The case for and against Leach

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I think we are getting off topic a little bit. We can worry about whether or not Gray fits the Air Raid when or if Leach gets hired. Right now we must fight the Marc Trestman rumors with all our force. College Football Talk called him a fan favorite.:mad:
 

GopherGack said:
#1) I agree with you for the most part. I'll concede that NFL potential has no bearing on College success.

#2) I like you conveniently leave out Symons, Cumbie, Hodges and Potts who were all 4th and 5th year players who put up similarly fantastic numbers in his system. So again, you don't have to be super athletic to play in Leach's system. Quite to the contrary, he seems to play QB's who AREN'T exceptionally athletic. Athleticism seems to be the sole calling card of people who push for Gray and I'm just making the case that Leach's system doesn't require it.

#3) "Gray played in the spread..." that is a worthless comment. There are several different variations of "the spread" each requiring different skill sets. QB's in June Jones and Mike Leach offenses require vastly different skill sets than QB's in RRod's or Chip Kelly's.



So to get back to your original question you seem to be trying to run away from: Why would Gray not be able to play QB in Leach's Air Raid offense?
At this point all we've seen out of Gray is his athleticism. Simply put athleticism is not a required attribute in Leach's QB's. What does seem to be required is intelligence, an understanding of defenses, a high amount of accuracy and good decision making both pre-snap and post-snap. Gray has shown none of those things (perhaps hasn't had the opportunity). That is why he might not be able to play in the Air Raid offense as a QB.
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i think would be great in the air raid as a qb or a wr, i never questioned that or ran from that. i didnt bring up those other qbs because i didnt feel like typing more than i had to. my bad for being lazy. i hate hearing things like "leach doesnt want those guys in his system" and so on. how the hell do we know? maybe leach went all in on a guy like vince young and settled for someone else? we dont know. maybe peyton manning would have been a bust if he would have been drafted by cleveland? i dont know its possible.

gray grew up in the spread he was recruited and accepted a scholarship thinking he was going to be a spread qb. i dont think that is a worthless comment! sitting under center and making reads is a lot tougher than sitting in shotgun making reads.

as for gray's decision making etc, i have no idea, he may not be what we all think/thought he is, but until he gets a real shot to prove that im not going to say he cant read defenses, he cant throw accurate, he cant play qb! i dont know but i will give him and anyone else the benefit of the doubt!
 

lakesgopher, I think the point is, and others have made it better than me, is that the read-option and the Air Raid are entirely different animals.

Gray played in the read-option, as he did in high school, he could be effective. Air Raid? I'm not sure, but from watching snippets of him playing QB and throwing the football in games/scrimmages, I'd say he'd be better as a WR like Crabtree was for Texas Tech and wind up a Top 15 draft pick.

And I'm not saying Leach wouldn't make some changes to put Gray at QB (if he were hired). But it would require some pretty big changes to Leach's approach.
 

Con: Every writer in town will try and work a pirate reference into everything they publish.
 

GopherGack said:
For some reason I can't get the quote response to work correctly (it keeps quoting Lakesgopher instead of glovedgopher). So glovedgopher said:

"We could go 3-4. I don't think a 3-3-5 stack would work against MSU, Wisky, OSU, Iowa, Nebraska and Penn St."


I don't have any direct knowledge of anything other than your typical 4-3 defenses. Since this is so far off topic I"m going to start a new thread on why people think an alternative defense would not work here. It'd be great if you could chime in on what your thoughts are and post any links to relevant sites as I'd like to learn more about odd front defenses.
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I think an alternative defense could work here. Is there a particular candidate you have in mind?
My favorite is leach, my next two are Frazier and golden, so I'm not blind to the need for defense, it's just that the most innovative candidate happens to be Leach.
I'm trying to answer your question, I just don't know where you r going with this.
 


Pro: I would have Mike Leach's children if he came here.

Cons: If you don't win games in the fashion that the old folks like, they get cranky.
 

50PoundHead said:
And I'm not saying Leach wouldn't make some changes to put Gray at QB (if he were hired). But it would require some pretty big changes to Leach's approach.
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Lakesgopher: If you want to run the Spread Option just so that Gray fits why would you want Leach? Why not go out and get one of the myriad of other coaches who actually know how to run the spread option? And if you want Leach than why are you insisting he run the Spread Option and just so Gray can play? To me Leach doesn't come across as the kind of guy who would tailor his offense just so that Gray could play option football. I think it's much more likely that either Gray would turn out to have the qualities Leach is looking for (read more than athleticism here) or he wouldn't be the starting QB.
 





