"Tradition" can be a good thing but at the same time can be a bad thing. I was talking to a fellow Bama fan about the upcoming season and how excited I was about where Shula is taking our program. I told him how I liked how Shula was trying to balance out the offense and put a more dynamic system in place.
Well, to my surprise my fellow Bama fan disagreed. He felt that Bama has always been a "running team", we'd won 12 NC's with that formula and trying to "open" up the offense is just going to get us nowhere fast. He said that everytime Bama has tried to "open it up" we've looked like an elk on ice skates. It just didn't work. He felt that Bama was built around pounding the ball and that was the "tradition" or "trademark" of Bama.
But, I had to disagree with his view. Sure, we've won 12 NC's, we've had great success with our style of offense for years. But, I have to wonder and ponder the thought of "what if". "What if" during the mid 90's we would have had a more balanced offensive attack, how many more SEC titles would we have won? How many more games we would have won because when we got behind, we would of had a chance of coming back, rather than killing so much time on the clock due to our lack of ability to move the ball down the field?
I just feel that every time you eliminate the use of an offensive skill player (i.e. TE's, WR's, FB's) from your offensive scheme, you give the defense one less thing to worry about, and that much more of a chance of having success against you.
However, the more weapons you incorporate in your offense, the more dangerous it becomes. The defense is forced to defend EVERY skilled position player. It spreads the defense thin.
That is why I like what Shula is doing with our offense. He's not going to get pass happy and turn our offense around 180 degrees. It appears he is just going to balance it out, incorporate more weapons, which gives us a better chance of having success. Use to teams knew that if they could stop the run and force us to pass they pretty much shut down our offense. With Shula's offense that won't be the case. We'll have the option of going to the passing game if our running game isn't working, or vice versa. He's going to incorporate the TE in order to keep the defense from loading up the line with an extra LB. The LB will be forced to cover the TE or leave him wide open for the first ten yards off the line of scrimmage. A balanced offense is a better offense. Change is not always bad, and just because "that's the way we've always done it", doesn't mean it is the best or most effecient way.
Thank God for Mike Shula.
Well, to my surprise my fellow Bama fan disagreed. He felt that Bama has always been a "running team", we'd won 12 NC's with that formula and trying to "open" up the offense is just going to get us nowhere fast. He said that everytime Bama has tried to "open it up" we've looked like an elk on ice skates. It just didn't work. He felt that Bama was built around pounding the ball and that was the "tradition" or "trademark" of Bama.
But, I had to disagree with his view. Sure, we've won 12 NC's, we've had great success with our style of offense for years. But, I have to wonder and ponder the thought of "what if". "What if" during the mid 90's we would have had a more balanced offensive attack, how many more SEC titles would we have won? How many more games we would have won because when we got behind, we would of had a chance of coming back, rather than killing so much time on the clock due to our lack of ability to move the ball down the field?
I just feel that every time you eliminate the use of an offensive skill player (i.e. TE's, WR's, FB's) from your offensive scheme, you give the defense one less thing to worry about, and that much more of a chance of having success against you.
However, the more weapons you incorporate in your offense, the more dangerous it becomes. The defense is forced to defend EVERY skilled position player. It spreads the defense thin.
That is why I like what Shula is doing with our offense. He's not going to get pass happy and turn our offense around 180 degrees. It appears he is just going to balance it out, incorporate more weapons, which gives us a better chance of having success. Use to teams knew that if they could stop the run and force us to pass they pretty much shut down our offense. With Shula's offense that won't be the case. We'll have the option of going to the passing game if our running game isn't working, or vice versa. He's going to incorporate the TE in order to keep the defense from loading up the line with an extra LB. The LB will be forced to cover the TE or leave him wide open for the first ten yards off the line of scrimmage. A balanced offense is a better offense. Change is not always bad, and just because "that's the way we've always done it", doesn't mean it is the best or most effecient way.
Thank God for Mike Shula.
