RE: Defense? This is football?
To understand the rise of offense is to understand the changes in the rules. QB's are so protected now with rule changes against hitting them below the knee being added this year to go along with the late hits (they were once considered another blocker once the ball was out of their hands), targeting which has stopped hits that strike above the shoulders, that they feel emboldened to hang onto to the ball much longer. Couple this with the extension of the line of scrimmage to include the first 3 to 5 yards downfield for linemen to be able to block in on passing routes (the line of scrimmage for pass blocking in the old days was the actual line of scrimmage) and their bubble is expanded. Now mix in the limits on bumping receivers down field, hand checking, and the rise of the picks and rubs that receivers are getting away with and suddenly your defense is overwhelmed.
Now if a defender is about to tackle a ball carrier who has lowered his head and is lunging toward a marker destination the defender has to pause in his approach to make sure he doesn't make helmet to helmet contact or he looses a half of play. There are no rules prohibiting the running back from using the helmet as part of his attack on the defender.
Even on extra points and kicks a player may not leap in any manner in an attempt to block the kick if that results in his falling on another player (either his own or the opposition). To do so results in a 15 yard penalty. It was only about 20 years ago that running into the kicker was added to roughing the kicker, and now simply running into the kicker results in the same 15 yards that true roughing once resulted in.
In the defensive line play has always been very much like Sumo. You charge into the defender in front of you and hand fighting in the form of pushes and slaps was always part of it. Now if your hand accidentally moves into the face guard it's 15 yards.
The result of all of this has been passivity on the part of the defense where you may be hit anywhere, including below the knees provided someone else isn't hitting you up high (this results in a chop block call). So defenders are on the defensive and for anyone who has played the game they know it takes away your aggressiveness. But, you had better be damned careful as to how you strike the lineman blocking you and even more particular about how you grab the ball carrier, otherwise you will be flagged or disqualified.
So what you are witnessing is mostly the result of rules changes. However that is not the full explanation.
The teaching of fundamental skills is practically non existent in high school today. They place all of the fastest and most gifted natural athletes on the offense in high school and everyone else is placed on defense. The largest kids are placed on the line unless they are fast. So blocking has become getting in someone's way or simply being an obstacle like a large immovable rock. Tackling is either body blocking someone to the ground, or hanging on until the pack can pile on to bring them down.
The "Spread" is the result of all of this. Fast tall guys are wide outs and fast short guys are running backs. The best athlete is the QB (passing skills are a perk but not required). So these kids run all over the defenses in high school and garner their 4 and 5 star ratings because of it. Their egos are so large by the time they get to college that they are practically uncoachable. College coaches are under such pressure to recruit that everything is geared to signing these brats. Fail to pamper them and they leave causing boosters who paid to get them to come down on the coaches. Coaches getting paid millions are mostly risk averse so they blame assistants until there is nobody left to blame, and rather than risk actually teaching these dumb jerks how to play the game they coddle them, hype them to the press as the best ever, and let them play like they want to play.
The result is the totally undisciplined play that we watch every Saturday that is either a lopsided romp, a score orgy, or totally discombobulated affairs where not much happens and what does happen happens randomly.
There are minimally about six kinds of blocks and what kind of block you utilize depends on the kind of play you are running. In the old days once you had made a block you fired out and looked to make another on your own. Today they get in the way and if the play is sustained, or moves past them, they give out and stop. Why? They are too fat to keep it up.
If you don't believe me pick out your favorite school's flashback games and watch the athletes in the 80's and before. They weren't fat! There weren't any big bellies hanging over belts and the lines played all 60 minutes. You won't see all of the substitutions because they were in shape.
Auburn would have never had a kick six return on Alabama linemen in the 80's. Go back and watch Dave Remington as Nebraska's center, you know the one the trophy is named for. When he snapped the ball he was the quickest lineman to the block I had ever seen.
The product we are paying for today is like a quality restaurant that has gone downhill. The brand name is the same, but all of the key ingredients are missing from the recipe. The food cost more and tastes blah because the money is now going into the promotion instead of the damned product.
Everybody has million dollar coaches at the P level, but there are only a handful of them that actually know how to teach, care about fundamentals, and employ discipline and don't give a hoot if they have to cut some prima donna's butt from the team, and who still have the nuts enough to tell a booster where to stick it! And it's real easy to spot those coaches because they win, win big, and have teams that aren't painful to watch play.
Sadly my Auburn Tigers are no longer one of them. This is why Nick Saban, Chris Petersen, Urban Meyer, and Mark D'Antonio will always find ways to win. The new coaches coming up behind them will be hit or miss with their recruits. There are at least two, maybe three, notable exceptions that I have witnessed among the younger ones: James Franklin & Dabo Swinney who are now claimed by a destination school (and yes Clemson is becoming a destination school), and Dan Mullen who has consistently won with less quality and less resources at Mississippi State. Somebody will claim him after this year and then the handful of coaches who know how to build better players and better people out of the human debris they recruit will be set in stone while the game they love deteriorates around them like the rest of our society by pandering to the problems instead of addressing them, worrying about what others think of you instead of doing what is right, and by covering up or making quick fixes for structural failures.
(This post was last modified: 09-17-2017 01:08 PM by JRsec.)
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