Defending basketball on grass: Learning from TCU

Over at SB Nation I examine how TCU designs, structures, and recruits their 4-2 defense to stop HUNH offenses.

TCU's strategies are starting to become mainstream across the league, and you see Kansas St. employ many of the same principles with the aim of building a single defensive package that can stand up to a large variety of opposing tactics.

In theory, if you have 11 players that can work in concert together to make things difficult for the offense regardless of the opposing strategy or plays, you can start to build the kind of chemistry that leads to premier execution.

When football becomes basketball on grass, execution of simple structures becomes the most essential goal in order to achieve victory.

Previewing the 2014 Texas football schedule: BYU

BYU is going to present some challenges to Texas, despite not having the fastest skill players and having to play Texas in Austin. I tackle the Longhorns' week 2 opponent over at Inside Texas and you can read it for free!

In this series, we'll eventually breakdown the potential difficulties or advantages Texas seems to have against every opponent on the 2014schedule including details on:

-Strengths and weaknesses in the opponent's roster

-Particular schemes and strategies that Texas will find easy to exploit or difficult to handle

-Specific formations and lineups that Texas will be contending with

-and overall tactical oversight of how the match-ups are likely to shake out.

You aren't going to find content like this just anywhere and certainly not during the dog days of summer ;)

Basketball on grass and the up-tempo offense

Over at SB Nation I take a look at how the Oregon Ducks find 5-man skill player lineups that offer them the most matchup advantages over their opponents.

In general, hurry-up/no-huddle (HUNH) offenses are at their best when they can find a particular 5-man lineup that the defense can't match personnel-wise, and then hammer the weak spots hard at high tempo so that the defense can't sub or adjust.

For instance, let's say that the Ducks are in what I labeled as their "Flying V" personnel. They find that if they flex out their TE that the defense isn't able to handle perimeter screens honestly. They can then run option or screen plays over and over again from flex-TE formations at a pace too quick for the defense to adjust.

When you hammer a defense over and over with the same plays, that's when they start to get desperate and start lunging and cheating to the ball in ways that set them up for misdirection, play-action, or other back-breaking plays.

Let's say that you miss a pass or they otherwise find time to sub. Let's say they've been playing nickel and now they bring out 3rd linebacker to play out in space who can handle your TE's blocks on outside screens. Well now you bring the TE back to the line of scrimmage and get him matched up in coverage vs their Mike linebacker while that new linebacker is now asked to cover a receiver or the slotback.

Now you hammer these new match-up advantages and see if you can get the defense reeling and cheating as they grow desperate to make plays. Consider also that they are getting physically fatigued in addition to becoming mentally fatigued because of the effort they are expending to stop these plays and the pace at which you are running them.

Explosive plays ensue.

Versatile hybrid players KILL in the HUNH, just as versatile players like LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, or Boris Diaw are killing in the NBA Finals. When you watch a HUNH team like Oregon, keep an eye out for the hybrid players because they are often a big part of what makes the engine go.

Should women be encouraged to play football?

At Campbellsville University in Kentucky, a girl named Shelby Osborne has made the football team and will play as a defensive back, making her only the second female to play a non-kicker position in college football.

You can read about her experience in her own words here.

Equality is a popular cause in these times and consequently stories like this are often pushed as demonstrating the progress of egalitarian ethics in our modern society. However, there's an underlying assumption that I think deserves a closer look. Is it actually ethical to champion a woman playing a violent, contact sport with grown men? Is this behavior that we want to encourage from females in our communities?

There are some obviously inspirational themes to this story:

You have a person championing over the odds to pursue a dream.

You see someone refuse to back down to public pressure in pursuing what she feels is right.

Both of these are honorable themes, to be sure. But there were also some superficially honorable themes to the "Children's Crusade" and it'd be hard to argue that it was particularly ethical to allow that event to occur.

Personally I find three themes in this story to be disconcerting:

1). Football is not a safe sport, especially for women

The long-term brain damage commonly associated with football has many people wondering if the game should be changed so that we can encourage young boys and men to play in good conscience. We already have to mitigate fears that we are asking them to ruin the ends of their lives by incurring serious brain damage or suffering other injuries that could lead to chronic health issues.

