This is an opinion piece (with facts to support my argument). It's my opinion. Interested to hear peoples' thoughts on this:
I read an interesting article yesterday on Sports Media Watch that noted the Arkansas-LSU game earned a 2.2 final rating with 3.6 million viewers on ESPN. The article reported that number was up 83 percent in ratings and 91 percent in viewership from the Virginia vs. Florida State game last year and 83 percent and 82 percent over Virginia Tech vs. Miami the year before that.
It was the most-watched college football game of the day and was the only ESPN game Saturday that didn’t witness a decline from the previous year.
I want to get this straight - fans were actually tuning in to watch two methodical offenses ground and pound the ball? How is that possible? They weren’t watching “high-flying” hurry-up spread offenses?
Every time I talk to someone outside the state of Arkansas, a person without bias or a person whose bias is with another college football team, they tell me ‘man, I love what Arkansas is doing on offense.’ Really? Because I thought everyone loved the hurry-up spread? I think people think that’s what they like because they think they like a ton of yards and passes. I like passes too, but I prefer a pass play that develops and isn't simply part of a quick, predetermined passing game.
Is it possible many college football fans think they want something they don’t actually want? Do they really want to watch a kid quickly raise up and throw a bubble screen 20 times a game or take a shotgun snap and throw a predetermined pass another 30 times? They want to watch a team hurry to the line, only audible from the sideline and have little to no pre-snap movement?
The hurry-up is bad for television. Yes, I know college football is more popular than ever, but I’m going to tell you why I have this opinion and how it could be so much better. I actually like Ole Miss’ offense well enough. They run a lot of play-action fakes and have some creativity (for a spread team), but I can do without the rush from a viewership standpoint.
I’m personally tired of watching two teams with near identical offenses go head-to-head in nearly every game. I can’t even watch a Big-XII game anymore. I don’t want to watch a team run 95 plays and wake up the next morning having forgotten a third of them because there were so many snaps. I long for the day when one team is running a flexbone, another is running an air raid, another runs a power spread and another is a ground and pound.
While I’m not the biggest fan of watching most spread teams, I am not so much anti-spread as I am anti-hurry up. In theory you can run any offense you want out of a hurry up, but combining it with the spread just takes the life out of football for me. I don’t care for the lack of diversity with most spread teams, but it’s the hurry up that makes watching a game less enjoyable. And when it comes to that I would 10 times rather watch a team run more spread option with a mobile quarterback than one with an immobile quarterback catching shotgun snaps and making one quick read off one player’s movement or no read at all and throwing where he’s told by the coach. That’s incredibly boring to me. I like to watch players run with the ball in their hands, not catch quick passes over and over.
I want to live and die on every play. I want to watch a play, then I want to watch the color guy draw yellow lines on the screen to diagram what happened. And so often there’s something I miss on the live play, and I want to catch it in the replay. Then I’ll move on to the next play.
I know one thing for sure, I don’t want to watch the reply on a split screen to the left of my TV while the live play is going on to the right – or get no replay whatsoever. I hate that TV is going to this.
NFL football is also more popular than ever, and 97 percent of NFL teams aren’t trying to hurry up. The team that is doing it, by the way, is 4-5 with the 14th-most points scored in the league. Chip Kelly doesn’t appear to be “changing the NFL” as so many said he would.
We live in such a hurry-up culture now that we’re ruining our own viewing experience. I don’t want to sit down and choke down a steak dinner as quickly as possible so I can get more steak right after it and stuff it down just as quickly. I want to enjoy my one serving 8 oz. fillet. I want to have some conversation between chews.
I don’t think the guys who call the game like it, and I know for certain the NFL doesn’t like it. I want to also state I have always felt this way and have been vocal about it – even before [db]Bret Bielema[/db] came to Arkansas and started talking about it.
I was relieved when Jeff Long said he was eyeing someone with a pro-style background during the coaching search. As a media person, I can hardly keep up with hurry-up teams. There’s no time to process a play. The worst part is that if it’s a really big play and a first down, then you’re going to see that tempo and there’s no time to give the play the justice it deserves in print. There’s no time for a replay on television, either. Viewership during the game and readership after it suffers.