Innovation vs Imitation

Maybe this should be another thread but:

I asked this earlier, how do we leapfrog Iowa, Wi, and Ohio St. by trying to beat them at their own game? They have better facilities, bigger budgets, more experienced coaches, and larger fan bases.
I know there are risks with bringing in Leach, but there are risks in trying to out play the Buckeyes, Badgers, and Hawkeyes at their style of play.
 

drinks at Northpoint said:
Maybe this should be another thread but:

I asked this earlier, how do we leapfrog Iowa, Wi, and Ohio St. by trying to beat them at their own game? They have better facilities, bigger budgets, more experienced coaches, and larger fan bases.
I know there are risks with bringing in Leach, but there are risks in trying to out play the Buckeyes, Badgers, and Hawkeyes at their style of play.
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Wisc and Iowa aren't doing anything innovative either. They both run a fairly standard formation packages from what I've seen and understand. So a related question is how are they better than OSU or Michigan under Carr? Wisconsin back in the mid to late '90's was doing basically the same things as OSU/Mich but was just better then them. WHY was Wisconsin better? I don't know. You don't HAVE to do anything different scheme-wise than your opponents to beat the other team. You just have to be "better" at it.
 

GopherGack said:
Lakesgopher: If you want to run the Spread Option just so that Gray fits why would you want Leach? Why not go out and get one of the myriad of other coaches who actually know how to run the spread option? And if you want Leach than why are you insisting he run the Spread Option and just so Gray can play? To me Leach doesn't come across as the kind of guy who would tailor his offense just so that Gray could play option football. I think it's much more likely that either Gray would turn out to have the qualities Leach is looking for (read more than athleticism here) or he wouldn't be the starting QB.
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I don't like the option I like the spread/air raid. its something different. next time read the full debate before u put your 2 cents into the convo!
 

GopherGack said:
Wisc and Iowa aren't doing anything innovative either. They both run a fairly standard formation packages from what I've seen and understand. So a related question is how are they better than OSU or Michigan under Carr? Wisconsin back in the mid to late '90's was doing basically the same things as OSU/Mich but was just better then them. WHY was Wisconsin better? I don't know. You don't HAVE to do anything different scheme-wise than your opponents to beat the other team. You just have to be "better" at it.
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But when you start to get 5-6 teams doing the same thing in a 12 team conference, every team you play is going to be pretty well versed at stopping it, especially towards the end of the season. Now if you're the only one running a system, and it's drastically different than the others, not only are you making it really hard to prepare for, you're also most likely taking the other team's best defensive players (big DT's, LB's for the Leach example) off the field or out of the game. That gives a team that will probably be talent-poor compared to their opponent a much better match up.
 



fej said:
Pro: I would have Mike Leach's children if he came here.

Cons: If you don't win games in the fashion that the old folks like, they get cranky.
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Pro: If you don't win games in the fashion that the old folks like, they get cranky.

Con: Leach (apparently) will be procreating if he came here.
 

lakesgopher said:
I don't like the option I like the spread/air raid. its something different. next time read the full debate before u put your 2 cents into the convo!
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I have read the entire thread. I have even argued with you before in this thread. You keep saying the same thing:

1) Gray played in a spread in high school therefore he can handle Leach's offense.
2) Leach would be smart enough to tailor his offense to Gray's abilities.

So, let me reiterate once again.
1)Leach's spread offense is NOTHING like the spread option attack. If that is what Gray played in high school (which seems likely but I'm not positive) it will have minimal impact on his ability to play in Leach's system.

2) Why would Leach reorganize his entire offense just for Gray who will at most be there for only 2 more years?
 

fej said:
But when you start to get 5-6 teams doing the same thing in a 12 team conference, every team you play is going to be pretty well versed at stopping it, especially towards the end of the season. Now if you're the only one running a system, and it's drastically different than the others, not only are you making it really hard to prepare for, you're also most likely taking the other team's best defensive players (big DT's, LB's for the Leach example) off the field or out of the game. That gives a team that will probably be talent-poor compared to their opponent a much better match up.
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I'm not disagreeing with anything you or Drinks At Northpoint said. I am only stating that it is just as possible to win with a more conventional offense. You don't HAVE to have a gimmicky one.
 

GopherGack said:
I have read the entire thread. I have even argued with you before in this thread. You keep saying the same thing:

1) Gray played in a spread in high school therefore he can handle Leach's offense.
2) Leach would be smart enough to tailor his offense to Gray's abilities.

So, let me reiterate once again.
1)Leach's spread offense is NOTHING like the spread option attack. If that is what Gray played in high school (which seems likely but I'm not positive) it will have minimal impact on his ability to play in Leach's system.

2) Why would Leach reorganize his entire offense just for Gray who will at most be there for only 2 more years?
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spread option and the air raid is not that different. in the air raid, throw 95 percent of the time, spread option you run like 30 percent of the time. you act like the spread option is like learning chinese and the airraid is like learning french. its not that tough and at this point I'm starting to wonder what the hell you do know about football. where do some of you people come from, I never once said they were the exact same, what I said was it would easy to learn and wrinkles could be made to use gray's athletic ability to really take it to another level.

no wonder the tc media talks about the gophers the way they do-some really stupid fans!
 


