Grew up in my hometown where the local community college ran the power I with much success under Dick Foster. Watching that on Saturday afternoons/evenings in the fall as a kid allowed me to appreciate a physical run game where a team controls the clock, dictates the pace of the game and wins a lot of football games.
Over the years, when you stop and watch how Pittsburg State built its success running the ball under coaches like Franchione and Broyles, guys on the staff like Kill and Patterson, which led to a LARGE coaching tree of guys like Larry Garman (Seneca native) at Pittsburg High, Chuck Smith at St. Mary's-Colgan, Bob Campbell at Fort Scott, Roderique at Webb City -- I know I'm missing some but each of these coaches have won multiple state championships.
Some where along the way, some basketball coach was helping coach football and decided that turning football games into basketball games where getting your best athletes in space with the ball, exploiting matchups and the philosophy that our fourth best receiver is better than your fourth best cover guy became popular to those spread coaches out of Texas.
It is always interesting to see how a coaching staff adjusts their preferred scheme to the talent available.
Watching the CJ at Webb game two weeks ago, I can appreciate what Webb City was doing on offense. Imagine for years seeing the same double tight, splitback option offense and spending a week preparing for it all the time knowing exactly what was coming. Now, they come out in the same formation, show it to you, then decide to shift out of it, a tight end goes to a slot, a running back goes to a slot, the quarterback goes to the shotgun with a back to one side.
Now all of the sudden you come out in a defensive alignment with four down lineman anticipating a double tight end front, perhaps four or at least three linebackers and now, you've got an outside linebacker in one on one coverage with an athlete like Gabe Johnson? Sure, let's run a wheel route with him in one on one against a linebacker let's see who's going to win that matchup. So it's the same principle, finding and exploiting matchups, but now Webb City makes opponents spend more time preparing for more than just one look.
Over the years, when you stop and watch how Pittsburg State built its success running the ball under coaches like Franchione and Broyles, guys on the staff like Kill and Patterson, which led to a LARGE coaching tree of guys like Larry Garman (Seneca native) at Pittsburg High, Chuck Smith at St. Mary's-Colgan, Bob Campbell at Fort Scott, Roderique at Webb City -- I know I'm missing some but each of these coaches have won multiple state championships.
Some where along the way, some basketball coach was helping coach football and decided that turning football games into basketball games where getting your best athletes in space with the ball, exploiting matchups and the philosophy that our fourth best receiver is better than your fourth best cover guy became popular to those spread coaches out of Texas.
It is always interesting to see how a coaching staff adjusts their preferred scheme to the talent available.
Watching the CJ at Webb game two weeks ago, I can appreciate what Webb City was doing on offense. Imagine for years seeing the same double tight, splitback option offense and spending a week preparing for it all the time knowing exactly what was coming. Now, they come out in the same formation, show it to you, then decide to shift out of it, a tight end goes to a slot, a running back goes to a slot, the quarterback goes to the shotgun with a back to one side.
Now all of the sudden you come out in a defensive alignment with four down lineman anticipating a double tight end front, perhaps four or at least three linebackers and now, you've got an outside linebacker in one on one coverage with an athlete like Gabe Johnson? Sure, let's run a wheel route with him in one on one against a linebacker let's see who's going to win that matchup. So it's the same principle, finding and exploiting matchups, but now Webb City makes opponents spend more time preparing for more than just one look.
