forums

Is it possible for your team to play sound defense if you employ an Air Raid/run & shoot offense?

Just about every team that’s made the playoffs and won championships during the last decade has run some form of hurry up, spread offense. Besides Georgia a few years back. It’s not the 90’s. Alabama runs over 75 plays a game. There’s only a small handful of teams going under 70 plays a game that are good.
 
Advertisement
Wait a second.....guys, stop responding immediately!!!

CMD, is that you??🤔😲....because I've seen what you just did there...got the board to sign off on ur atrocious DEF.

I plead the 5th🤐🤣
 
Interesting tidbit I came across in response to the OP is that Miss State, the Air Raid King of CFB is allowing 102.5 rushing yards per game which is 8th in country. Miss State also ranks 15th in the country allowing 3.32 yards per rushing attempt. Miss State ranks first in pass attempts per game @ 54.6.

Surprising statistic that has me curious. Is it teams trying to slow down the game against them and give their defense a break resulting in them forcing the run against Miss State? Maybe their just an outlier becuase the other air raid teams, Nevada, Western Kentucky, and Virginia all rank in the bottom half in those 2 rushing defense categories.
 
Coach Macho said:
Most of the air raid teams have garbage a$s defensive talent. That's one of these reasons they play garbage a$s defense.

Only thing that ever affected my defense is whether the offense stayed in front of the chains and gave us good field position or not. (and turnovers) The more you put us on the field, and the more you give us bad field position, the more likely it is that our opponent is eventually going to score.

Either your defense makes it hard for the opponent to score, or it doesn't. You can play sound defense regardless of what scheme the offense runs.

I believe the days of shutdown defenses are over, because the game is tailored for offense. But you can still have a pulse on defense. Don't be Swiss cheese.

I will say this though, even the best defensive minds struggle these days. The offensive concepts, and offensive talent, are too hard to keep out of the end zone for four quarters. Even Saban gets his *** handed to him occasionally.
Click to expand...
Don’t forget the rules. Rare is offensive pass interference called which gives receivers virtually carte blanche to push corners off with the ball in the air. I‘d easily attribute this to 40% of end zone pass TD’s. And then there’s targeting which only goes one way even though offensive guys can target just the same as defensive guys. Before you went up to catch a ball and you could get your head knocked off. Today it is a defenseless player penalty. And of course the roughing the passer call. Can’t slam QB’s into the ground anymore. You fix those 3 rules and offensive production goes down. How come a RB can grab a face mask on a stiff arm but a defensive guy touches a facemask and it’s 5-15 yards?
Even when it is supposed to give defenses an advantage the refs rarely call it. How many holding penalties get called on our opponents even though they hold 95% of the time?

The rules are paved for offenses to succeed. Until the pendulum swings defenses rarely stand a chance.
 
Goulds Cane said:
Calling all coaches!!!!

I know nothing about offensive systems. In high school, I played rush end in a 5-2 defensive scheme, then in college I played weakside linebacker in a 4-3. Looking back on it now, I really didn't learn anything about the game of football as a player. I literally just did what my coaches told me (shout out coach Cooney & coach Clements.)

I'm a REALLY big fan of the air raid offense. I love what Colt Brennan & Timmy Chang did in college. I like June Jones & Mike Leach as coaches & love everyone from their coaching trees. I'm a huge fan of Lane Kiffin as our next coach in hopes he brings Jeff Lebby with him.

My only concern is this. Every team that runs an air raid offense has CACA defense. Scores like 62-55 & 70-41 are normal. The **** looks like a college basketball game. Is it possible to play lockdown defense when you employ this offensive scheme? I know "lockdown defense" doesn't really exist anymore due to the rule changes, but play as good defense as possible.
Click to expand...
Not a coach but the answer to your question is a resounding Yes! Absolutely it is possible to have a good sound defense while the offense employs Air Raid concepts or is extremely wide open.

The issues mentioned throughout the thread like getting behind the sticks and not giving the defense sufficient rest are not exclusive to Air Raid/Run and Shoot offenses. These are issues that can affect any offense then in turn the defense. I will say that when you run Air Raid/ Tempo and that style of offense and you are not effective then those issues that are being discussed have the potential to be greatly exacerbated.

Also I feel that the general perception of poor defenses in relation to wide open offenses that no doubt prompted your question needs to be reexamined. Historically the schools/teams that would employ wide open offenses did so in order create a schematic advantage to offset a talent disadvantage. The teams who employed these offenses in the past didn't have the defensive talent necessary to consistently hold opponents to under 30 points so logically they attempted to win by forcing shootouts. Again, I'm not a coach but hopefully I was able to help.
 
I don't know. But Drew Hill was putting up great numbers in Houston's Run and Shoot. That's until he was on my fantasy team.
 
Coach Macho said:
Most of the air raid teams have garbage a$s defensive talent. That's one of these reasons they play garbage a$s defense.

