Everyone's favorite commentator...

[ksu_FAN]

Terry Bowden with some props for Prince.

April 14 – I used to tell young coaches that when you go to a football clinic or a seminar to try to bring back one thing that might help your program. Don’t try to incorporate every little thing you learned, but if you can bring back just one new idea, one new technique or coaching point, it might mean the difference between winning and losing a football game.

I just got back from the Kansas State football coaches clinic, and although I was the keynote speaker, I have to say that I left having learned a few things about football myself. Head coach Ron Prince gave a talk on running the football and explained a great way of teaching the coordination of downfield running and run blocking. So often during a game a ball carrier breaks open downfield and the blockers who are out there in front of him don't know which way to block the defenders. They either get in the way or block the defender into the runner. Coach Prince showed us a simple rule he called The Slip and Dip that always put the runner and the blocker on the same page when taking on a downfield defender. Then he showed us video and statistics of how it actually improved the running game at K-State. Needless to say, I was on the phone at 5:30 this morning going over this with my old man (Florida State was 103rd nationally in rushing last year).

Andy Lowry, the head coach at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., also was a speaker at the clinic. He is an extraordinary motivator who had me ready to run through a brick wall at the end of his presentation. It is easy to see why his team won the 5A state championship in Colorado last season.

Prince's "Slip and Dip" presentation was very good and gave me a great perspective for how we run our offense.  I don't think we had the horses to get where Prince/Franklin wanted to last year and we'll have to see if we're closer to "being there" this year.  Bowden was an entertaining presenter as well.

[WildCatzPhreak]

Wish I could have gone.

[catzacker]

Fan...want to explain the "slip and dip"?  Is it just a variation of the "out side shoulder" rule?

[billyzabka]

Even more a little farther down:

April 13 – I've always heard in the coaching business that you never want to be the guy who follows THE GUY. What you really want to be is the guy who follows the guy who follows THE GUY. That is, after an ultra-successful coach hangs it up, the next guy almost never lives up to the expectations left behind by that coach, so he fails. Then the next coach comes in under less strenuous conditions and gets everything back on track. Well, I'm out in Manhattan, Kan., speaking at the Kansas State football clinic, and it's pretty clear the Wildcats have found an energetic young head coach who debunks that so-called theory.

Ron Prince, who came to KSU as the second-youngest head coach as well as one of only five African Americans (in the Bowl Subdivision, or Division I-A), had the dubious task of following legendary coach Bill Snyder, who is not only the winningest head coach in school history but also the man whose name is on the stadium. In 2006, his first year at the helm, Prince became the only new head coach in the country who led a team that had not been to a bowl the previous year to a winning record. In doing so, the Wildcats also stunned defending national champion Texas and appeared in the inaugural Texas Bowl on the way to a surprising 7-6 season. In doing so, I guess Prince now becomes THE GUY who follows THE GUY.

[ksu_FAN]

Fan...want to explain the "slip and dip"?  Is it just a variation of the "out side shoulder" rule?

Sorta.  It is meant to attack space (usually outside the hashes) and its meant to have blockers and runners always on the same page.  

Most ballcarriers are going to have a move in space, but you often see them make a move then run right into a defender b/c the blocker goes the wrong way.  In this scheme the idea is to get vertical (up the field) as soon as possible, but attack outside the hashes b/c that is where the fewest defenders are.  The move for the runner is simple, an inside-out move, but the key is that the move has to be made "on the heels" of the blocker.  If the move is made too early the defender can recover and get off a block.  This principle applies to an OL at the LOS or a WR is space as a blocker.  Now, if the defender gets outside and doesn't bite, then runners should "get what they can" and attack the inside arm of the defender.  They drill this several times a week during the fall and it gets all skill position people involved.  It really is a sound concept.  This system is credited to a coach in the NFL (don't remember his name) who was with the Giants and used it to help extend and enhance Tiki Barber's career (along with carrying the ball high and tight which cut down his fumbles).  

So Prince is not against physical football, but in his opinion ramming your head against the wall by trying to run the ball inbetween the tackles when the defense has numbers is stupid.  

[catzacker]

Fan...want to explain the "slip and dip"?  Is it just a variation of the "out side shoulder" rule?

Sorta.  It is meant to attack space (usually outside the hashes) and its meant to have blockers and runners always on the same page.  

Most ballcarriers are going to have a move in space, but you often see them make a move then run right into a defender b/c the blocker goes the wrong way.  In this scheme the idea is to get vertical (up the field) as soon as possible, but attack outside the hashes b/c that is where the fewest defenders are.  The move for the runner is simple, an inside-out move, but the key is that the move has to be made "on the heels" of the blocker.  If the move is made too early the defender can recover and get off a block.  This principle applies to an OL at the LOS or a WR is space as a blocker.  Now, if the defender gets outside and doesn't bite, then runners should "get what they can" and attack the inside arm of the defender.  They drill this several times a week during the fall and it gets all skill position people involved.  It really is a sound concept.  This system is credited to a coach in the NFL (don't remember his name) who was with the Giants and used it to help extend and enhance Tiki Barber's career (along with carrying the ball high and tight which cut down his fumbles).  

So Prince is not against physical football, but in his opinion ramming your head against the wall by trying to run the ball inbetween the tackles when the defense has numbers is stupid.  

So I assume this is why we see so many stretch plays because we're trying to get outside the hash?  Because what usually happens on those stretch plays is that many defenders have beaten us to the spot already and we have to "get what we can" which is usually very little. 

I'd expect to see more traps, counters, iso's with that philosphy (i.e. get into and out of the line and then head for the hashes).  But it is a pretty simple, sound way of coordinating blocking and running. 

