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Breaking down Urban Meyer's offense

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pnuts34;2061833; said:
Just a question, but will the FB become obsolete in our new offense, will homan (and isn't there a frosh from NC) not be needed and will we go after more ol and tes to replace them? I honestly don't remember fbs being used at Florida or Utah because the rbs were used in space a lot times and usually were much quicker than the lbs covering them.
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They used their FB as a lead blocker for Tebow his freshman year. Not sure about after that.
 
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FWIW, I compiled a ton of data about UM's offenses in regards to who gets called for what plays - how often he uses the QB, RB, FB, TE, WR to carry or catch the football. I pulled all of his coaching data from BGSU to Florida, and compared it directly with Tressel's, since their runs are essentially analogous to each other - 2001 through 2010.

So here are a few data points about how Urban likes to run his offense vs. Tressel. I couldn't find percentage of plays by formation, so that kinda takes the wind out of some of this stuff. Additionally, there is a little bit of info missing from TotalFootballStats in how they aggregate data at the FB positions. Ergo, its missing or at times has been lumped together with RBs. I apologize for this.

Run Plays Called by Meyer, Average by Game (brackets denote season average mix/max values to show Meyer's general tendencies):

Quarterback - 15.0 (Min: 11.0, Max: 17.5)
Running back - 20.0 (Min: 10.7, Max: 24.5)
Tight End - 0.3 (one season at Utah where TE was utilized in run game)
Wide Receiver - 3.6 (Min: 0.2, Max: 9.2)
Fullback - N/A
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Passes Plays Caught by Position, by Meyer, Average by Game (brackets denote season average mix/max values to show Meyer's general tendencies):
Running back - 2.0 (Min: 0.8, Max: 4.1)
Tight End - 1.9 (Min: 0.2, Max: 5.4)
Wide Receiver - 13.9 (Min: 10.4, Max: 16.8)
Fullback - N/A
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Historical Average of Called Runs, by Position:
Quarterback: 38.5%
Running back: 51.7%
Tight End: 0.7%
Wide Receiver: 9.1%

Historical Average of Passes Caught, by Position:

Running back: 11.1%
Tight End: 10.8%
Wide Receiver: 77.3%



Additionally, here's the Buckeye breakdown (under Tressel from 2001-2010):

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Called Runs by Position:

Quarterback: 26.1%
Running back: 72.5%
Wide Receiver: 1.4%
Fullback: 0.5% (may be under-represented as sites don't properly aggregate FB runs some times)

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Historical Average of Passes Caught, by Position:

Running back: 13.3%
Tight End: 2.7%
Wide Receiver: 82.6%
Fullback: 1.4%


Hopefully this helps anyone interested understand the differences in play calling, outside of the formation.
 
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Here's a second installment of more comparative data.

I've seen a few people comment on the fact that Meyer never had a 1,000yd running back during a season. So lets look at how often players from Tressel's OSU and Meyer's teams reached specific metrics in regards to yards per season.

QB Passing Yards:

Meyer............Metric..........Tressel..
.. 1 ............>3,000yds........... 0 .......
.. 5 .........2,500 - 2,999......... 2 .......
.. 3 .........2,000 - 2,499......... 5 .......
.. 0 .........1,500 - 1,999......... 1 .......


QB Running Yards

Meyer............Metric..........Tressel..
.. 0 ............>1,000yds............ 0 .......
.. 2 ............750 - 999............ 1 .......
.. 4 ............500 - 749............ 3 .......
.. 4 ............250 - 499............ 3 .......


RB Running Yards

Meyer............Metric..........Tressel..
.. 0 ............>1,000yds............ 7 .......
.. 3 ............750 - 999............ 1 .......
.. 11 ..........500 - 749............ 4 .......
.. 11 ..........250 - 499............ 7 .......


WR Running Yards

Meyer............Metric..........Tressel..
.. 0 ............>1,000yds............ 0 .......
.. 0 ............750 - 999............ 0 .......
.. 2 ............500 - 749............ 0 .......
.. 2 ............250 - 499............ 0 .......


WR Catching Yards

Meyer............Metric..........Tressel..
.. 1 ............>1,000yds............. 1 .......
.. 9 ............750 - 999............. 11 .....
.. 10 ..........500 - 749.............. 5 ......
.. 17 ..........250 - 499.............. 9 ......


TE Catching Yards

Meyer............Metric..........Tressel..
.. 0 ............>1,000yds............ 0 .......
.. 1 ............750 - 999............ 0 .......
.. 1 ............500 - 749............ 0 .......
.. 3 ............250 - 499............ 0 .......


RB Catching Yards

Meyer............Metric..........Tressel..
.. 0 ............>1,000yds............ 0 .......
.. 0 ............750 - 999............ 0 .......
.. 0 ............500 - 749............ 0 .......
.. 4 ............250 - 499............ 4 .......



Overall, you can see that its not only Urban's MO to spread the ball around at runningback, but at most other positions, where its applicable. He had far more players catching between 250 and 749 yards at WR than Tressel did (27 to 14). Oh, and he had TEs that caught the ball. No Tressel team ever had a TE catch for over 225yds.
 
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New Ozone contributor Ken Pryor look's at Urban's use of the Power play. Ken is the guy that posted the well-known pre-game 'speech' before the 2003 Fiesta Bowl, that has been incorrectly attributed as JT's actual pregame speech.

He doesn't use it, but I like the term 'power spread' to describe what Urban's offense will be.

Ozone

Football 101 - So Long Dave, or Maybe Not
By Ken Pryor

​
Much has been made of the recent hiring of one Urban Meyer as the next coach at the Ohio State University replacing Luke Fickell who played the role of the good steward when he stepped in admirably for the displaced Jim Tressel.

We've already bore witness to myriad changes in the way things are being done in and around the program. One of the more highly anticipated changes we may see could be the departure of Dave!
...
Dave became that favorite meal that we enjoyed each and every day, but we found ourselves asking the cooks (Tressel and Bollman) why do we have to have Dave all the time when there were so many other tasty treats in the cupboard? Indeed Urban Meyer has adapted a version of the same run play to his vaunted spread attack and employs it generously. We shall examine this, but before we do so, let?s examine Dave from its more traditional formation.

Cont'd ...
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bassplayer7770 said:
I read today that Urban plans to announce his full staff on Jan. 3rd, so maybe we'll find out then (at least officially). Personally, I get the feeling Coach Stud is a long shot.
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That was my initial thought as well. Although if the staff will be official Jan 3, I don't see Stud leaving LSU a week before the NCG.

This OL hire will have a huge impact on our future success.
 
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