, then the other way around.....it's just unique in the fact that they can run the option from spread formations (including 5 Wide) which allows more options in the passing game...

[mad_bomber]

This article sheds some light into how Urban Meyer developed his version of the spread offense.

Article published Apr 9, 2005
Spreading wealth
Spread, option, multiple, whatever, let's see it go
In the spring of 2000, Notre Dame assistant coaches Urban Meyer and Dan Mullen hopped in a car and went in search of some wide-open, innovative offense. Their road took them to Louisville, Ky., where they spent two days with Louisville offensive coordinator Scott Linehan, studying his spread attack.

They returned to South Bend all fired up.

"We thought, 'Boy, this stuff really could be the future,' " Mullen said.

But Notre Dame, set in Bob Davie's conservative ways, was not ready for the future.

"We got to implement maybe one of the packages," Mullen said.

It was a much different story less than a year later, after Meyer was named the new head coach at Bowling Green and took Mullen to Ohio with him. That spring Meyer, Mullen and the rest of the new staff hit the road again, this time for an extended road trip.

They want back to Louisville for another look at Linehan's offense.

They went to West Virginia, where Rich Rodriguez was spreading the field and running the option.

They looked in on Northwestern, where Randy Walker's no-huddle spread offense (with lots of motion, misdirection and reverses) was mystifying defenses in the Big Ten.

They visited Purdue and studied the downfield passing game the Boilermakers were deploying with All-American quarterback Drew Brees.

A few weeks later, they returned to Bowling Green with their notebooks and their heads full of plays, formations and information. Then they sat down and invented a new offense.

"We went into a little office with no windows at Doyt Perry Stadium and locked the door for about a week and figured out how to put it all together," Mullen said. "We took all those ideas from all those different places and kind of mixed and matched. We took things we liked and figured out how to fit it all in one offense and we created it."

Thus was born Urban Meyer's spread option offense, an offense many have now judged to be ahead of the curve in college football.

It's the offense that lit up opposing defenses and scoreboards the past four years at Bowling Green and Utah. In 2004, Meyer's 12-0 Utah team averaged 45.3 points and 499.7 yards of total offense a game and had an almost perfect balance between the run (236.1 yards) and the pass (263.7 yards).

This is now the Florida offense that will make its Gator debut in today's Orange and Blue Game at Florida Field.

"Bowling Green is where we created it, but it has evolved an awful lot since," said Mullen, the UF offensive coordinator. "When you create something, it's there and you really don't know if it's going to work or not. It started good and we saw a lot of mistakes and how we could tweak it and change it and fine tune it."

What exactly is it?
There have been varied opinions on it, but basically, it is this: A spread offense (four and five wide receivers, one back and the quarterback in the shotgun) that features elements of both an option running attack and a pro-style passing attack. Each formation, each play, has multiple options designed to create mismatches against the defense.

"The best way to describe it is it's multiple" said ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit. "It's not a spread offense, it's a multiple offense. They can get physical with you; they can be a finesse team. The offense and the play-calling is predicated on what kind of defense you play.

"You can't really put your thumb on it and put it in a category that it's a certain offense. It's multiple. It can do a variety of things.

"In this offense, if you're not ready to defend the Gators, they'll put 50 points up on you in a half. It has that kind of explosiveness. If I were a Gator fan I'd be looking forward to seeing it."

Mullen said the basic concept of the offense is to create a balance between the run and the pass and force defenses to cover the entire field. And, yes, the quarterback does run some in this offense, which means the defense must account for him, too.

"It's just a spread offense where we want to create matchups," Mullen said. "We spread the field and force the defense to cover from sideline to sideline and not squish it all down inside. They have to defend all 11 players we put out there on the field. It's not where the quarterback just hands it off so they just have to defend 10.

"That's really the spread offense. To spread people out, make them defend all 11 guys and defend every aspect of the field and our offense."

Meyer said the offensive playbook consists of only about 20 plays or so, but each play has two, three and four options. So this isn't an option offense, it's an options offense.

Despite the many reverses, shovel passes, option plays and deep passes, Meyer said the key to the offense is the ability to run the ball, which sets up everything else.

"We're a balanced offense that takes great pride in knocking people off the ball, being a physical group," Meyer said. "If you're good running the football, (the defense) is going to have to put an extra guy in the box and then you have matchups. It's a matchup offense if you're good running the football.

"If you're not good running the ball, this is a very average offense. Last year's balance (at Utah) is as good as you get. If you do that, you're really hard to stop. If you put an extra guy in the box to stop that running game, then you're leaving (wide receiver) Chad Jackson alone on a safety. That's what we need to be. We've got to be able to run that ball."

