I used to run a very similar offense to NIU

by Larz, Monday, September 09, 2024, 20:02 (87 days ago)
edited by Larz, Monday, September 09, 2024, 20:08

Finally had a chance to rewatch the game. If I wasn’t an ND fan that would have been a blast to watch. FYI, I know the O and special teams played worse than the D, just thought you might be interested in some of the nuance of the NIU offense. If you want to reiterate that the defense didn’t lose the game, that is a fair point, carry on, no need to read anymore.

I coached the fly offense for many years and NIU ran a version of it for large chunks of the game. The fly offense has a receiver going in motion who can get the ball on a sweep or fakes getting the ball. The primary concept is to cause hesitation by distracting with the fly motion. And then run right at the defense as they try to figure out where the ball is at. When NIU didn’t run fly concepts, they used a lot of pulling and cross motions to create the same effect. In other words, there was a lot of eye candy for the defense.

ND was frequently unsure where the ball was and that caused a lot of hesitation. In the first half they tried to rotate with the motion instead of running over with the motion. A pretty common adjustment to the fly offense. Basically the guy covering the fly motion, doesn’t run across the formation with the fly guy, he rotates into a deep safety position and the safety rotates to the fly side. ND really struggled doing this, they seemed confused when they rotated and hesitated a lot. They went away from it in the second half.

The biggest mistake ND made was they got too caught up with the motion (NIU didn’t just use fly motion, they had a lot of guys pulling and a lot of guys going in opposite directions on their running plays to cause hesitation)

As a guy who coached this offense, I loved playing against teams like ND that were mesmerized by the motion. You could run down hill at them and even if you weren’t bigger then then you could absolutely maul them because they are standing around trying to figure out where the ball is and you are coming downhill at them. It is also a great way to neutralize teams with good speed.

NIU did a nice job with their game plan. I’m an Al Golden fan, but he didn’t have a great plan for this one.