NCAA ruining the NFL

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BornandRaisedGopher

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Gunther Cunningham seems to th ink so.

http://www.mlive.com/lions/index.ss...+Lions+-+MLive.com)&utm_content=Google+Reader

One statement hits close to home.

Cunningham said college programs -- such as the University of Michigan, for example -- have been forced to get away from the classic pro-style, run-first formations.

"It takes so much time and it's physical. You've got to spend time at the run game, getting all of those linemen on the same page with the back and how he runs the ball,'' Cunningham said. "It's easier to just drop back and throw it. It's easy. You talk about protection, but if the quarterback takes the snap at five yards (deep) and takes 2 1/2 steps, he's at 9 1/2 yards deep.
 

Basically he pissed that modern offenses have become too tough to defend...sorry, Grandpa. Figure out a way to stop it. I also find it funny that he refers to 1991 as "a couple of years ago." Oh, the elderly. I'm not going to do the research, but I'd be willing to bet that the average size of linebackers has pretty much been on the increase since the invention of football. Of course, every defensive coordinator would love it if you simply ran the ball up the guy every time. You should be able to game plan and defend the pass...
 

He should respond by boycotting the NCAA. The Lions will draft their players from elsewhere (you mean they haven't been already???). That'll teach em.
 

And who would really care. What is the run/pass ratio for each. I bet the pro's have at least as high a pass ratio.
 

I tend to agree that right now the defenses haven't figured out how to stop the spread and IMHO the spread isn't as fun to watch.
 


I heard the pregame interview with Charlie Weis and Jim Gray last Saturday on the radio. Gray asked Weis if he saw any trends in football. Weis said he feels the trend to go away from the spread gaining steam. Defenses are catching on and QB's are getting "killed". This coming from a coach who had the #6 offense in the country and did not run the spread. he may have some bias.
 

The NFL is dependent on college football to get players ready for the NFL. But it's not the job of college football to develop players for the NFL. If they NFL wants to have a developmental league, they can get their own. They had NFL Europe, but they folded it. If the NFL doesn't want the game to be so pass-happy, they can change the NFL rules to give the defense more of an advantage.

Let the NFL take care of their game, and let college football take care of their game.
 

BornandRaisedGopher said:
Gunther Cunningham seems to th ink so.

http://www.mlive.com/lions/index.ss...+Lions+-+MLive.com)&utm_content=Google+Reader

One statement hits close to home.

Cunningham said college programs -- such as the University of Michigan, for example -- have been forced to get away from the classic pro-style, run-first formations.

"It takes so much time and it's physical. You've got to spend time at the run game, getting all of those linemen on the same page with the back and how he runs the ball,'' Cunningham said. "It's easier to just drop back and throw it. It's easy. You talk about protection, but if the quarterback takes the snap at five yards (deep) and takes 2 1/2 steps, he's at 9 1/2 yards deep.
Click to expand...

:cry::cry::cry:

Damn those college coordinators! Why do they keep thinking outside of the box?!?!
 

Average defenses have trouble stopping average spread formations, but good defenses seem to do alright against even the best spread. It boils down to speed at LB. If you have a LB that can basically shadow the QB, you can blow up the spread fairly easily. Think USC versus Illinois in the Rose Bowl a couple of years ago. Juice Williams had the season of seasons, but USC just drilled the guy.

But something like Mike Leach's or Mike Dunbar's spread can make an average QB look stellar. I think Weber really benefitted from Dunbar's approach, but it didn't matter when we were physically outmatched by teams like Iowa.
 



BornandRaisedGopher said:
Gunther Cunningham seems to th ink so.

http://www.mlive.com/lions/index.ss...+Lions+-+MLive.com)&utm_content=Google+Reader

One statement hits close to home.

Cunningham said college programs -- such as the University of Michigan, for example -- have been forced to get away from the classic pro-style, run-first formations.

"It takes so much time and it's physical. You've got to spend time at the run game, getting all of those linemen on the same page with the back and how he runs the ball,'' Cunningham said. "It's easier to just drop back and throw it. It's easy. You talk about protection, but if the quarterback takes the snap at five yards (deep) and takes 2 1/2 steps, he's at 9 1/2 yards deep.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link. I read the article and have a few comments. First, the guy is likely to be upset no matter what's going on due to Lionitis. Secondly, the 20-hour rule may have started in 1991, but wide open offenses certainly predate that by quite a bit. Third, like someone else mentioned, the NCAA is not obligated to churn out exactly what the NFL prefers. Actually, I think it's healthy for the college game to have its own identity, less it be swallowed whole by the pro machine. Finally, would some of you guys take it easy on us sixty-types? We may be grandpas, but we've seen a lot of football and are still loving it.
 

