I was debating TCU’s offensive direction under Sonny Cumbie on the Inside Texas message board recently and found, as I often do, that the explanations I was giving of the current TCU process and philosophy on both sides of the ball would make for a rather good article.
I’ve done so over at Football Study Hall. The main keys are these:
- In general, Gary Patterson’s process is about finding ways to train and deploy good, raw athletes. This isn’t a Boise-style underdog program where the players outwork and outsmart people, this is a system for making the most of good but overlooked athletes.
- The spread-option offense of today with its variety of run schemes bolstered by using the QB either as a backside keeper threat or primary ballcarrier is a fantastic way to easily unlock good athletes on offense.
- That seems to be the direction that TCU is going in with Sonny Cumbie charged with recruiting and developing future Trevone Boykins like Shawn Robinson or Justin Rogers.
Incidentally the best TCU teams featured QB option as foundational pieces to their attack. The Andy Dalton teams pioneered the power-read play while the Trevone Boykin teams obviously made good use of him on speed option, QB outside zone, and scrambles.