One of the reasons I liked Arkansas’ matchup with Ole Miss entering the season is because Ole Miss was going into their tenth-straight week without a bye and with that offense they were putting their defense on the field for a lot more snaps.
Based on an average of 65 snaps per game, by the time Ole Miss and Arkansas played the Rebel defense had seen the equivalent of 2.6 more games than the Arkansas offense. Not counting the lack of a bye week at that time, it was still 1.6 more games. That’s a lot of snaps by Week 10. Is it any wonder that Arkansas tends to get stronger in November? Or is it more likely that your hurry-up team is becoming weaker?
Many fans think up-tempo spread teams are all high-flying and complex and pro-style teams are boring and straight out of the Tecmo playbook, but again this is a case of many fans not knowing what they want or what they’re watching.
You can have a methodical offense that throws the ball. [db]Bobby Petrino[/db] ran a beautifully diverse pro-style attack at Arkansas. It’s amazing that many writers will still refer to that offense as a spread because they think if you throw the ball then it’s a spread. This current Arkansas team puts up the second-most yards in the conference. Against Ole Miss, Arkansas put up 605 yards of offense and didn’t hurry once.
People think hurry-up spread teams are diverse, but typically they are not. When Arkansas played Texas Tech, their top four receivers in that game were 6-0 or shorter and had similar skill sets, though Jakeem Grant was a bit different at 5-6. Against Ole Miss, all four of their primary receivers looked like 6-3 clones – even the “tight end.”
A pro-style offense is going to involve, ideally, a 6-5, 250 tight end, a 6-3, 210 split end, a 6-1, 200 flanker, a 5-11, 190 slot, a 245-pound fullback, a power running back and a speedier all-purpose running back. Now that’s diversity. Sometimes they’ll be in the shotgun, sometimes in the pistol, sometimes under center in the I-formation or ace and sometimes they’ll be in 12 personnel with two tight ends. It’s not going to be shotgun, shotgun, shotgun with 4- or 5-wide every single time, and it’s not going to be a new formation with the same exact option play 65 times a game for the spread option bunch.
Pro-style offenses hit you with play-action, 3-step, 5-step and 7-step drops with difference paces, sometimes with a hitch and sometimes without one, and sometimes they’re in the gun. They run screens to the running backs. They hit you with run, run, run and then a tight end seam. They actually have to read the defense and not just one player. They have more intricate blocking schemes. They have to identify the MIKE linebacker, which is something most spread teams don’t do but is done every play in the NFL.
Let me ask you this, what is your favorite position on defense? –Because for me, my favorite guy is the 6-2, 250-pound MIKE linebacker. I could watch Alabama’s [db]Reggie Ragland[/db] play every week. That spot is followed closely by the 6-4, 235-pound outside SAM linebacker in a 4-3 under.
Unless you have a superstar like Ragland who can do it all, those positions are dying because teams are running so much hurry-up spread offense. That 6-4, 235-pound outside guy was great for covering your tight end or fullback but not so much for one of your many 5-10, 180-pound receivers, so now you use two linebackers and a nickel, and one of your linebackers probably was a high school safety. Against most teams, that big MIKE isn’t needed to stuff the run because you aren’t running anyway and you don’t have a fullback. And if you are you’ve got a speed guy only in the backfield. Now we see more 4-2, 4-1, 3-3 and 2-4 alignments.
As fans of college football, we all can make a choice. Do you want to watch football where offenses hurry up so fast that they don’t allow defenses to substitute personnel, and a big part of the scheme is to try to catch a defense off guard, or would you rather see your guys line up, their guys against yours and let’s see who out-schemes who? Me personally, I like fast-break basketball and methodical football.
I’m not saying hurry up doesn’t work because it does with the rules in place – and it works better on the high school level than any other. But it’s also riskier week-to-week. If I were a high school coach, I would without a doubt use a spread offense. It’s really the only way to go, but I’m only convinced of the need to hurry up based on the substitution rules being the way they are.
And this is going to surprise some people because they think passing the ball and hurrying up means more creativity, but it’s the more methodical pro-style offenses that are typically more complex, and those who know how to watch football get that.
