My caveat to this is that the defense has to react to you going faster, and even if the offense’s execution falters, the defense’s execution might, or might not, falter more, resulting in net advantage. Add fluff pre-snap motion or funky formational diversity, without really changing what you’re actually doing, which you control, and maybe you can improve the odds that the defense falters while limiting the execution hit to the offense. Specific to the IU game, if their D was out executing our O, which I think was true generally for two and a half quarters and in high-leverage situations thereafter, maybe the correct adjustment would have been to try the underdog’s strategy of going faster.
With your military background, I’m sure you’re familiar with certain historical battles that have been lost because the losing side gave the other side too much credit and failed to move quickly enough when it had the advantage (l acknowledge that the opposite also happens, and probably more often). When the D seems to have your O’s number, trying to create luck/variance in the form of defensive execution errors through increased tempo may be the way to go.
