Brophy Football

Cripes! Get back to fundamentals...

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

WHY NOEL MAZZONE: DENNIS ERICKSON AND THE ONE-BACK SPREAD OFFENSE

Over the course of this summer, Brophy and I have talked a lot of offense. As many of you know, we’ve
focused much of our discussion on what Noel Mazzone is doing at Arizona State. And given the richness
of this topic, I suspect that we will continue to do so throughout much of this college football season.

For me, perhaps the greatest upshot of these discussions has been the way it took me back in time to
when I first got into coaching football. Specifically, it got me thinking about Dennis Erickson and how
much I enjoyed watching his offenses at Wyoming, WAZZU, and Miami, which in turn got me to think
more critically about his hiring of Noel Mazzone. Sure, Mazzone was one of his guys for a short while at
Oregon State, but when Erickson was forced to replace Rich Olsen, he clearly had the pick of the litter. I
mean, besides knowing Mazzone, which obviously counts for something, there had to other reasons
why he chose him, rather than, let’s say, Dana Holgorsen, or some other hip, en vogue spread
offense guru.

I think to get at this problem the right way we have to settle a few things about why Erickson found
himself in such a situation in the first place. If we were to blindly swill the pap that ESPN spews, the
reason was quite simple: Erickson’s job was on the line and Rich Olsen’s offense was too antiquated for
today’s game. Now, I think most readers know where I stand on this matter, but for the sake of
posterity, let’s understand that Rich Olson is an outstanding football coach and that the offense he
coordinated was not outdated by any stretch of the imagination. The simple fact is that the
administration forced Erickson’s hand, so a change had to be made. But this should not be interpreted
as the administration taking the keys away from Erickson, because his choice of Mazzone reflects the
degree to which, at a deep structural level, Noel’s offensive thinking is predicated upon the same set of
fundamental beliefs and values as Erickson’s.

The reason I harp on this is because, and I mean no disrespect here, Mazzone’s incarnation of the spread
is so medieval that it’s progressive. By this, I mean that the fundamental principles and structures upon
which Mazzone’s offense is predicated are virtually identical to those upon which Erickson based his
offenses throughout the 80s and 90s, which is to say – verticals, quicks, and zone running made easy by
defensive displacement.

I don’t want to spend too much time on Erickson’s original offense. For those interested, please
see Chris Brown’s treatment at Smart Football. The other source to consider is UTEP football, because
for all intents and purposes the offense Mike Price runs today is not too terribly different from the one
he ran back in the 90s at WAZZU.

With that disclaimer of sorts, I will say a word or two about the spread offense Erickson ran with great
success from Idaho and Wyoming to Miami, Oregon State, and, at least initially, Arizona State. For those
expecting gaudy route structures, Erickson’s may appear, at least upon first blush, somewhat basic;
Erickson really did not rely much on layered concepts, such as Shallow, Drive, Mesh, etc, preferring
instead to rely on vertical stem packages in both his quick and drop back games. The reason for this is
very simple: Erickson never wanted to stop running the ball; he simply wanted to create defensive
structures that would enable him to run the ball effectively inside. This is why Erickson from the very
beginning emphasized stretching the defense from sideline to sideline, not only with formations, but
concepts as well. Formations and splits that would effectively center the defense by inviting it to align
players closely to the LOS were jettisoned in favor of five very basic environments that by alignment
would engender some type of a Nickel response.

Diagram I. Tight End / Slot

Diagram II. Trips Closed (TE to the boundary)

Diagram III. Trey

Diagram IV. 3X2 (with Y or T Flexed or in the Slot)

Diagram V. 3X2 (with Y in the Formation)

And because Erickson never wanted to bring the defense towards the ball, his passing game, by design,
was designed to create an environment that would stretch the field horizontally, which he would then
attack vertically. Consequently, Erickson eschewed routes that could possibly negate the horizontal
stretch of his formations, for those that would always “push” the defense off the ball, creating even
more vertical space between it and the offense.

Does this mean that Erickson’s one-back was not a ball-control offense, that it was always trying to go
for the deep shot? No, only that he sought a way of throwing the ball that would not draw the defense
towards the formation, and thus, towards the ball. As a result, what you see is a pass offense based
around vertical stems, be they seams and benders, or option routes paired with posts and digs over top.

Now, before continuing, I want to head a potential problem off at the pass: rightfully, many coaches
would look at this and say that without an aggressive shallow or drive game, how did he manage to
control the linebackers? After all, this is essentially the problem Northwestern had a decade ago after
their first big year in the spread offense; they had a half-field passing game to either side of the
formation, but with nothing over the middle because of wide splits their receivers took. For this, much
more so than Northwestern, Erickson used option routes that effectively prevented the linebackers from
providing hard and aggressive run support.

So what does any of this have to do with Noel Mazzone? I think what we need to remember is that for a
while, and even recently, when coaches hear Mazzone’s name they equate it not just with Snag, but
with shallows and other layered concepts. And there is undoubtedly a great deal of truth to this,
because for a while shallows and crossers were the bread and butter staples of any Mazzone offense;
and while he recognized the need to get vertical even then to prevent people from squatting on his
underneath stuff, it was, as will be covered in a future post, usually paired on the back side of his
shallows. But shallows are not what characterize Arizona State’s current offense; in fact, one can say
that while shallows and drives remain an important part of Mazzone’s current offense, they now play a
decidedly more secondary role to his Arizona State’s Vertical game. And this is why, I think, Mazzone
was so attractive to Erickson, because Mazzone’s current offensive thinking, from the role formations
and verticals, to a simple, yet effective inside zone running game, effectively is entirely in synch with
Erickson’s base offensive values.