Conservative offense?

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ncjacket

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First, this is not meant as an anti- or pro-Chan thread. Although I will use some statistics from Chan's past to illustrate a point, I'm just curious about what people mean when they label an offense conservative vs wide-open.

Case in point.

Chan is labeled as conservative.

In doing some research on his 8 years in the pros as either HC or OC I've figured out the following.

Overall, Chan's teams ran 52.7% of the time but gained 59.3% of their yardage through the air. His highest year running the ball %wise was 58.7% in '98 with Dallas. Emmitt was of course his workhorse and they won 10 games. His busiest passing year was '90 in Denver at 53.3% of play calls for 64.1% of the yardage. It was also the worst team he was with posting a 5-11 record (their defense really, really sucked that year for what it's worth.)

In Miami, the most recent example that gets pointed at, the numbers were 51.4% rushing plays in '00 and 51.3% in '01. Yardage rushing was 41% in '00 and a measly 33% in '01. Both teams were 11-5.

So here's my question. What constitutes a conservative offense? Is it how often you pass? What kind of throws you make? Situations?

What I get from these numbers is he wants to establish a running game, but that the big plays come from the passing game. IMO this is about par for the course for most football coaches (maybe everybody but Steve (the evil genius) Spurrier. Most want to run as much as possible.

So like I said, this isn't meant as a treatise on Chan, but wonder what you guys make of this? I'm sure we could pull numbers on Norv Turner or somebody considered more wide open to compare if somebody wants to do it.
 
Interesting,

I've wondered how many coaches come to a team with a pre-conceived style and how many set the style around the kinds of skilled players available.

As an OF I tend to associate Lombardi with conservative, control the ball offense; Starr throwing short passes averaging about 10 yds. I also tend to think of Landry as the master of the wide-open offense with Hayes and Staubach. As I recall both pretty much stuck with their style as players changed.

Wouldn't the telling stats be time of possession and yds/pass?
 
I agree with 71...yds per pass is a good stat to go on.

IMHO, a conservative offense is one that lays back and doesn't force the issue. You can still have a run-oriented offense and not be conservative. A good example of conservative is our offense the last 15 games or so going back to 2001 - 1st down: draw up the middle, 2nd down: draw up the middle, 3rd down: short dump off pass to the tailback for 2 yards on 3rd & long. I know you can't convert on every 3rd & long, but at least mix it up a little and give yourself a chance.
 
I think the biggest stigmatism about Chan Gailey is that his offense "lacks imagination". As Beebad pointed out with his link to a 6 year old report in which Troy Aikman was frustrated at the "unimaginative playcalling". Now, nothing against Aikman, but this is the same guy who made Jay Fiedler (Jay who??) successful at the NFL level. This is the same guy who ran Pittsburg's offense in it's hay day (and god knows that wasn;t unimaginative). I just don't get it.

What will be really interesting is how simple Chan keeps the playbook. College is a little more liberal than The NFl when it comes to offenses. The NFL wouldn;t dare run the option for instance. You mix up the option, with pro sets, and play action, and what do you have? You got Friedgen. We have all been spoiled on Friedgen's offenses for so long, it's gonna be awhile until we come down off that high.

I don't dount Chan can implement an exciting offense that plays to our strengths. You don't have the kind of experience Chan has without knowing what your strengths are. However, I worry about Chan finding the right QB for him. I hope it's Ball.
 
I always thought a nonconservative offense described the ingenuity of the offensive scheme as a whole. Whether that's with passing 80% of the time, ala Spurrier, or coming up with 100's of different offensive formations, ala WF, doesn't matter.

Just my 2 cents.
 
NCJ - what was the time of possesion for the teams you researched? That, I think, is another sign of a 'conservative' offense. Consistent 80 or so yard drives for points that chew up a lot of clock fall into conservative for me. 3 passes for 80 yards and a TD is more wide open. Is one more fun than the other? Who knows.

You're right though, 'conservative' offense isn't always easy to define.
 
Good questions about time of possession. When I have time I'll take a look and see if I can come up with that. I also agree that style has a lot to do with it, but still wonder if that's more of a perception thing. When Pepper ran the wishbone, it was pretty exciting at least when it was working. We rarely passed, maybe 5 a game? Now was that conservative? Don't know. But when we were killing somebody and ripping off 80 yd runs it seemed pretty exciting. When we were getting stuffed and couldn't convert any 3rd downw it seemed like pretty conservative stuff.

FWIW I love 80 yard ball control drives. If you look at the MNC team we could control the clock on long drives and score. Conservative?
 
I don't think the percentages will present the best picture regarding how conservative a coach is or isn't. Personally, I think the real indicator is what types of plays you call and how many different plays or formations you call throughout a given game. The conservative coach is more likely to have less variance in formations and plays, and have plays called with a lower degree of difficulty and risk. That is where it gets tricky since those items can be hard to quantify at times.

I do think that the NFL is a more conservative league (although that seems to be changing) in general than college. So, it will be interesting to see how Gailey adapts to the college game in regards to play calling.

FWIW, I don't think a conservative coach can be successful at Tech right now without a serious upgrade in the talent level. Our talent level is good but never really has been in the same category as the powerhouse schools. So, you have to come up with gimmicks or mix up the play calling to level the playing field and give your team a chance to win. That seems to have been the winning formula of past Tech teams that were successful.
 
Ncjacket...Sounds a lot like Bobby Ross to me..He always said he wanted close to a 50/50 run/pass...
I think Chans offense here at Tech will resemble UT somewhat..Ball Control BUT with the abilty to go deep when you have to..Kindof lull you to sleep with the run and then BAM hit the big strike..I do think Chan will recruit some bigger stronger EVERY down backs like UT had in Jamal Lewis...As his recruiting hits high gear....
 
Don't we need a middle tier? In which the run is 50 -55%, and the deep/short pass ratio is 40/60 or so?

Lombardi is then conservative, June Jones wide open, and CG middle.
 
There is no doubt you have to run and pass to be ultra successful. Most good coaches try to establish the run, but the best coaches are the ones who can think during a game and call the correct plays according to the defense and his talent on offense.

In summary, it is the smart coach who wins in most games.

Father Time
 
Actually, Spurrier threw 80% to get points on the Board then controlled the clock with the run. Points on the Board is all that matters.
50/50 means nothing. Friedgen was close to 50/50 in terms of yardage over the years, but he scores a lot of points. At Tech, Friedgen used the pass to open our running game since we could never have a pound it out running game-and it worked. Hope that's what we see- but scoring points is what matters. And Miami did score some points Chan's last year, but their defense was the main reason. Maybe our defense can help a la '97- we are going to need it with our depth problems on O.
 
The definition of conservative was Bear Bryant! He made a statement I love to quote! "If you put a ball in the air, there ain't be 3 things that can happen...and 2 of em's bad!"
 
Don't kid yourself, Bear had the ball in the air plenty of times when he had Joe Naamath and Kenny Stabler.

Father Time
 
Maybe the term "conservative offense" is a euphemism for "low scoring offense". Nobody calls Wake, Air Force or the old USC student-body-right teams conservative for example. I don't think it applies to style as much as situational play calling. ie, The coach consistently calls a draw play on 3rd and 12 on his own side of the field or runs on first down even if the defense is stacking for it.

I don't think we've seen Chan operate or call his own offense yet. So we really don't know how he'll call it. A couple things are clear about his style, however: 1) He has always adjusted to the talent he has to work with; 2) He clearly believes in establishing a running game. I can't say I disagree with either philosophy.
 
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