You got the idea Wednesday from Chad Morris’ coaching clinic for the media he views football much like a chess match.
But he wants to keep opponents on their heels and, to sum it up, he’ll do it with consistent inconsistency. Not the bad kind of inconsistency, but the kind that keeps other teams guessing what’s coming next.
“We could run the same play five times,” he said. “If it’s working, it’s common courtesy to keep running it,” he said.
That’s refreshing to hear. I hear from old coaches all the time about guys today out-coaching themselves, assuming the other team is automatically going to change something to stop what they’re doing offensively.
They often don’t because they’re guessing the offensive playcaller is going to change things.
Just because it’s the same play, though, doesn’t always mean it will look the same. There will be different speeds.
“Tempo is about how fast I can go, but also, can I stop and get them on their heels then we can stop and check the sidelines, stop, check the sidelines again?” Morris said.
Oh, and that may include a huddle, but don’t look for it to resemble a detailed committee meeting with a leisurely stroll to the line of scrimmage.
“”We may huddle, but when we break out, we break out in a fire alarm,” he said. “It’s at a fast pace.”
Remember, it’s like a chess match.
“There’s always a weakness somewhere,” Morris said. “It’s just whether or not they hide their pressures good enough to where it’s too late to get to your answer. That’s the question that we’ll find out with a lot of our quarterbacks.”
Don’t holler about playcalling. That’s because until somewhere seconds on either side of the center snap, nobody knows exactly what’s going to happen, which is about the best way I can put into layman’s terms the RPO. That’s the Run-Pass-Option that’s popular these days.
“We’ll have an RPO on every play,” Morris said.
That’s why the quarterback position is going to be so critical. Cole Kelley isn’t the answer. There are questions about his skillset and whispers in the locker room from other players. He hasn’t stepped up as a leader either on or off the field.
Of the quarterbacks who were on campus when Morris got the job, walk-on Jack Lindsey picked up the offense the quickest. Reportedly, when offensive coordinator Joe Craddock asked questions in the quarterback room, Lindsey had the answer so fast they had to tell him to give somebody else a chance to answer.
All of that’s why many are interested to see what freshman Connor Noland can do. He’s been running Morris’ offense for years down at Greenwood because his coach, Rick Jones, was in on all those visits with Morris and Gus Malzahn years ago.
With Morris, it’s all about the details. Like some other championship coaches, he’s got folks paying attention to every little detail. They even scout the officials.
“The officials come in and we’ll meet and we’ll talk about, ‘Hey, this is what we look for. How quick do you spot the ball?’” Morris said. “I’m communicating with the down box, because they usually don’t set (the ball) until that down box gets set. Once that gets set, everything can work after a first down, so you kind of make sure to eye the guy working the down box.
“Does he look like he can run? Are his shoes tied up good?”
That’s getting down to the details, which is something not seen around these parts in a few years. Maybe longer than you think.
Morris spent a great deal of the clinic Wednesday talking about defensive schemes. During warmups you see offensive coaches going to defensive players … defensive coaches going to offensive players.
Didn’t see that before, even during a 21-5 run over 2010-11.
Offensive and defensive staffs will watch spring clips together and bounce ideas and tips off each other. In some instances, Morris or offensive coordinator Joe Craddock may pass on a defensive tip to defensive coordinator John Chavis, and vice versa.
“We’ll say, ‘Hey, Coach Chavis, you brought pressure right there, but man, if you would bring it from there like this and disguise this look … that free safety gave it away, which allowed our quarterback to make that check and push the front to the right,’” Morris said. “’But if he would have kept his hat down or his stance squared a little bit more, Coach, he would have never seen it.’
“I said to him that night when I called him, ‘I can help you. I can help you as much as you can help me as far as communicating. And if you can defend us offensively, then you can defend a lot of teams because of how fast we play and what we do.”
Chavis has bought into Morris’ system maybe as much as any stop he’s made.
And it should be interesting to watch it play out.