These issues are magnified when we add women to the equation. As is common with egalitarian ethicists, many are ignoring the scientific fact that male and female bodies are different.

Females have weaker necks, which scientists believe is a primary reason that women's soccer has such a high rate of concussions. Because the brain is a free-flowing organ within the skull, violent collisions where our heads aren't stable can lead to brain injuries even when the head isn't contacted.

Violent collisions are the name of the game in football. Is it wise to encourage a 5'6", 140 pound female to play a sport in which these collisions are common?

Females also have smaller, thinner bones and less muscular bodies. Both of these are important factors in the event of a violent collision. After all, Force=mass x acceleration.

Smaller muscles means less acceleration and less mass for absorbing blows. If you create a collision between a 140 pound female and even a 140 pound male, as rare as they are in football, you are creating an equation that likely equal 1 injured female.

We are seeing the same thing with women in the military. Evolution has not designed women to engage in violent activities, especially against men. So we should encourage them to do so anyways? What does that prove again?

2). Shouldn't society look to protect women?

Call me old-fashioned but I think that one of men's primary roles in society is to protect women and children. Not to engage in violent competition with them and look to smash them.

Given that we already know women are inclined to be inferior at men at a sport like football, what can a man prove by beating up women on the gridiron? What are we teaching young men if we encourage women to engage in these sports?

That they shouldn't protect women? That they should take advantage of their natural strength to beat them up in competition? That physical aggression is not something to be reserved for use against men of comparable strength but used to dominate women?

3). What's the upside?

I was concerned with the motivation that Shelby Osborne included in her interview with SB Nation for wanting to become a football player:

"Well, it was the sectional championship game of my junior year, and we weren't playing so hot or even to the best of our ability. I said to myself, "I could play better than that," and that's what planted the seed in my mind that this might actually be possible!"

That doesn't strike me as a particularly noble aim, wanting to upstage the young men playing for her high school that she felt weren't good enough. Credit to her for putting her money where her mouth was, I suppose, although she apparently went on to play mostly JV ball and didn't seem to have actually played "better than that" after all.

But is this the message we want to send young men? "You aren't doing a very good job in society so we're going to try and replace you with women." Incidentally...how well do we think that's going to work?

I think football's upside is that it teaches men to take risks, to channel natural aggression to work within a team construct to protect each other and advance towards a goal, and to hopefully learn lessons like humility and wisdom. Because of these reasons, while I'd like to see the sport become safer I think it's a valuable activity for young men.

What's the upside of encouraging women to play tackle football with men? Frankly, I don't see one that overcomes what seem to be obvious downsides.

5 strategies teams use to choose players for their defense

The college football schedule can often present some challenging struggles for a program that intends to build their roster around defensive excellence.

Consider Bob Stoop's Oklahoma Sooners; they play nine of their 12 games every season against the Big 12 conference, which is almost entirely dominated by the spread offense and particularly the Air Raid strains that are taking over Texas football.

If Oklahoma wants to have any kind of successful season they need to win the games on their schedule...but achieving success against their non-conference slate or against likely opponents in a 4-team College Football playoff could potentially pit them against power-run oriented teams like Alabama, LSU, or Stanford. So how do they build their defensive roster in a way that allows them to handle the variety of personnel match-ups that opposing teams will present?

There are four main approaches to defensive roster-building that seek to answer this question:

1). Shrink the field

Some teams build their teams by simply trying to get the fastest team possible on the field and relying on team speed to attack opponents, rally to the ball, and essentially shrink the field so no offensive player finds a match-up advantage or leverage to operate in for more than a small window of time before the defense converges on him.

Gary Patterson's TCU Horned Frogs are a perfect example of this approach as they rely on 4-2-5 base personnel that has at least five defensive backs, including three safeties, on the field at all times. They'll also play speed at cornerback that can run deep with vertical routes.

Even in their fronts the Horned Frogs target linebackers who can change direction and run in underneath coverage, defensive ends who are aligned wide and are often athletes bulked up and deployed to terrorize the edge, and even defensive tackles who have the lateral quickness to stunt and play blocks outside-in.

In all of their tactics, TCU is looking to handle opponents by playing speed everywhere and racing to where they think the ball will be, and then where ever the ball actually goes.