Only thing that ever affected my defense is whether the offense stayed in front of the chains and gave us good field position or not. (and turnovers) The more you put us on the field, and the more you give us bad field position, the more likely it is that our opponent is eventually going to score.

Either your defense makes it hard for the opponent to score, or it doesn't. You can play sound defense regardless of what scheme the offense runs.

I believe the days of shutdown defenses are over, because the game is tailored for offense. But you can still have a pulse on defense. Don't be Swiss cheese.

I will say this though, even the best defensive minds struggle these days. The offensive concepts, and offensive talent, are too hard to keep out of the end zone for four quarters. Even Saban gets his *** handed to him occasionally.
Click to expand...
Mostly agree... but UGA has been pretty shut down this year, so while it seems defense is an endangered species, it’s not quite extinct.
 
Coach Macho said:
Most of the air raid teams have garbage a$s defensive talent. That's one of these reasons they play garbage a$s defense.

Only thing that ever affected my defense is whether the offense stayed in front of the chains and gave us good field position or not. (and turnovers) The more you put us on the field, and the more you give us bad field position, the more likely it is that our opponent is eventually going to score.

Either your defense makes it hard for the opponent to score, or it doesn't. You can play sound defense regardless of what scheme the offense runs.

I believe the days of shutdown defenses are over, because the game is tailored for offense. But you can still have a pulse on defense. Don't be Swiss cheese.

I will say this though, even the best defensive minds struggle these days. The offensive concepts, and offensive talent, are too hard to keep out of the end zone for four quarters. Even Saban gets his *** handed to him occasionally.
Click to expand...
The best defense is a power run offense that controls the ball and keeps the other team's O off the field. Alot of people don't realize this, but it is how Bama and Georgia are built. They just hide that fact with being successful through the air.
 
Advertisement
FrancisSawyer said:
Also I feel that the general perception of poor defenses in relation to wide open offenses that no doubt prompted your question needs to be reexamined. Historically the schools/teams that would employ wide open offenses did so in order create a schematic advantage to offset a talent disadvantage. The teams who employed these offenses in the past didn't have the defensive talent necessary to consistently hold opponents to under 30 points so logically they attempted to win by forcing shootouts. Again, I'm not a coach but hopefully I was able to help.
Click to expand...
This is a good point. People tend to associate uptempo spread offenses with the teams that were originally using them. They were teams that didn’t have the talent to just line up and run the ball at their opponents successfully. They also didn’t have talent on defense to shut people down. The passing game was the great equalizer at the time. You could spread more talented defenses out and force them to defend the entire field. Then dink and dunk them all up and down the field. You may still lose 40-30 but it’s better than losing 40-0 and you’re at least giving yourself a chance. Eventually the good teams started to realize that they could score more points that way too and now everyone incorporates some version of a spread/air raid/run and shoot offense now besides the military academies that still run flexbone/triple option based offenses.
 
SayWhat said:
Bama is borderline what you're asking at times, just a modernized version of it. Same with OU, their defense just always sucks because they get the wrong DC. OSU, same thing. All new offense, but some of the same ideas.

The problem with defending these modern day offenses, they can kill you either way. On the ground or through the air. You stack up on defense to stop the run, they'll kill you through the air. Same is true in reverse.

The old air raid teams just had a high octane passing game. They didn't have the athletes these true elite teams do. If you could stop their passing attack, play straight up, and with you base up front, game over.
Click to expand...
All correct. Manny’s pressure and turnover philosophy is not a bad one in this era, and is not necessarily the problem. The problem is the talent we have to run that D, as well as our predictability.

Theres simply no excuse for 700 yards to UNC or 4th and 14 and 17. When you have an offense in 4th and long to win the game and they obviously have to pass, you can’t leave the middle of the field wide open.
 
g8rh8rMD said:
All correct. Manny’s pressure and turnover philosophy is not a bad one in this era, and is not necessarily the problem. The problem is the talent we have to run that D, as well as our predictability.

Theres simply no excuse for 700 yards to UNC or 4th and 14 and 17. When you have an offense in 4th and long to win the game and they obviously have to pass, you can’t leave the middle of the field wide open.
Click to expand...
I actually agree with the general philosophy of pressuring offenses to force turnovers or at least put them behind the sticks with tackles for loss. It’s just that Manny’s specific defense is too fundamentally flawed. Too often on blitz plays, they just concede the quick underneath pass. You’re literally making it as easy as possible for a quarterback if you allow the immediate check down. It also places a lot of pressure on the DBs to come up and make that tackle. If you have a really good tackling team, it works. When you’re at or near the top of the list for missed tackles, it implodes. Personnel does play a huge part because without the horses, there isn’t a defensive scheme that’s going to work great. It’s also why the really talented defenses look great no matter what their coach is calling.
 
Back
Top