Offensive innovation, the NCAA and the NFL

One of the most notable differences between the NCAA and NFL brands of football is how distinct the offensive systems are. In the college game, you have everything from the run-focused triple option used by Army, Navy and Georgia Tech to the high-tempo spread options of Auburn and Oregon to passing-focused offenses like Hawaii and Houston.

Few of those systems have made it to the NFL, though, and while each NFL team has its own offensive system and wrinkles, there’s less of a contrast between them than there is between the different offenses run at the college level.

Andy Hutchins, a weekend editor at SB Nation and the editor-in-chief of Florida Gators’ site Alligator Army, ascribes the increased diversity in the college ranks primarily to the greater number of teams.

“College football simply has more room for innovation,” Hutchins said. “There are 32 NFL teams; that’s fewer than the SEC, ACC and Big Ten have, combined.”

Moreover, unlike the NFL, college football doesn’t have an equalizing draft where bad teams are rewarded with top talent. If anything, it’s the opposite; recruits tend to favor programs that have done well recently, so success can build upon itself while repeated failure can send a school into a downward spiral. Hutchins said that encourages more innovation on the coaching side, especially at smaller or less-renowned schools that have a tough time attracting top recruits; those schools often develop some of the more unique schemes and then recruit players who might not do well everywhere, but are perfectly suited to what they’re trying to run.

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“There’s greater incentive to be radical because the market inefficiency (to borrow from Moneyball) is greater,” Hutchins said. “A mediocre team with a good scheme can do fairly well for a while, as we saw with Mike Leach‘s often talent-poor Texas Tech program.”

Brad Gagnon, editor of The Score‘s NFL blog Goal-Line Stand, figures conservatism and a desire to hang on to jobs plays into it as well. The NFL’s parity and systems to maintain that parity, such as the draft, free agency and the salary cap, mean that talent gaps can be remedied over time. NFL coaches also often aren’t in one job long enough to make incredibly radical changes.

“College coaches have always been more prone to take chances and install ‘gimmicky’ offenses,” Gagnon said. “No one seems willing to take a chance on the really crazy and/or innovative (depending on who you ask) stuff on a pro level, and I can’t determine why that is. Job security is likely a factor. Pro coaches typically have less job security and a lot more to lose.”

One interesting case in point is the spread offense, which has set the NCAA on fire over the last couple of decades. There are plenty of variations of it, from the high-octane run-oriented versions in place at Auburn and Oregon to the air-it-out approach favoured by the likes of Houston and Oklahoma State, but the general look usually involves quite a few receivers (to spread the field) and the quarterback taking snaps several yards back in the shotgun formation.

Although some NFL teams use some spread principles (particularly shotgun formations with multiple receivers) in certain situations, the spread really hasn’t caught on as an every-down NFL offensive system (although it’s become a base set in other professional leagues like the Arena Football League and the CFL).

In fact, one of the other prominent college offensive systems, which involves quarterbacks taking snaps directly under center, is usually referred to as “pro-style”, as it’s the basic set used by most NFL teams. Each year at the NFL draft, there are intense debates among scouts, executives and fans around if quarterbacks used to the spread (like this year’s top selection, Cam Newton) can adapt to a pro-style system. Adapting the NFL team’s system to the quarterback appears to be largely out of the question.

Is it worth trying a spread offense in the NFL? That depends on who you ask. Gagnon said part of the reason we don’t see full spread offenses in the NFL is because other systems like the West Coast offense (which puts quarterbacks under center, but emphasizes a short passing game) accomplish some of the same goals without some of the risks. They’re often more complicated, but that’s less of an issue at the NFL level thanks to the experience of the players and the amount of time spent working on systems.

“I think it’s because the West Coast offense is essentially a safer version of the spread and puts quarterbacks at less of a risk,” he said. “The spread screws with defenses more, but it’s not worth it in the NFL, where defences are faster, bigger and—most importantly—smarter. If the West Coast offence were easier to implement, the spread would be significantly less common in the college game.”

Gagnon attributes the conversion of quarterbacks from spread to pro-style in particular to the advantages a spread system has in the college ranks, many of which he thinks dissipate at the NFL level.

“I tend to see this as a college problem more than an NFL problem,” he said. “I wish college coaches would install more advanced offenses, but the easier option is to simply spread ’em out and force defenses into nickel and dime packages. I don’t blame them for that—it’s the best way to get the most out of offenses quickly by taking advantage of significantly slower defenses, but it can also delay the growth of quarterbacks, who sort of become collateral damage.”

Hutchins said the greater defensive talent at the NFL level does make running spread principles more difficult, as there aren’t as many personnel match ups that can be exploited. In the college ranks, quick receivers and running backs often have a significant athleticism advantage over particular defenders, but that isn’t as common in the NFL.

“Part of the reason the spread has taken so long to be adopted, even in part, is the fact that the superior NFL speed makes exploiting mismatches harder to do,” Hutchins said. “College football has Noel Devine and Chris Rainey; the NFL doesn’t have a lot of analogous players.

He thinks part of the reason the spread hasn’t fully caught on in the NFL is the conservatism of many head coaches.