While I am definitely a NCAA fan, and mildly dislike the NFL, this guy definitely has a point. I think his statement is clearly self-serving in that the NFL relies on the NCAA to develop players with a certain competency so that NFL coaches do not have to spend as much time on schemes.

However, one thing that jumps out at me is that the NFL and the NCAA share a very symbiotic relationship. If careers in football weren't as lucrative as they are, I think you would see more players choosing other sports beside football, thereby diluting the talent pool in football. At one point track (sprinting especially) was considered particularly lucrative. If that was still the case, I wonder if you would see as many speedsters in college football as you do today.

I wonder if it really is true that the spread doesn't work in the NFL, that you will see colleges that run Pro-style offenses have players picked higher in the draft because they understand the scheme better. I know 'SC has always maintained they run a pro-style offense so players that go there will do well in "the league"... that didn't work out too well for Matt Leinart did it?

Finally D leagues don't work in the US, especially for sports that have a strong college presence, so that will never happen again (although the UFL may end up being a D league of sorts).
 

Thing is, the guy is just grinding his jaws. The shotgun, which spread the field, but primarily gave the QB more time and vision (which is what the Lions coach seems to oppose) was introduced in the NFL around 1960. If I remember right, John Brodie ran it for the 49ers. Since then, it's been widely used and not used by the pros. But to yack about the NCAA ruining pro football because of the shotgun spread clearly seems lame to me.
 

The old AFL used to have a lot of offenses that resembled the spread. Football, at both the NFL and college levels, tend to go in cycles. Good teams can still dominate at the point-of-attack, usually through strength but sometimes with quickness and technique, and there is no offense or defense formation or strategies that can overcome disadvantages in that regard consistently.

I probably agree with Cunningham that players are less ready-made for the NFL then they were a generation ago, but that has more to do with the increasing complexity of the pro game and not anything that is happening in college.
 



Yeah if only Percy Harvin had played in a pro style offense he could have made an impact this year.
 

50PoundHead said:
The old AFL used to have a lot of offenses that resembled the spread. Football, at both the NFL and college levels, tend to go in cycles. Good teams can still dominate at the point-of-attack, usually through strength but sometimes with quickness and technique, and there is no offense or defense formation or strategies that can overcome disadvantages in that regard consistently.

I probably agree with Cunningham that players are less ready-made for the NFL then they were a generation ago, but that has more to do with the increasing complexity of the pro game and not anything that is happening in college.
Click to expand...

Bingo! The increasing complexity of the pro game that you mention is likely a bigger culprit than what goes on in college ball and for me opens a great topic for discussoin: Why does it need to be so darn complicated? I have my own answers, mostly involving coaches being control freaks who must have their hands on every last detail. Creativity is disappearing from pro football very quickly.
 

maxwellsmart said:
Bingo! The increasing complexity of the pro game that you mention is likely a bigger culprit than what goes on in college ball and for me opens a great topic for discussoin: Why does it need to be so darn complicated? I have my own answers, mostly involving coaches being control freaks who must have their hands on every last detail. Creativity is disappearing from pro football very quickly.
Click to expand...

I think creativity is missing from all sports. Coaches calling almost every play in the NBA, managers calling pitches in baseball.

I always thought coaches earn 75% of there money before the season starts and between games. Point out ways to improve, call a winning play during a time out, put on a hit and run at the right time. That's what coaches should be doing during the game.
 

Ski U Mah Gopher said:
I think creativity is missing from all sports. Coaches calling almost every play in the NBA, managers calling pitches in baseball.

I always thought coaches earn 75% of there money before the season starts and between games. Point out ways to improve, call a winning play during a time out, put on a hit and run at the right time. That's what coaches should be doing during the game.
Click to expand...

Absolutely agree. For the sake of argument I'll float the premise that NFL coaches taking play calling duties out of the hands of their QBs started things out. Once coaches in other sports realized it had been done with some success (meaning fewer risks and textbook mistakes for the sake of winning) they looked for ways to take more control of their own game days. Look at the way we view field goals today, often playing for kicking position rather than taking a crack at the end zone. When I was a kid a field goal was something you went after as a last resort and even then didn't feel too great about it.
 

I first started watching football in the 1960s and I think another element here is that back then the rosters were comprised of 40 guys, meaning there were very few specialty players for specific situations. Dressing 47 guys, you have different offensive players for all types of different sets and situations. The defense has to respond and so you see nickel and dime packages. It just makes the game so much more complex.

Good point on Harvin, who would have likely been productive in any era. But he can be moved around so much and that just requires so many more different types of players on defense.
 

Not to mention all the two-way play, which obviously meant keeping things relatively simple for the sake of effective practice. Does that make sense?
 

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