I read an interesting article yesterday on Sports Media Watch that noted the Arkansas-LSU game earned a 2.2 final rating with 3.6 million viewers on ESPN. The article reported that number was up 83 percent in ratings and 91 percent in viewership from the Virginia vs. Florida State game last year and 83 percent and 82 percent over Virginia Tech vs. Miami the year before that.
It was the most-watched college football game of the day and was the only ESPN game Saturday that didn’t witness a decline from the previous year.
I want to get this straight - fans were actually tuning in to watch two methodical offenses ground and pound the ball? How is that possible? They weren’t watching “high-flying” hurry-up spread offenses?
Every time I talk to someone outside the state of Arkansas, a person without bias or a person whose bias is with another college football team, they tell me ‘man, I love what Arkansas is doing on offense.’ Really? Because I thought everyone loved the hurry-up spread? I think people think that’s what they like because they think they like a ton of yards and passes. I like passes too, but I prefer a pass play that develops and isn't simply part of a quick, predetermined passing game.
Is it possible many college football fans think they want something they don’t actually want? Do they really want to watch a kid quickly raise up and throw a bubble screen 20 times a game or take a shotgun snap and throw a predetermined pass another 30 times? They want to watch a team hurry to the line, only audible from the sideline and have little to no pre-snap movement?
The hurry-up is bad for television. Yes, I know college football is more popular than ever, but I’m going to tell you why I have this opinion and how it could be so much better. I actually like Ole Miss’ offense well enough. They run a lot of play-action fakes and have some creativity (for a spread team), but I can do without the rush from a viewership standpoint.
I’m personally tired of watching two teams with near identical offenses go head-to-head in nearly every game. I can’t even watch a Big-XII game anymore. I don’t want to watch a team run 95 plays and wake up the next morning having forgotten a third of them because there were so many snaps. I long for the day when one team is running a flexbone, another is running an air raid, another runs a power spread and another is a ground and pound.
While I’m not the biggest fan of watching most spread teams, I am not so much anti-spread as I am anti-hurry up. In theory you can run any offense you want out of a hurry up, but combining it with the spread just takes the life out of football for me. I don’t care for the lack of diversity with most spread teams, but it’s the hurry up that makes watching a game less enjoyable. And when it comes to that I would 10 times rather watch a team run more spread option with a mobile quarterback than one with an immobile quarterback catching shotgun snaps and making one quick read off one player’s movement or no read at all and throwing where he’s told by the coach. That’s incredibly boring to me. I like to watch players run with the ball in their hands, not catch quick passes over and over.
I want to live and die on every play. I want to watch a play, then I want to watch the color guy draw yellow lines on the screen to diagram what happened. And so often there’s something I miss on the live play, and I want to catch it in the replay. Then I’ll move on to the next play.
I know one thing for sure, I don’t want to watch the reply on a split screen to the left of my TV while the live play is going on to the right – or get no replay whatsoever. I hate that TV is going to this.
NFL football is also more popular than ever, and 97 percent of NFL teams aren’t trying to hurry up. The team that is doing it, by the way, is 4-5 with the 14th-most points scored in the league. Chip Kelly doesn’t appear to be “changing the NFL” as so many said he would.
We live in such a hurry-up culture now that we’re ruining our own viewing experience. I don’t want to sit down and choke down a steak dinner as quickly as possible so I can get more steak right after it and stuff it down just as quickly. I want to enjoy my one serving 8 oz. fillet. I want to have some conversation between chews.
I don’t think the guys who call the game like it, and I know for certain the NFL doesn’t like it. I want to also state I have always felt this way and have been vocal about it – even before [db]Bret Bielema[/db] came to Arkansas and started talking about it.
I was relieved when Jeff Long said he was eyeing someone with a pro-style background during the coaching search. As a media person, I can hardly keep up with hurry-up teams. There’s no time to process a play. The worst part is that if it’s a really big play and a first down, then you’re going to see that tempo and there’s no time to give the play the justice it deserves in print. There’s no time for a replay on television, either. Viewership during the game and readership after it suffers.
