It didn’t take long for fans to start worrying after we posted a video of Chad Morris with ESPN’s Tom Luginbill on Friday night.
Just relax. Take a pill, have a drink or whatever.
Chad didn’t give away a single surprise in that little chalk talk.
“Now we can’t ever run that in a game,” one reader complained on social media.
Well, yes, they can … and will. Best of all, it doesn’t matter if the defense knows it’s coming or not. They don’t even have to wonder because it WILL be coming.
The first thought that went through my mind was back in the 1980’s when Tom Landry was still coaching the Dallas Cowboys. There was a luncheon every Tuesday where Landry and some others in the team’s front office hosted members of the media.
No, seriously. First Tom would get up and ramble on about this and that after everyone was pretty well stuffed. Then they cleared out any media that wasn’t from a local media outlet, Ermal Allen or Neill Armstrong would break out the projector and we got a full breakdown of what the coaches expected and what they were going to do.
And, in case you’re wondering, no one ever violated that trust by writing about, talking about or even giving a hint of what was planned. Ever.
Coaches won’t do that these days. They are too paranoid.
I casually asked Tom once as he was walking past to a practice if he wasn’t worried that someone was going to let something slip that might help the other team.
He never stopped walking.
“Not unless they (the opponent) know when I’m going to call it,” he said.
Thirty years ago teams often ran exactly what was sent in by the coaches. Roger Staubach was the last Landry quarterback that blatantly ignored it on a regular basis.
These days, nearly every high school doesn’t run what is sent in very often. Everything is based on what the defense shows.
It’s similar to the old Wishbone days when some teams didn’t look at film of most opponents because it didn’t matter what they did. Everything was based on the theory that no matter what the defense did, it was wrong.
According to Larry Lacewell before the Orange Bowl after the 1977 season, he couldn’t get Barry Switzer to look at film of Arkansas until two days before the game. Switzer finally did and came out looking like he’d seen a ghost because he didn’t know the Hogs were that good.
That’s what these modern-day college offenses do. They look at film of the opponent, but they still are going to just make minor changes in what they do for the opponent that week.
For the last 10-15 years everything has been based off reads by the quarterback or sideline. When you see all of the Razorbacks line up, then raise up and look to the sideline it’s not because someone is streaking through the stands.
The coaches, talking to the guys up in the box, will often signal a change in the original play that was called or that IS the original playcall when teams are trying to speed things up. Get ready to see the Hogs do that a lot this year.
After the quarterback gets the call, then he has options from that based on what the defense is doing. Multiple options. On every play.
The hiccup happens when a defense plays one of those people being read in a different position or they add more people in the box than was expected (and in Morris’ system it’s based on the number of folks in the box because they want to run the ball).
That’s when coaches start making adjustments in the game. Despite what fans have seen the last five years, Arkansas is not banned by the NCAA or the SEC from making in-game adjustments.
Of course, the thing that throws a kink in the works is when a team has unbelievable speed and athleticism on defense where they can give one read and cover the alternate as well.
That’s a problem that can be a head-scratcher. As Morris says, you’re either recruiting speed or chasing it. He could add another one in there that if you’re not recruiting it or chasing it, speed is chasing you and getting you on the ground quicker than anybody wants.
What the Hogs want to do is nothing the SEC hasn’t seen. Over 75 percent of the league runs some form of what Morris wants to do every week. There are some wrinkles that are different, but it’s all the same concept.
Making the reads, quickly and correctly are absolutely critical to the offense. Maybe THE most important part.
So, relax. Chad didn’t give away anything in the video to opponents they didn’t already know about.
In today’s world, all he was talking about was about as basic as it gets.
Welcome to the modern day of college football.
