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Why Chinander prefers the 3-4 Defense

If the phrase "I'm going to have to take your word for it" hadn't already been coined, this thread would have caused it to be. If I read and digested it all, I would still just pay attention to the ball carrier come game action. I'm happy there are those that appreciate it more than I do. It would suck if MABC was wasting his time.

I loved to watch Jamal Lord run, but, strong arm or not, he would wait too long to throw it most times. If you ran an out route, you'd be about out of bounds before he threw the ball. Very frustrating. He was a gazelle though.
 
@Middle-aged_Ball_Coach @MadRat @ShortSideOption in addition to this being a master class in defensive scheme. It is also a master class in how to debate without anger or insults. Disagreeing without being disagreeable. Thank you for that.

This thread also teaches us that there are as many ways too run a defense as there are coaches. Everyone puts there own little spin on a scheme.
 
I simply love the game. There are so many ways to skin a cat it keeps the sport fresh. I find myself glued to college football versus what the pros do as time passes because the latter is becoming rigid in thinking and literally one philosophy has dominated professional staffs for two decades. And NFL rules basically make experimentation difficult. At the college level teams don't have stagnant philosophy and there is still a lot of innovation going on. Ever since the concept of "money ball', where professional teams weigh player salaries against field results, the gulf between professional and amateur sports only widened. The recruiting wars in college have been important, but you are not seeing literally whole roster shifts after a single bad season like you see on pro teams. We are going to have to make the most out of what we have on the roster at the amateur levels. Building men is the edge. Not many coaches can maintain that there, but it is absolutely the difference. I know people want to make Saban into Satan, but if you listen to him there is a distinct theme that people don't seem to catch. The guy focuses on raising winners and buy in. His Xs and Os charge year to year, but he does far better with his journeyman than 90% of the coaches out there. And he constantly changes the staff while maintaining winning. How? Because of his edge. Tom Osborne figured out the edge and we see the ex-players continue a fraternity with this program. The Xs and Os can go many directions, but we really need to worry about how to get the most of the guys on the team. Little philosophy changes like switching from 3-4 to 4-3 are unnecessary stress on our players. I'd like to focus on the strategy side of football like instilling confidence through competence and maximum effort through player substitution. At the end of the season,, logistical strategy pays off.
 



I simply love the game. There are so many ways to skin a cat it keeps the sport fresh. I find myself glued to college football versus what the pros do as time passes because the latter is becoming rigid in thinking and literally one philosophy has dominated professional staffs for two decades. And NFL rules basically make experimentation difficult. At the college level teams don't have stagnant philosophy and there is still a lot of innovation going on. Ever since the concept of "money ball', where professional teams weigh player salaries against field results, the gulf between professional and amateur sports only widened. The recruiting wars in college have been important, but you are not seeing literally whole roster shifts after a single bad season like you see on pro teams. We are going to have to make the most out of what we have on the roster at the amateur levels. Building men is the edge. Not many coaches can maintain that there, but it is absolutely the difference. I know people want to make Saban into Satan, but if you listen to him there is a distinct theme that people don't seem to catch. The guy focuses on raising winners and buy in. His Xs and Os charge year to year, but he does far better with his journeyman than 90% of the coaches out there. And he constantly changes the staff while maintaining winning. How? Because of his edge. Tom Osborne figured out the edge and we see the ex-players continue a fraternity with this program. The Xs and Os can go many directions, but we really need to worry about how to get the most of the guys on the team. Little philosophy changes like switching from 3-4 to 4-3 are unnecessary stress on our players. I'd like to focus on the strategy side of football like instilling confidence through competence and maximum effort through player substitution. At the end of the season,, logistical strategy pays off.
Your point about the NFL vs college is one I have made for a while. NFL is boring and unoriginal. College is exciting and fun to watch. Ultimate example of what college can be is the NE vs FL national championship game. Offense and Defense those two teams could not be more different.
 
It may have been Shatel, but one of the OWH writers at the time referred to Lord as having a gladiator's body, and I always thought that that was an apt description. He was under-appreciated.
Agreed. I still believe one of the biggest problems Lord had was the quality of his offensive line. In Lord's first year of being the starter, I thought he did all right, both running and passing, going against lesser defenses. Later in the season, against tougher defenses, he had people in his face much quicker, and had to learn to ad lib. This is when I first remember hearing the term "Happy Feet". That was when his passes started going long or bouncing short of the receivers.

But it made one heck of a scrambler out of him. And one of the toughest. That man could take a hit and bounce right back for the next play. Unfortunately, his passing never improved back to what it was in his first few games. Neither did the pass blocking of his offensive line. It seemed to me his instinct became to scramble first, and avoid a sack, than to get his feet set to throw the perfect pass.

And all at the same time he was taking care of his younger brother and being a good student, while being a in the fishbowl as a college football player for a nationally recognized school. This is why Jammal Lord will always be one of my favorite Nebraska players.
 
I find myself glued to college football versus what the pros do as time passes

Your point about the NFL vs college is one I have made for a while. NFL is boring and unoriginal. College is exciting and fun to watch. Ultimate example of what college can be is the NE vs FL national championship game. Offense and Defense those two teams could not be more different.

I quit watching the NFL after the players went on strike. They were making hundreds of thousands of $'s already, they got greedy, and thought they deserved more of the owners money. From then on they just seemed to be a bunch of overpaid crybabies. I have no use for the NFL.

College is so much more fun to watch and the players are out there for fun. Sure, they want to get to the pros but until then college is just a much more exciting game.
 