“I think it’s reasonable based on that speed differential, but I’d suspect some coaches are just slow to change,” Hutchins said. “I can’t imagine someone like Bill Parcells or Tom Coughlin, for example, wanting to radicalize football.”

Despite that, Hutchins said the overall influence of spread principles in the NFL is increasing, as more and more teams are using more and more sets with multiple receivers and the quarterback taking shotgun snaps. Passing totals have skyrocketed over the last few years, and Hutchins ascribes some of that to increasing acceptance of spread principles.

“I think it is catching on in the NFL,” he said. “Though the spread option, which is what really set college football on fire, hasn’t quite made its way to the NFL, teams are throwing more and throwing from the shotgun more. Those are both spread principles.”

NFL innovation does tend to be a bit of a copycat cycle, as ideas like the Wildcat offense and the 3-4 defense were largely mocked at first, adopted by one team, proven successful and then copied by others. Hutchins said that innovation cycle is already taking place, as the success of teams that frequently use multiple-receiver shotgun sets (including both of this year’s Super Bowl participants, the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers) has encouraged other teams to incorporate more of those principles.

“Look at the Packers: a lot of their offensive schemes, especially out of the shotgun, are based on the space creation of the spread,” Hutchins said. “And if nothing else, the NFL is full of smart people. Coaches know how to steal from the winners.”

Gagnon said teams eventually adjusted to and stopped the Wildcat, though, and he figures something similar would happen if any team tried running a full spread.

“The Wildcat was a unique gimmick, though, and not a consistently used system,” he said. “I love how the Wildcat threw defences off, but it has already faded in the NFL because defences adjusted. Defences would adapt to the spread, and they’d likely blow it up pretty easily.”

Another element we’ve often seen in the college ranks is the importance of a quarterback who can serve as both a passing and running threat, such as Newton, Tim Tebow or Michael Vick. With Vick’s re-emergence as the starter in Philadelphia, Newton’s recent first-overall selection by Carolina and even Tebow’s chance to compete for Denver’s quarterbacking job, it would seem that some of that philosophy might translate to the NFL. Hutchins said the key part of quarterback mobility in the NFL isn’t as much the ability to run for yards as the ability to evade pressure, though.

“It’s still a luxury to have a quarterback who can devastate in the running game like Vick can, but quarterback mobility is vital,” he said. “Not to keep coming back to the Packers, but Aaron Rodgers’ footwork and athleticism allow him to keep plays alive and evade pass rushes. Ben Roethlisberger provides that and some hardiness. Peyton Manning couldn’t outrun a llama in a 20-yard dash, but his mobility is crucial to the Colts’ offense. The threat to run is nice, but the ability to move is critical.”

Gagnon also emphasized the importance of pocket mobility and quarterbacks thinking pass-first on the NFL stage. He sees the ability to take off with the ball as a nice feature for quarterbacks to have, but a secondary one.

“I think it’s important to have a mobile quarterback, but he has to be a quarterback first,” Gagnon said. “Vick’s re-emergence has had less to do with his feet and more to do with his newfound pocket presence and his sudden ability to go through his progressions. Before they can become stars, Newton and Tebow will have to learn to be professional quarterbacks, not just running backs with arms.”

Newton in particular is an interesting case, as he ran not just a spread option at Auburn, but a high-tempo one that often went no-huddle for long stretches. That’s an unconventional offensive strategy, but it’s one that has featured prominently in the NFL before, with both Sam Wyche’s Bengals and Marv Levy’s Bills (and their famed K-Gun) finding great success with the no-huddle concept in the late 80s and early 90s. Gagnon said he wouldn’t be surprised to see the no-huddle take off again in the NFL at some point.

“It just takes the right coach combined with the right personnel,” he said. “You need to have a smart, disciplined quarterback to pull it off in the NFL because the offenses are usually much more complicated. But like fashion trends, the offensive schemes of football are cyclical. I fully expect that at one point down the line, the no-huddle will become ‘in’ again … along with bell bottoms and platform shoes.”

Hutchins cited the complexity of today’s NFL offenses as something that would make bringing the every-down no-huddle offense back difficult, but said he could see it happening, as teams like Indianapolis have already made good use of it on a more limited basis.

“I think we could see no-huddle being run for a full game in the NFL, but the complexity of the offenses makes it unlikely,” he said. “The Colts would be the team I would imagine being the pioneers here.

Overall, it looks like we’re still going to see more offensive diversity and innovation in the NCAA ranks than we will in the NFL. That doesn’t mean that good unconventional offensive concepts can’t make their way to the pros, though. Gagnon said it all depends on having a coach who’s willing to experiment and the right players to fit a particular system, and it also depends on teams having the patience to see it through.

“With the right personnel, it can happen successfully,” he said. “We’ve seen Peyton Manning and the Colts execute a no-huddle beautifully. We saw the wildcat. Two years ago, the Titans had Vince Young run the option with Chris Johnson in the backfield every so often. They did it maybe a dozen times, and it scared the hell out of defenses. The Young-Johnson combo made it work, and with more practice, it might have worked consistently in different variations. But then they sort of abandoned it, as most teams do with anything that is deemed too college-like and fails a couple times. It doesn’t always have to turn into a home run to be successful, but NFL coaches aren’t patient.”

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