Expectations weigh heavily on the Oregon offense this year, no sense shying away from it. The meteoric rise of Oregon football in the early 2000s was fueled by innovation, executed at a blur-like tempo and presented in uniforms unlike anything ever seen. This overload of stimuli throughout the “Golden Era” of Oregon football (2009-2014) has cast a shadow over the …
Welcome to this week’s edition of X’s vs. O’s. Today we return to the “picture book” format! The concept we are discussing today is another new idea that has spread like wildfire throughout the collegiate ranks in recent years. However, like most “new” things in the world, it is simply a combination of two very old ideas. In this case, …
Chip Kelly used to say that his spread offense, with up to four or five receivers, was designed to let the offensive linemen know who to block on running plays. By Oregon aligning its receivers wide, defensive coaches had to think hard about where they would line up their run defenders without giving up big-play pass opportunities. Oregon head coach …
This has truly been a season of unpredictability. The Cal game turned out much different than I thought it would a month, hell, even a week ago. The good news is that things appear to be trending positively, as we all witnessed the improvement on both sides of the ball against the Golden Bears. I found some other improvements within …
Can we learn from a tough loss? In the case of last Saturday’s game, absolutely – especially with an opponent as talented as Michigan State. The Oregon game plan featured a new play variation of the new Oregon Power Play featured last week: a Quarterback Power Play. It sounds odd, considering Oregon QB Vernon Adams is on the smaller side, but let’s look …
The Oregon offense continues to evolve and progress since my instructional video series was created four years ago. Those videos have been viewed more than a million times in total! They have been helpful to fans, as well as to coaches looking to install the spread offense (Oregon style). However, defenses have become better at defending the spread, and thus the Oregon coaching …