One of the reasons I liked Arkansas’ matchup with Ole Miss entering the season is because Ole Miss was going into their tenth-straight week without a bye and with that offense they were putting their defense on the field for a lot more snaps.
Based on an average of 65 snaps per game, by the time Ole Miss and Arkansas played the Rebel defense had seen the equivalent of 2.6 more games than the Arkansas offense. Not counting the lack of a bye week at that time, it was still 1.6 more games. That’s a lot of snaps by Week 10. Is it any wonder that Arkansas tends to get stronger in November? Or is it more likely that your hurry-up team is becoming weaker?
Many fans think up-tempo spread teams are all high-flying and complex and pro-style teams are boring and straight out of the Tecmo playbook, but again this is a case of many fans not knowing what they want or what they’re watching.
You can have a methodical offense that throws the ball. [db]Bobby Petrino[/db] ran a beautifully diverse pro-style attack at Arkansas. It’s amazing that many writers will still refer to that offense as a spread because they think if you throw the ball then it’s a spread. This current Arkansas team puts up the second-most yards in the conference. Against Ole Miss, Arkansas put up 605 yards of offense and didn’t hurry once.
People think hurry-up spread teams are diverse, but typically they are not. When Arkansas played Texas Tech, their top four receivers in that game were 6-0 or shorter and had similar skill sets, though Jakeem Grant was a bit different at 5-6. Against Ole Miss, all four of their primary receivers looked like 6-3 clones – even the “tight end.”
A pro-style offense is going to involve, ideally, a 6-5, 250 tight end, a 6-3, 210 split end, a 6-1, 200 flanker, a 5-11, 190 slot, a 245-pound fullback, a power running back and a speedier all-purpose running back. Now that’s diversity. Sometimes they’ll be in the shotgun, sometimes in the pistol, sometimes under center in the I-formation or ace and sometimes they’ll be in 12 personnel with two tight ends. It’s not going to be shotgun, shotgun, shotgun with 4- or 5-wide every single time, and it’s not going to be a new formation with the same exact option play 65 times a game for the spread option bunch.
Pro-style offenses hit you with play-action, 3-step, 5-step and 7-step drops with difference paces, sometimes with a hitch and sometimes without one, and sometimes they’re in the gun. They run screens to the running backs. They hit you with run, run, run and then a tight end seam. They actually have to read the defense and not just one player. They have more intricate blocking schemes. They have to identify the MIKE linebacker, which is something most spread teams don’t do but is done every play in the NFL.
Let me ask you this, what is your favorite position on defense? –Because for me, my favorite guy is the 6-2, 250-pound MIKE linebacker. I could watch Alabama’s [db]Reggie Ragland[/db] play every week. That spot is followed closely by the 6-4, 235-pound outside SAM linebacker in a 4-3 under.
Unless you have a superstar like Ragland who can do it all, those positions are dying because teams are running so much hurry-up spread offense. That 6-4, 235-pound outside guy was great for covering your tight end or fullback but not so much for one of your many 5-10, 180-pound receivers, so now you use two linebackers and a nickel, and one of your linebackers probably was a high school safety. Against most teams, that big MIKE isn’t needed to stuff the run because you aren’t running anyway and you don’t have a fullback. And if you are you’ve got a speed guy only in the backfield. Now we see more 4-2, 4-1, 3-3 and 2-4 alignments.
As fans of college football, we all can make a choice. Do you want to watch football where offenses hurry up so fast that they don’t allow defenses to substitute personnel, and a big part of the scheme is to try to catch a defense off guard, or would you rather see your guys line up, their guys against yours and let’s see who out-schemes who? Me personally, I like fast-break basketball and methodical football.
I’m not saying hurry up doesn’t work because it does with the rules in place – and it works better on the high school level than any other. But it’s also riskier week-to-week. If I were a high school coach, I would without a doubt use a spread offense. It’s really the only way to go, but I’m only convinced of the need to hurry up based on the substitution rules being the way they are.
And this is going to surprise some people because they think passing the ball and hurrying up means more creativity, but it’s the more methodical pro-style offenses that are typically more complex, and those who know how to watch football get that.
