ESPN analyst Tom Luginbill says Mike Leach needs to adapt Mississippi State's offense to find success in the SEC
Time to mix things up in Starkville?
That’s the way ESPN college football analyst Tom Luginbill sees things as Mississippi State’s offense is coming off a shutout performance and has only scored a total of seven points in its three most recent games. (Mississippi State’s special teams scored a safety against Kentucky, while the defense had a pick six in the Texas A&M game).
During a recent appearance on Mississippi based radio show “Out of Bounds” hosted by Bo Bounds, Luginbill was asked if Mike Leach needs better players to execute his offense or does the Mississippi State coach need to adjust his system for it to have success in the SEC.
“He absolutely needs to motify it and it goes back to what I’ve said to you since the moment he was hired,” Luginbill said on the show. “I said, watch out, because now you are in a line of scrimmage league with superior athletes on defense and if you are not going to play with a tight end, you are not going to run the football, you aren’t going to get more creative with how to move the ball — you can keep all the Air Raid pass concepts. You made a great point in your lead up right there, there are various iterations out there (of the Air Raid). Well, guess what the other iterations are doing? They are running the football.”
Luginbill gave perhaps the best example of what Leach should be running at Mississippi State by pointing toward Lincoln Riley’s Oklahoma program. If you are unaware, Riley learned the Air Raid offense by coaching for Leach for many years.
“Lincoln Riley, I’ve got Oklahoma this week, you watch them, they are a power run team with Air Raid pass concepts,” Luginbill added. “You look at West Virginia, same thing under Neal Brown, Dana Holgorsen – same thing. Art Briles was really the one that started it at Baylor when he started running the ball like crazy.”
So far this season, Mississippi State has a total of 151 rushing yards after playing five games.
“So everyone has figured out they aren’t going to attempt to run the ball so let’s just rush three, drop eight, force them to throw the checkdowns and come up and tackle them,” Luginbill continued. “Don’t give up any of the intermediate and deep stuff and Mississippi State’s not patient enough and hasn’t been efficient enough at the quarterback spot and, at times, I don’t care who your offensive line is, if you have five guys to block three and you are giving up sacks, that’s a real problem. So yes, he has to adapt.”
The big question now is whether after 19 seasons of being a head coach, is Leach willing to adapt his offense or will he continue to do what he’s always done?
Mississippi state has to have a running-game to win in the SEC…plus more passes to the running backs.
Leach isn’t going to change his offense. He doesn’t adapt, Big 12 figured him out, PAC 12 figured him out and so has/will the SEC. There will be games where State goes off but for the most part Leach is just going to win 6 or 7.
It just doesn’t hold water that a certain style of offense cannot work in the SEC.
I could write a book about this. Let’s briefly cover the Air Raid and basically the West Coast Offense, as the Air Raid comes from the WCO like the wishbone came from the Split-T.
All those shallow and mesh passes are replacements for power running plays from the old I & pro-set formations. Whereas the blast and lead plays between the tackles powered the I and pro formations, these plays are designed to get past the first unit of defense with a blocker in front. The Mesh block is the “illegal” block on the pick. The Cover 2 zone that is used to stop this play is the same as the flex run defense against the old I. For any offense, there is a defense that is designed to handle it. What decides the outcome is the talent vs. talent.
The various screens and swing passes out of the air raid replace the toss sweep and power sweep of the older offenses. Force defense is force defense whether it is to turn the sweep inside or to break up the screen or close on the swing pattern.
Basically, when State passes the ball 60 times a game, it is no different than Georgia in the Vince Dooley days running 10 blast plays, 10 iso lead plays, and 20 toss sweeps every game. It only differs in the boxscore stats.
Any so-called expert that says that an offense won’t work in the SEC while it would work in the Pac-12, give them the same amount of respect as you would Nate Silver.
What works in the SEC is having perpetual top 10 recruiting classes and avoiding dissent within the program. I could take the 1962 Green Bay Packers and beat Alabama 42-0 and run the ball 90% of the plays. That is the real answer: the team with the better talent wins almost every time. See what Leach can do in recruiting in Starkville, and come back to this hypothesis in 3 years.
They said Urban Meyer’s offense wouldn’t work in the SEC too. But he did have Tebow
True. If your players were
good enough Donald Duck could be your coach.
So Luginbill thinks Leach needs to adapt his offense to the types of defense played in the SEC?…Fascinating stuff…He really went out on a limb there…Kind of reminds me of former Jefferson Pilot commentator Dave (big man on big man) Rowe, always reminding us that scoring Touchdowns was much better than losing fumbles…How many years of collegiate studies does it take to learn this mind-blowing stuff?
exactly
Which Junior College did Tom Luginbill go too?
Well its not a secret that you have to have a running game or else its like Arkansas did, drop 8 into zone, which didnt work so well against the Aggies, who have a running game. What’s that old line, two heads are better than one.
I’ve been saying this since the season started but some fans keep saying what hey did about JoMo……”just wait ’til he gets his own recruits”, which tells us more about what they know about FB than the FB program.