GopherGack said:
I stopped reading after this. I guess our discussions will not continue because you and I have some fundamental differences on the word "different".
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yes we do, you think making cheese pizza is fundamentally different than making sausage pizza because with cheese pizza there is no sausage.
 


Anyways.....

ESPN Rumors says that Sumlin and Patterson will be on top of Texas A&M's list if they fire Mike Sherman. No mention of Leach, even though he was a major thorn in A&M's side when he was with Tech.
 



drinks at Northpoint said:
I sense you are trying to put me in a box. :)
I believe there are far more systems and philosophies on the offensive side of the ball to choose from.
My preference would be for an attacking 4-3 defense that presses on the corners.
This may not be what you want. I don't think there is a defensive equivalent of comparing "pound the rock" with the "air raid".
What is your idea for the defense if you could pick your dream defense?
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This is hard b/c offenses get names where defenses really don't. Is a Alabama coached 3-4 similar to the Stanford coached 3-4? They probably line up in similar spots but how they attack an offense based on tendency and style is most likely different. When a Leach offense lines up and a Rich Rod offense lines up, they might look similar but the role of the QB is so different. One relies more on the arm where the other is on the feet. So one is named Air Raid and the other is named Spread Option.

I am a fan of the 3-4. It seems to be more difficult to find premium Defensive ends, then it is to find linebackers. I actually like Sabans 3-4 a lot, and am not a defensive minded person by nature, so I couldn't be able to articulate what parts I like the most. However I do like his abiltiy to create zone coverages that vary based on assignment.
 

monk10 said:
Honestly my first reaction is to just heckle you.

However instead I'll give you a link to a Mike Leach published playbook.

Help me out again where the option play is used in the Air Raid.

http://www.bucksweep.com/spreademandshredem/playbooks/1999%20Oklahoma%20Offense[1].pdf
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heckle me...you and your ass clown friend seem to think I'm saying leach ran an option...not what I said! I originally said the air raid would be something gray would be good at because he is comfortable in the spread. and then I said leach could put a few option runs in due to grays athletic ability. then I said air raid and the spread aren't that different. and then I had a clown start telling me gray would not be be good at the air raid because its so much different then the spread. and then someone started about you can't run the option out of the air raid leach offense. I said that is dumb. and now all you over analytical ass bags seem to think I'm out of my mind! I think those debating this are retarted and I'm done debating this!
 

The Air Raid will not work in the Big Ten. There is a big differnce between slinging it around 70 times a game in November in Texas and Minnesota cold weather and pass first wouldn't be a great idea. Plus as has been mentioned his defenses have been awful. I would like to see a Defense first guy.
 

lakesgopher said:
heckle me...you and your ass clown friend seem to think I'm saying leach ran an option...not what I said! I originally said the air raid would be something gray would be good at because he is comfortable in the spread. and then I said leach could put a few option runs in due to grays athletic ability. then I said air raid and the spread aren't that different. and then I had a clown start telling me gray would not be be good at the air raid because its so much different then the spread. and then someone started about you can't run the option out of the air raid leach offense. I said that is dumb. and now all you over analytical ass bags seem to think I'm out of my mind! I think those debating this are retarted and I'm done debating this!
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I'd probably nerd rage too if I sounded like an idiot.
 

gopher the gold said:
The Air Raid will not work in the Big Ten. There is a big differnce between slinging it around 70 times a game in November in Texas and Minnesota cold weather and pass first wouldn't be a great idea. Plus as has been mentioned his defenses have been awful. I would like to see a Defense first guy.
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November 10, 2007 Adam Weber threw the ball 41 times in a loss at Iowa

November 21, 2009 Mike Kafka threw the ball 41 times in a victory in Madison Wisconsin

November 7, 2009 Joey Elliot threw the ball 39 times in a victory in Ann Arbor

November 10, 2007 Graham Harrell threw the ball 48 times in a loss in Austin

Not saying that Minnesota, NU or Purdue are all that great. But the myth that you can't throw the ball in November is a myth.
 

bigtenchamps1899 said:
November 10, 2007 Adam Weber threw the ball 41 times in a loss at Iowa

November 21, 2009 Mike Kafka threw the ball 41 times in a victory in Madison Wisconsin

November 7, 2009 Joey Elliot threw the ball 39 times in a victory in Ann Arbor

November 10, 2007 Graham Harrell threw the ball 48 times in a loss in Austin

Not saying that Minnesota, NU or Purdue are all that great. But the myth that you can't throw the ball in November is a myth.
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ex-freaking-actly.
 

Hire Jim Leavitt. He hires Leach as OC. One offensive wizard andone defensive wizard. Recruit Tx and Fl. Perfect. You'll win the Big 10 in 3 years.
 

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