Since Meyer's hiring in December, two questions have swarmed around his offense.

Is it a gimmick offense?
Will it work in the SEC, with all that defensive speed?

"It's not a (gimmick offense). It's innovative and sound," ESPN football analyst Lee Corso said. "It's very well structured and designed. I've watched it for three years. I saw him destroy an excellent Texas A&M defense (last year), just pick them apart. It's a varied offense, but it's a tough, hard-nose offense when it needs to be."

Herbstreit agrees with Corso.
"The people who think it's a gimmick offense just haven't seen enough of it," Herbstreit said. "Because he was able to do some creative things at Bowling Green, people thought, well, it's the MAC (Mid-American Conference). Then he took it out to Utah and got their program going and people thought, oh. All of a sudden (Utah quarterback) Alex Smith is getting ready to be a No. 1 draft choice and maybe the first pick overall.

"The offense was the best in the country last season. It gained a little bit more credibility."

The SEC is another challenge altogether. This is a league where the option pretty much became extinct a decade ago.

But Meyer's offense is not an option offense. It's an option and a wide-open passing offense.

"I still think there are a lot of doubters out there who wonder if it can fit in the SEC," Herbstreit said. "I personally don't question it. The diversity of the offense is what makes it so unique.

"This offense is designed to take advantage of whatever you're not doing. If you load up to stop the option, they're going to throw it over the top of you. If you stay back against the pass, they're going to run. It's a very versatile offense and that's the strength of it. I don't think there's any doubt this offense will be successful in the SEC."

You can reach Robbie Andreu at andreur@gvillesun.com or (352) 374-5022

[Run and Shoot]

I guess I wonder how many hits a Qb will take running the 'option' part of this
"O". When think about a Qb running the option...I think no NFL career as a QB,
yet Alex Smith was taken in the 1st round.

[mad_bomber]

I guess I wonder how many hits a Qb will take running the 'option' part of this
"O". When think about a Qb running the option...I think no NFL career as a QB,
yet Alex Smith was taken in the 1st round.

This "option" offense isn't your grandfather's, father's, or even your older brother's option offense :D. The ability to incorporate a fine tuned passing game puts this offense in a class all by itself.

[nc 40 acers]

Remember that in this game everything goes in a circle there are hidden blue prints how to stop this somewhere.....LOL! So the first year might get him into a title game. After this year the ground work will be laid and we will be talking about wishbone.....LOL! What! yep get ready for WISHBONE! the circle of Offense's is crazy but its just being in the right system and a coach who has the balls to run whatever will work thats the circle of Offense's! Being a leader and not a bandwagon Coach!

[canerraid72]

I dont know how to post pictures, but if you post your email address I will email the diagram of the crazy option.

[canerraid72]

Utahs base set is as follows:


x...............t...t...g...c...g...t........y.... ..
.................................................. .....z
.........................Q........................ .....
....................3..........2.................. .....

From there you ahve the JET right or left which is the 3 moving to play off the line on the left and the 2 staying where he is which is jet right . Same thing but flipped is Jet left
They have a Trips left and right which just the 2 moving to the 2 wr side and playing off the line or same formation flipped is called right.

X and Z are normally WR. Y is either a te or WR. The 2 or 3 can be a rb or wr. I think that most of you saw the 2 being played by Paris Warren. At 6 foot plus and 220 lbs, he was more than adequate as a rb, blocker or pitch man.

Here are some plays, we will say they move to the left on the Diagram so you will see them.
Veer play has the 3 blocking into the line and the qb and 2 running left. Speed play has the 3 blocking into the line to the right.He moves in front of the qb s face and the qb and 2 running left. Shuttle has 3 and qb running left and the 2 running into the line. They ahve 2 zones from this formation with the 3 and qb running right with the 2 running left in front of the qb to either take the ball or get a fake as he runs into the line. The second has the 3 running into the line staright ahead and the 2 running the same as before and only the qb running right. Basically a choice play. A stretch where the 3 blocks around the left tackle and the 2 comes in front of the qb and runs the stretch off the 3's block.

[mad_bomber]

I posted a diagram of the Crazy Option in this thread a few months ago.

http://www.vgsportsinc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16031

[Melton82]

I got a site that has quality game still photos of utah's offensive sets and formations. Heres the link: http://www.grayskytech.com/utes/football/2004/offense/index.htm

Enjoy!! ;)

[Air Raid]

I got a site that has quality game still photos of utah's offensive sets and formations. Heres the link: http://www.grayskytech.com/utes/football/2004/offense/index.htm

Enjoy!! ;)

DAMN Melton...you find some cool stuff!... :)

[Melton82]

we'll just say i have a lot of free time at work..........bout 8hrs or so :D