Thursday - January 10, 2008

 Rodriguez explains his offense

With video! And a white board!

It's nice having a coach who has an offense that's actually worth diagramming on the white board. So take a look (it's about 10 minutes long - thanks Victors' Cap for the link).

A few quick thoughts: 

Some folks may think "Damn, he's letting all his secrets out!" Not a big deal. Not only can any coach worth his salt figure much of this out from game film, Rodriguez has been open about running camps and meeting with other coaches to show off his offense. Both Jim Tressell and Charlie Weis have made that pilgramage to Morgantown to learn from Rich Rodriguez (that's a fun fact to remember when the ND fans talk to us about their offensive genius).

I like some of the small tidbits in here. I like that he considers the QB a blocker. Why? Why not. I like that he is willing to discount a safety in the box because he just doesn't think that's going to stop his RB.

Keep in mind, he is talking primarily about the run part of the game here, so even when he's talking WR alignments and coverages, he's looking at how they affect the run game. One can only imagine what he has in mind for a WR corps that should be better than any he worked with at WVU. 

But in all, the video only lays out what we already know; this offense more than anything stresses two things - the ability to read the defense and find the open area, and the speed to attack the weak spots before the defense can recover. Nothing revolutionary, but interesting.

Thoughts on Manningham, Arrington and Mallett will be coming soon.