Nick Saban explains why NFL, college football offenses are transitioning away from spread
Football is a sport where, at all levels, evolution is constant. The greatest minds in the sport are constantly working with and against one another in order to achieve success on the field.
On the offensive side of the ball, the current game if chalk full of spread-out offensive attacks predicated on athletic quarterbacks distributing, wide receivers making explosive plays, and using tempo to keep opposing defenses on their toes. It’s a transition that former Alabama head coach Nick Saban is plenty familiar with having transformed the Crimson Tide offense into a more wide-open attack in the mid 2010s. Given his own experience, Saban shared if he believes that style could result in a college team winning a national championship.
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“Well, I still think you got to play good defense to go with it, to win the big one you’ve got to have a complete team,” Saban said Friday on The Pat McAfee Show. “But I do think you can with this style of offense, I think you can score enough points, but you got to have a good defense. But when you play this way, you also put a lot of pressure on your defense, because your defense is going to play more plays because you’re not shrinking the game at all.”
An uptempo offensive attack may give teams the opportunity to score more points when they do have the ball. But it also puts defenses on the field more than ever before, forcing Saban in the past and current coaches in the present to find some sort of balance given the personnel of their given teams.
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“When we went to the no-huddle, fastball stuff, probably 8-10 years ago, our defense played like 12, 14 more plays a game because we were going fast. And even though we were just as good on defense, we didn’t have as good of stats and the other team scored more points because they had more opportunities,” Saban explained. “That comes with it, you got to accept that.”
Defenses have naturally adapted to offenses stretching the field vertically in college and in the NFL, with much Cover 2 defense being played in order to erase big plays down the field.
And even though a certain media member has recently been outspoken about not being a fan of two-high safety defenses, many NFL offenses have countered fewer players being in the box by going back to running the football more. It’s a trend Saban believes is being seen at the college level as well.
“I think it is happening in college, and I’ll tell you why. I think that we all got smaller, faster, more athletic to play against the spread … So we all got accustomed to playing the spread and had to change the kind of personnel that we played with,” Saban said.
“So now when you go back and get in two tights and two wides, 12 personnel, whatever you want to call it, and start smashing the ball. These guys aren’t good at that, they can’t take on the guards. So now you’re creating seams in the defense and block protection issues for smaller players. So I do see that.”
Year after year offensive and defensive schemes go back and forth with having answers to new problems presented by one another. As the ball now seems to lay in the court of the offense to see if teams can run the ball and play with more physicality against defenses more equipped to defend that pass both schematically and in terms of personnel.
“I see more people getting in closed formations and running the ball, and doing it more effectively. Because people have changed their style of play on defense to play against spread-out teams, which is a little bit different,” Saban concluded.
The cyclical nature of football is one of the most fascinating parts of the sport, and it will be interesting to continue tracking how football continues to evolve and readjust upon itself in the future at all levels.
And if any coverages get outlawed in the process.