Skip to main content

My Take: College Football or NFL?

By 
Darrin Sheffer

It's Saturday night, I've been soaking up the passion of CFB all day, but the best is yet to come.  The camera opens up to Death Valley in Clemson, SC: The Defending Champs get on their buses to ride around the stadium, rocking the whole way.  My skin starts to tingle with anticipation.  Then the team comes to Howard's Rock, the fight song plays and the players run down the hill to take the field with orange and white balloons being released in the air, thousands of fans losing their minds!  I'm hundreds of miles away in Northern Virginia losing my mind, and Clemson isn't even my favorite team!  Hands down the best pre-game entrance of all time.  

Related image
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Clemson%27s_Memorial_Stadium.jpg

Sorry NFL, you just don't evoke any emotions remotely similar to what College Football does.  What emotion does watching NFL football evoke in me? Frustration.  To illustrate I'm going to pick on my NFL team: the Washington Redskins.

Image result for redskins offense
https://www.flickr.com/photos/watts_photos/20142475239

What about the Redskins (and the rest of the NFL) makes me so frustrated?  As a coach and scheme nerd I do NOT believe that the Skins are using their personnel in a way that gives them a competitive edge.  As football coaches it is our job to evaluate players strengths and weaknesses and determine the best way to use those strengths to win games.  

NFL Offenses

Image result for NFL offense
https://www.flickr.com/photos/craigindenver/8238960887

On offense, I see the Skins coaches stubbornly line up in 21, 22 personnel and try to run the ball.  Guess what, it doesn't work!  They just plain out cannot run the ball using their current scheme.  Their most effective offense seems to be when they line up in empty and let Kirk Cousins pick apart defenses.  Run game = Trash, Passing game = Money.  Why in the heck are the coaches stubbornly sticking to a scheme that Does Not Work!??

Not to mention that basically all NFL teams run the exact same offense.  I know some coaches will try to point out that the teams do different things, but if you really look at the playbooks and watch the games, they run the same concepts.  The only difference between each team is the "Jimmys and Joes" and different colors.  

Don't believe me?  Watch NFL games this Sunday and try to prove me wrong.  You will see Three Run Plays: Inside Zone, Outside Zone (Stretch) and Power, that's it.  Then you get the same play action plays off of those runs.  The drop back passing concepts may be slightly different from team to team (depending on QB) but in reality they look the same too.  

College Offenses

Image result for flexbone offense
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Air_Force_vs._Michigan_football_2012_4_(Air_Force_on_offense).jpg

Some NFL fans will try to point out that schemes don't win games, it's all about match-ups.  Does my WR have an advantage over their DB?  NFL analysts and coaches seem to have an unhealthy obsession with finding match-ups.  Sorry guys, but I don't think that Paul Johnson and Georgia Tech could hear you when their "old school" Flexbone Offense was putting up 500+ rushing yards using 2-3 Star players against Tennessee's 4-5 star defensive players.  Please, please keep telling me that schemes don't win games while I watch Army, Navy and Air Force win against teams that they shouldn't be beating.  

NFL guys, please keep complaining about how Spread Offenses don't prepare players for the Pros.  While you keep complaining about how football is changing, I'm going to continue to ignore you on Sundays because I'm coming of football hangovers from much more exciting Saturdays.  Air Raid, Triple Option, West Coast, 100 different variations of the Spread, you aren't seeing the same thing over and over again.  

In my opinion, I would rather watch Army vs. Buffalo over New England vs. Miami.  

Then you have to look at the defenses.  

NFL Defenses
Image result for redskins offense
https://www.flickr.com/photos/imatty35/6261773675

In the NFL you will see TWO defenses: either the 4-3 or the 3-4.  Coaches say they do different things, but it's still all about finding favorable match-ups.  You could argue that NFL defenses are they way they are in response to the NFL Offenses, in which case no wonder there is NO diversity.  

College Defenses

4-3, 3-4, 4-2-5, 3-3-5, 3-3 Stack, 3-5-3 you name it it's probably being run somewhere in college football.  I'm in no way an expert on defense, but if I were calling defense at the HS level, I would go with the 4-2-5 because of it's versatility (that will be a whole other blog post later).  

Coaches

Image result for mike leach
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LeachMike092212-18.JPG

This last part is a no contest.  Urban Meyer, Tom Herman, Jim Harbaugh, Mike Gundy, Paul Johnson, Ken Niumatalolo, and my personal favorite coach right now Mike Leach.  NFL coaches have nowhere near the personality that College coaches do.  Enough Said.  

Final Thoughts

Based on my opinions stated so far you might think I hate the NFL, that isn't what I'm trying to say.  I will still watch NFL football because it's football.  The biggest reason I watch NFL is to cheer on my favorite former college players (Colt McCoy).  As a coach and a fan though, the NFL will never compare to College Football.  

Do you have any thoughts on this topic?  If so please comment below.

Be sure to follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DarrinSheffer

As Always, Stay Obsessed.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Quick Screens From Wing-T Offense

Quick Screens from Wing-T Offense By Darrin Sheffer                 When most coaches hear Wing-T Offense they usually don’t think about passing, however there are a few ways that a Wing-T coach can utilize his receivers on the edge.  Delaware Wing-T X-Now Screen One of the simplest ways to attack the boundary using the Wing-T is to use an X-Now Screen or Quick Screen.  Preferably, unless you have a QB with a rocket for an arm, I would rather use this play when the X receiver is to the boundary.  In the case of using the Right Formation we would like to have the ball on the left hash with the X lined up on or just inside of the numbers, this will give the QB a nice easy pass and the X a bit of room to maneuver.  I would teach my X to use the sideline and get as many yards as possible but you might have a different preference on the Now Screen. An idea that you could use...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why I Like... Unbalanced Formations

Why I like… Unbalanced Sets (Photo by Coach Eien @bruceeien) If there is one thing that Dinosaur Offensive coaches love to talk about, besides running the ball, it would have to be Unbalanced Sets.  Old school Wing-T and Single Wing guys will hang their hat on being able to cause conflict with the defense by using Unbalanced.  However, it isn’t only old school coaches using it; many Spread coaches are seeking ways to use Unbalanced in their offenses.      Unbalanced Wing-T For my part I am most familiar with the Wing-T’s use of Unbalanced formations.  One common way to go unbalanced in the Wing-T is to simply go X-Over (See diagram below).  In the normal Wing-T formation the X is split off to the weak side of the formation, but in the X-Over we simply align him split to the Strong side/TE side.  One downside to this formation is that due to the alignment of the X, the TE becomes ineligible in the passing gam...
Post a Comment
Read more

Simplified Six Man Box in the 33 Stack

Simplified Six Man Box For 33 Stack Defense by Darrin Sheffer https://youthfootballonline.com/3-3-stack-defense-base-rules-and-blitzes/ In my previous blog post on the 33 Stack Defense I discussed some basics on Defensive Line play and talked about 4 basic Slant Schemes used (Strong, Weak, Loop and Pinch).  Today I would like to expand on that topic and discuss the Six Man Box used in the 33 Stack which includes the three down lineman and three Inside Linebackers.  For those of you who are already versed in the 33 Stack this blog post may seem boring as I plan to keep things extremely simplified for any Stack Newbies out there.  In future Stack blogs I will get into more complex pressures and coverage.   Alignment While you can have your D-Line align any which way you like, we like to keep things simple with the Nose head up on the Center and both Ends lined head up on the Tackles.  This is to allow our D-Line to have the ab...
Post a Comment
Read more