The 4-3 Over defense popularized by the Jimmy Johnson Miami Hurricanes really launched this tactic into the modern era, the Gary Patterson 4-2-5 TCU defense is largely a modern take on it.

3-3-5 defenses that are aggressive in calling blitzes often fit under this heading as well.

2). Man the trenches!

Other teams have one major priority in choosing their defensive roster, to have big people up front who can carry the load for the rest of the team and allow different types of athlete to have success behind them.

Notre Dame's defenses under Bob Diaco are one prime example, the Gary Andersen 2013 Wisconsin Badgers are another. By having 2-gappers in the front and sturdy linebackers controlling the action up front and allowing the four DBs in the secondary to primarily concern themselves with keeping the ball in front of them, these teams can play the ultimate "bend don't break" approach.

The key is having a nose tackle who can command double-teams and control the spaces between the tackles along with defensive ends who can collapse the pocket and protect linebackers from seeing OL advance and meet them at the 2nd level to open up creases for the running back.

3-4 defenses are often prone to applying this principal in choosing the players for their roster while the 4-3 Under defense also tends to value bigger bodies who can protect the linebackers.

3). Fireproof

Given the modern spread coach's love of playing versatile personnel and finding mismatches to attack with RB/WR or TE/WR hybrids, some teams prefer to choose defensive personnel around the principle of having match-up proof players across the defensive front and back end.

The Seattle Seahawks are a great example. With large and athletic players like 6'3", 232 pound strong safety Kam Chancellor, 6'3", 195 pound cornerback Richard Sherman, 6'1" 207 pound cornerback Byron Maxwell, or blazing fast, 5'10", 202 pound free safety Earl Thomas, it's hard to find match-ups to attack against the Seahawks.

"Fireproof" defenses often rely on a lot of single-deep safety coverages such as Cover-3, Cover-1, or Fire Zone blitzes that will basically amount to man coverage.

The Fire Proof defense outnumbers the running game, puts big, athletic people against your weapons and basically says "come at me, bro!"

Across the front, the Seahawks are also very match-up conscious. Although they primarily play a 4-3 Under front, they choose their pieces up front based on competencies with particular spots across the DL in different packages chosen for skills like "run-stopping," "2-gapping," or "pass-rushing." Ideally, the Seahawks always have the right pieces on the field to match up against whatever the offense is likely to bring.

Fireproof teams often use a lot of Fire Zone blitzes that bring five rushers because their LB corp and secondary, being chosen largely for their size and athleticism, are often adept as either pass-rushers or holding up in pattern-matching coverage against an offense's athletes.

The LSU Tigers are a good example of a "Fireproof" style defensive roster in the college football game.

4). Outsmart 'em

University of Central Florida head coach George O'Leary ironically wants the smartest team he can find. His Knights play a variety of different defenses and disguise their intentions before the snap from the offense.

The overriding theme with his players is that they always understand what the offense is doing and how they will respond to it within their own diversity of calls. Just try and speed up the pace against the Knights and see what happens. They don't need to constantly stare at the sideline for calls or guidance, they know what they're doing and they're ready for what you're doing.

Some teams try to achieve a similar result by having as simple a defensive scheme as possible but the Knights are able to maintain a certain degree of complexity in their system because they make sure to recruit players who are smart enough to handle it.

5). Just get the best football players

Of course there are always teams that will look to choose find the best players to fulfill different roles, much like how the Seahawks choose players for their defensive line. Rather than attempting to have a unified vision for their defensive personnel, these teams just worry about having good players who might be effective due to any number of physical or mental attributes.

A team like KSU gets a lot of mileage by simply making sure that they find players who can handle the main tasks of their system. Can you fulfill the main competencies of your position? You're eligible? Nah, I don't care what you look like, come to Manhattan!

Any of these strategies can work, when applied well and consistently, assuming your team has access to the players needed. Recruiting turf plays a large role as well, teams better make sure that they can get a cast of >6'0" DBs to come to their school before they embrace a "Fireproof" plan for building a defense.