[ksu_FAN]

Fan...want to explain the "slip and dip"?  Is it just a variation of the "out side shoulder" rule?

Sorta.  It is meant to attack space (usually outside the hashes) and its meant to have blockers and runners always on the same page.  

Most ballcarriers are going to have a move in space, but you often see them make a move then run right into a defender b/c the blocker goes the wrong way.  In this scheme the idea is to get vertical (up the field) as soon as possible, but attack outside the hashes b/c that is where the fewest defenders are.  The move for the runner is simple, an inside-out move, but the key is that the move has to be made "on the heels" of the blocker.  If the move is made too early the defender can recover and get off a block.  This principle applies to an OL at the LOS or a WR is space as a blocker.  Now, if the defender gets outside and doesn't bite, then runners should "get what they can" and attack the inside arm of the defender.  They drill this several times a week during the fall and it gets all skill position people involved.  It really is a sound concept.  This system is credited to a coach in the NFL (don't remember his name) who was with the Giants and used it to help extend and enhance Tiki Barber's career (along with carrying the ball high and tight which cut down his fumbles).  

So Prince is not against physical football, but in his opinion ramming your head against the wall by trying to run the ball inbetween the tackles when the defense has numbers is stupid.  

So I assume this is why we see so many stretch plays because we're trying to get outside the hash?  Because what usually happens on those stretch plays is that many defenders have beaten us to the spot already and we have to "get what we can" which is usually very little. 

I'd expect to see more traps, counters, iso's with that philosphy (i.e. get into and out of the line and then head for the hashes).  But it is a pretty simple, sound way of coordinating blocking and running. 

Yes and no.  The stretch is the base play, but Prince made the point that he does not just want to run to the sideline and cut up the field.  Our inability to seal at the OT and TE position killed these plays.  I suppose his idea is that if we get the right kind of tackles/TEs we'll be more successful.  But yes, they do have counters and traps off of that, and they ran those quite a bit this spring in practice.  So we do have sound plays off of this philosophy, we just have yet to see it work the way he wants to. 

The end result of this is also to stretch the field with the passing game b/c if you can have any semblance of success running the ball at the hashes and out, both safties have to get involved.  This is why even though we didn't rack up yardage running the ball vs UT, we were able to get some plays down the field to Figurs b/c the safties were out of the picture. 

I'm hopeful we learned from the counters that ku and RU threw at us.  We seemed to build really well progressively from the OSU game to the UT game in getting this system in place, then ku and RU able to throw some other things at us that we weren't prepared to handle.

It is really a very sound system if we can get the right pieces to make it work.  IMO we have the right backs right now (and they'll be even better this year IMO after a year in this philosophy), we'll have to see if the OL (specifically OTs) and TEs get done what we need to run the stretch and then the counter plays off the stretch.

[ksu_FAN]

Also Bowden shared a funny story about "negative recruiting".  Said it was the one thing he didn't miss.

He talked about a great player from Florida that both Auburn and Florida State were recruiting when he was at Auburn.  He kept going back and forth and hadn't made a decision the week of signing day.  So he set up an appointment at 7:00 pm on the last night that you could do in-home visits and thought he was set.  He went to the kids house and told him all kinds of great things (you'll win 3 Heismans) about him and talked to him about how great Auburn was and thought he had him sold.  As he was leaving the house a limo pulls up and out walks his dad.  As he walks up to the house he sees Terry there and says "hey, your mom told me to tell you to call her", and walked past and started talking to the kid and his mom.  He said "now that is negative recruiting!". 

I thought it was pretty good.

[catzacker]

Fan, I agree that the progress between the OSU and UT games was good.  I thought the OSU game was the best "gameplan" game and the CU game was the best "execution" game.  The UT game was simply a game where we took advantage of almost every opportunity given to us; the running game was just not terrible and IIRC, the inside trap scored Patton a touchdown. 

I think the "counters" that ku and RU threw at KSU was due to the simplicity of our offense (at least last year).  In various formations we ran a limited amount of plays (for example, 3 bunch receivers to one side close to the LOS was one of two things - stretch play to that side or a wr drag across the middle....although I think we ran one trick play our of this.)  The ku defensive players hinted to this after the game by making comments about how they knew what we were going to do offensively (they also had 2 weeks to prepare, as they will again this year). 

[ksu_FAN]

Fan, I agree that the progress between the OSU and UT games was good.  I thought the OSU game was the best "gameplan" game and the CU game was the best "execution" game.  The UT game was simply a game where we took advantage of almost every opportunity given to us; the running game was just not terrible and IIRC, the inside trap scored Patton a touchdown. 

I think the "counters" that ku and RU threw at KSU was due to the simplicity of our offense (at least last year).  In various formations we ran a limited amount of plays (for example, 3 bunch receivers to one side close to the LOS was one of two things - stretch play to that side or a wr drag across the middle....although I think we ran one trick play our of this.)  The ku defensive players hinted to this after the game by making comments about how they knew what we were going to do offensively (they also had 2 weeks to prepare, as they will again this year). 

Yeah, it was trap that Patton scored on.

Great points.  I know for a fact that we have more available out of the bunch set this year.  I think we'll see more counter, and formation-wise more trips and more no back spread next season.  We only got the trips stuff in about halfway through the season and weren't able to add much to it after the UT game.  It will be interesting to see the progression of the offense next season.

[970Cat]

Now if we can just get our runners downfield consistently

[pissclams]

This sounds like Prince's Offensive scheme in a nutshell.  Spread, Create space, and attack it.
He offered this reason as to why we don't run QB sneaks.

[hemmy]

Bobby Bowden and Florida State don't need his advice