@Middle-aged_Ball_Coach @MadRat @ShortSideOption in addition to this being a master class in defensive scheme. It is also a master class in how to debate without anger or insults. Disagreeing without being disagreeable. Thank you for that.

Agree 1000%. :Rockon:

I've learned quite a bit from these discussions, not that I'll remember all of it, :Biggrin: but things are posted in a pretty simple way for those of us that aren't X's & O's guys to understand. :Clap:

It also makes me watch what else is going on in the game than just where and who has the football. I'm starting to see how and why plays develop like they do. Thanks guys. :nod:
 



If the phrase "I'm going to have to take your word for it" hadn't already been coined, this thread would have caused it to be. If I read and digested it all, I would still just pay attention to the ball carrier come game action. I'm happy there are those that appreciate it more than I do. It would suck if MABC was wasting his time.

Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I personally struggle to watch a game at any time at any level, Pee Wee football to professional, if I can't grasp the X's and O's of what either side is trying to do. You don't need to worry about me wasting my time either. It's been my experience that I can fulfill a very large niche because the vast majority of football fans would like to know more about the X's and O's, but the learning curve is so steep that it's usually difficult to find somebody who is both more knowledgeable than you are, yet able to explain things at your level. I like the practice of explaining things like the original post because the audience is so broad here that it's impossible to write in such a way that everyone gets something out of it. I am certain that there were a handful of people who starting reading that post and thought, "Well, duh, tell me something I don't know," and that's fine because there really wasn't anything new in what I was saying other than how I packaged it for Nebraska fans who are uncertain about the merits of the 3-4 Defense. I also expected some to have the response that you did, and that's fine, too, because nobody is making you read it. I would suspect (and hope) that the majority of people who read it found some things to be explained that didn't need to be and some things that were new, but the rate of the one to the other was probably all over the continuum.

Since you are the first to say that you didn't get much out of it, I am curious as to what would be the level of X's and O's that would interest you, if any? My wife never cared about football until she met me, so she wouldn't care about what I wrote either, but she enjoys watching the games. She asks me questions all the time about why a certain play worked, or why my team couldn't stop another team from doing something, and I have to explain it in ways that are interesting to her, and I enjoy that. My dad played some high school football, but he had very little interest in the offensive side of things, but we often had discussions about things like this o.p., except he had no use for the diagrams. So what are the questions that run through your mind when you're watching football? What were you thinking when you watched the spring game?
 
@Middle-aged_Ball_Coach @MadRat @ShortSideOption in addition to this being a master class in defensive scheme. It is also a master class in how to debate without anger or insults. Disagreeing without being disagreeable. Thank you for that.

This thread also teaches us that there are as many ways too run a defense as there are coaches. Everyone puts there own little spin on a scheme.
Thanks for the kind words. I have genuinely enjoyed the feedback, both good and bad.
 
It is easier to teach a complicated system to younger guys. As people get older they seem more interested in specialization. I certainly fit in that category. As a 21 year old I couldn't learn fast enough. After doubling my age I really find myself stuck on the passing game. I'm pretty set in how to run it, but passing is always a WIP.
 



Alright @Middle-aged_Ball_Coach , finally made it through. The new puppy decided 2:00AM was as good a time as any to get up, so I read through the whole thing.

Not much to argue with at all. One thing, I think we often discuss ideal personnel and base personnel groups for each defense when we have these discussions, or at least I know I do. As you pointed out the 4-3 has some holes, as does the 3-4. I watched a few segments of older games to refresh my 4-3 memory and found I didn't need to. I could look at a screen shot of a 4-3 formation and be able to tell exactly what was going on nearly instantly. I don't have the 3-4 experience to do the same, so I've had to work at it. I don't think I really understood that until this morning. Other things Ive not really taken into consideration like changing personnel to something other than base happens frequently during each and every game and situations that involve text book size and speed combinations for players in either defense are few. Do you need a mid '90's Nebraska defensive line to make the 4-3 effective? No, but it sure does help. What about a Vince Wilfork at nose? Can you run a 3-4 successfully without a player like that? Sure. Most teams have had too. Both defenses work. Both have their place in modern football when techniques, personnel groups and alterations to base formation are used to adapt to offensive changes. Both require a certain level of physical talent (that varies based on scheme), planning and execution to operate at a high level....and that's where the rub is for me mentally, but the longer I look at things, it's just me, it's not the 3-4.

I was a defensive player in High School and loved the mindset. Not just football, but also with hockey and basketball I spent very little time working on offensive skills and focused on defense. Deny. Take away. Stifle. Refuse to give up yards, points, goals, rebounds. I'm very guilty of two things when it comes to defense in all sports. Always wanting to be aggressive/playing from a position of strength and perfection as a stated goal. Modern offensive football rarely allows for either and that's hard for me to get used to. I'm not sure I'll see another Nebraska defensive gem against a D1 opponent that includes a shutout and less than 100 yards of offense. That might happen in the first quarter these days, but that's just how it is.

I'll work on my short comings in relation to understanding and accepting the 3-4 scheme and I have no doubt Chinander and Frost will do what's needed to bring the kids in to run it and coach 'em up. Thanks for putting all the time you did for this and other threads. As always, appreciate the input. Happy Easter.
 

I totally agree @Brew City Husker . The info and discussions are great. :nod:

I will say though, sometimes the posts look like a chapter from a book :Biggrin: but, once you read it, it doesn't seem to be that long. The thing is, it really couldn't be explained in such simplified & understandable detail in a shorter post. Sometimes I'll even read through a 2nd time just to absorb everything.
 
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