Junction

I'm just trying to get everyone as excited about this offense as I am. I can't help but laugh out loud thinking about the looks we will see on opposing defensive coaches faces next year.

Another thing to think about is how the screen game and look with a guy like Hicks or Clear lined up in the slot. We know Hicks is a good athlete and if Clear moves as well as we think he can, those guys can clean some CBs up on bubble plays.

Also it can bring some screen elements from the diamond set. Clear and Hicks can easily get out and set up to block a screen to the HB. Add in having tackles that move as well as Ced and Jake and you have big problems as a defense. Corners will be shitting themselves thinking about playing the Ags.

"Their WRs are how big coach?"
"They have a 280 pound TE?"
"Their tackles move as well as we do?"

Coach my hamstring is feeling awfully tight this week...

I'm stuck home sick tonight so all I'm doing is looking at football stuff from last season. I have to think Spavital is loving having Quiv and Trey both. They can both do a lot of the things Tavon Austin did. Clearly they won't be as good as he was but they have a lot of the same attributes. Quiv is probably set to make one of if not the biggest impacts as a freshman because of that.

Tavon moved all around the formation and was used in the screen game, traditional passing game, hand offs, and jet sweep game. I'm not a fan of the jet sweep stuff but I'm sure some of it will be implemented and Quiv does that well. He did a lot for Cedar Hill so he should be able to keep it up.

You are on the track I have been preaching since we went after a TE like Clear. You are going to see these guys on the field at the same time and it might be the Diamond, a Broken Diamond, or a more traditional look with 1 TE next to a OT and 1 in the short slot. What D do you send on the field as they will have multiple stes which could also be a 2 TE formation like an I-Formation, 2 set-backs, or even start with a Full House Backfield. The 1 thing I have seen with Sumlin O for the last 4 years is it has nuances and changes to stay 1 step ahead of the DCs. With the talent, size, and speed we will put on the field at WR, which I am including the TEs in, there will be some nightmare matchups for teams. The big slow teams will get left in the dust, and the smaller, faster teams will get manhandled. The O will be even more exciting I believe.

I definitely think we're going to see some more option next year with McKinney calling the plays.

However, I don't think I'd have both tight ends in the backfield that often. With as good of a blocker as Malena is, I'd have him lined up to one side of Manziel with one of the speed backs behind him and the tight end on the other side. That way if you're going tempo you don't have to substitute and you can have one tight end split out and two backs in the backfield which would give you some more options, especially with the ability of both Williams' to play in the slot. I'm not in love with having both Clear and Hicks in the passing game, I think you're sacrificing some speed there unnecessarily, but imagine this.

You come out on the first play in diamond formation with Malena to the right, Clear left, Brandon Williams behind, then you no huddle into the next play with Clear in the slot to the left, Brandon Williams in the slot to the right and Malena as a single back. We saw Brandon Williams play out of the receiver slot some last spring and he looked pretty good at it. Talk about options...

If Tra Carson is a good blocker you could even put him on one side also, essentially giving you an inverted wishbone in short yardage but with three solid ballcarriers instead of two tight ends.

Good point with the tempo stuff. I'm sure we will see a combination of guys back there in the backfield.

You're right about Malena being a good blocker. He's good at maneuvering his guy and sealing. But at some point you can't make up for the punch you get from Clear and Hicks. Another plus to the two TE backfield along with a back are the coverages it could force teams to play. We would almost always see Cover 1 or Cover 3. If its cover 1 Evans and some combination of Walker, Williams, whoever else could get some great looks down the field. Plus you have them playing man, Johnny has even better luck running if defensive backs have their backs turned.

Basically we can formation and personnel teams to death. We will have the ability using personnel groups and formations to get the defensive playing the coverages we want from the formations we want.

Tra Carson totally slipped my mind. He can basically stand in for Hicks and give us nearly the same look with added ability as a ball carrier. Geeze man. I can't wait to see a Torbush wow from the other sideline this season. It's going to happen.

Yeah, I definitely agree with Clear's potential, can't wait for you guys to see him run routes at one of the scrimmages. The dude is absolutely massive but moves extremely well.

Agree especially with what you lose having hem both in at the same time. Other than maybe the red zone?

The problem with play action out of a diamond formation is that there are a ton of people in the box which makes it harder to read where pressure might be coming from. Especially with Hicks and Clear in the backfield, neither of which are exactly burners. It's going to take you an awfully long time to get one of them into a route out of the backfield. And you're also not exactly fooling the defense in the run game since they know you have zero intention of handing it off to one of them.

I get the idea that it could work to bring guys up and hit over the top in play action, but to me it's just bringing extra people into the box that you don't need in there.

Put it this way I don't see a marked advantage to having Nehemiah Hicks in the backfield allowing a linebacker to cover him over the top three yards off the line of scrimmage with only one running back in the game in a diamond formation vs having just Clear in the backfield with a speed receiver in the slot that they're either going to have to bring a safety down to cover or force a linebacker to cover out in space.

In the first case you have 9 guys in the box and the defense will have at least 8 (though faster defenses won't have to come all the way down to cover tight ends out of the backfield so they could really keep 7 in and give their safeties a chance to read the play and come downhill.)

In the second you have 8 guys in the box but the defense is only going to be able to put 7 in because they're going to have to keep a safety over the side of the field with the slot receiver and that's if they completely leave a corner on the single side receiver out on an island.

So you're still at a numbers advantage in the box but with more options in the passing game.

I mean everyone has their own favorites, but to me the diamond takes away some of the advantage of the spread in regards to the passing game. What's the advantage of being in a diamond with two tight ends vs being in a standard max protect formation? You get what I'm saying?

Great thread! Super excited!

Football is fun again!

I gotcha. I'm assuming a 250 pound Hicks blocks better than our RBs. And we don't know much about Clear except he's a big dude that moves well for his size. If he can stand in front of a defender he will block well enough.

The best thing is we can have this conversation because of the options we have. If you're debating what formations can serve as occasional wrinkles then you're in a pretty good place as opposed to trying to figure out how to move the ball.