Regarding Clemson and the modern triple-option offense

The triple-option may just be the ultimate collegiate offense. It's seeing further evolution and deployment today by teams like Clemson, as we examine over at SB Nation:

http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2014/6/10/5782566/clemson-offense-chad-morris

Part of the brilliance of the triple-option is that it can be designed to have an answer for every offense while using a "division of labor" strategy to make the most out of different skill sets that can be readily found at the college level.

Don't be shocked if the modern versions of the triple-option continue to work their way into the NFL at last...

Previewing the 2014 Texas football schedule

Over at Inside Texas I'm previewing the opponents on Texas' 2014 schedule with an eye towards how they present matchup challenges or matchup opportunities for the Longhorns.

We start with Week 1: North Texas (subscription only $)

http://insidetexas.com/news/story.php?article=5038

The Texas Basketball Auction Draft: Rick Barnes Edition

This year during the NCAA tournament we got into a debate about which individual player would improve this year's Texas team the most. A lot of fans have spent some time putting together fantasy versions of their team.  Here is our guide to the ultimate Texas fantasy basketball auction.

Ground rules: 

• You have to draft a starting 5, one player at each position. 
• Each player has to have played at least one season for Rick Barnes. 
• You are drafting their best year at Texas, not what they have done in the NBA, and not their full time at Texas (this is not a career achievement award).  
• The team will play in the Big 12 and be coached by Rick Barnes.

We've put players into position groups largely based on where they played at Texas and fudged a few guys into slightly different positions just to round out the groups.

Point Guard:

$5 TJ Ford

$4 DJ Augustin

$3 Myck Kabongo

$2 Corey Joseph

$1 Isaiah Taylor

NAME	PTS	REB	AST	STL	AFG%	TS%
03 Ford	15	3.9	7.7	2	42	51
08 DJ	19	2.9	5.8	1.2	51	56
13 Kabongo	14.6	5	5.5	2	45	53
14 Taylor	12.7	3.3	4	1.1	40	48
11 Joseph	10.4	3.6	3	1	50	53

Shooting Guard:

$5 Daniel Gibson

$4 J’Covan Brown

$3 AJ Abrams

$2 Kris Clack

$1 Avery Bradley

NAME	PTS	REB	AST	STL	AFG%	TFG%
06 Gibson	13	3.6	3.1	1.3	53	55
12 Brown	20	3.4	3.8	1.2	49	55
06 Abrams	16	2	1.3	1.3	51	54
99 Clack	14	6.4	1.5	1.9	49	50
10 Bradley	12	2.9	2.1	1.3	49	50

Small Forward:

$5 PJ Tucker

$4 Jordan Hamilton

$3 Maurice Evans

$2 Jonathan Holmes

$1 Brandon Mouton

NAME	PTS	REB	AST	STL	BLK	AFG%	TFG%
06 Tucker	16	9.5	2.9	1.8	.4	49	50
11 Hamilton	19	7.7	2.1	.9	.6	50	51
01 Evans	16	5.3	1.3	1.3	.6	55	57
14 Holmes	13	7.2	.9	.6	1.3	55	58
04 Mouton	14	3.5	1.4	1.2	.3	49	51

Power Forward:

$5 Kevin Durant

$4 Damion James

$3 Chris Owens

$2 Brad Buckman

$1 Brian Boddicker

NAME	PTS	REB	AST	STL	BLK	AFG%	TFG%
07 Durant	26	11.1	1.3	1.9	1.9	54	59
10 James	18	10.3	1.0	1.7	1.2	51	54
02 Owens	16	7.4	.8	.7	1.9	51	55
05 Buckman	13	8.3	1.0	.8	1.6	57	60
04 Boddicker	8	4.8	.5	.4	.2	58	61

Center:

$5 Lamarcus Aldridge

$4 Chris Mihm

$3 Tristan Thompson

$2 Cameron Ridley

$1 James Thomas

NAME	PTS	REB	AST	STL	BLK	AFG%	TFG%
06 Aldridge	15	9.2	0.5	1.4	2	57	59
00 Mihm	18	10.5	0.7	0.3	2.7	53	58
11 Thompson	13	7.8	1.3	0.9	2.4	55	54
14 Ridley	11	8.2	0.4	0.5	2.2	55	58
03 Thomas	11	11	0.5	0.5	0.7	51	56