My recent book, Flyover Football…
…begins with Clemson’s victory over Alabama in the 2018 National Championship game. It explains why Clemson’s emphasis on spread passing allowed them to win the day over Alabama with their own powerhouse offense and NFL talents.
From there I told the story of how and why the spread offense really developed within the Big 12 conference.
The book ends with an explanation of Iowa State’s inverted Tampa 2 and why it will necessarily be part of the solution for these spread offenses, because it’s designed to deal with them rather than being adapted to stop them out of a different scheme.
In round one of the recent playoffs we saw the LSU Tigers, who embraced “Flyover football” in the offseason by hiring Joe Brady to install a pro-spread offense before completely dominating the vaunted SEC, completely blowout Oklahoma and beat them at their own game in a 63-28 bloodletting.
On the other side of the bracket, Clemson had to deal with Ohio State’s NFL-rich roster and smashmouth spread designs that had seen Justin Fields throw for 40 touchdowns and a single INT all season. They also had to do so without their four starting DL from the 2018 championship squad that were all drafted by the NFL. So Brent Venables turned to the inverted Tampa 2, 3-2-6 scheme he’d learned in Ames from the Iowa State staff in the offseason. After an early 16-0 start by the Buckeyes, Clemson switched from their 4-2-5 quarters D to the 3-2-6 IT2 and proceeded to come back and win 29-23.
At the risk of sounding immodest, my book has proven to be fantastically prescient about the direction of college football. Pick it up now with your Amazon gift cards or the check you got from more distant relatives for Christmas!
Hahaha! Noticed Clemson’s shift to the Inverted Tampa Two as well, thanks in no small part to your book and articles. I was the smartest person in the bar Saturday night.
Having said that, Geaux Tigaz!
I’ll have more on it this week. Big 12 defense, huh?
I was laughed at and mocked by a Clemson fan about Iowa State and the Big 12 leading the charge in defensive innovation. So fitting that Clemson’s comeback victory was led in part by a switch to….. none other than the inverted Tampa 2. Lol
Side note: it’s really scary what these big time programs like LSU can do with a modern spread system. I need to become a fan of a big boy school before all the small schools are left in the dust, haha.
Also a side note: with all of this said, it seems prudent (or likely) that Clemson comes out with an IT2 look. Forcing LSU to rely on their running game. I like Clemson’s chances if they can do that.
Burrow seems too confident, Brady too. Hopefully Burrow doesn’t recognize coverages with Venebles disguising them so well and Burrow throws a few picks Fields threw one pick all season and threw four that should have been picks against Clemson, as two were dropped even though they were in the hands of the db’s.