Speed matters: Many SEC offenses want lightning-quick tempo in 2016

The template may have existed at one point. But “SEC offense” now is a useless term. Much like we’ve used the words “epic” and “literally” in so many different contexts as to render them meaningless.

Even Arkansas, which in 2014 seemed to prefer bludgeoning opponents with a powerful running game and occasional tosses to the tight ends, put together a legitimate passing element in 2015 with senior quarterback Brandon Allen and former Central Michigan head coach Dan Enos.

Barring a radical change, LSU could be the closest thing to an old-school SEC offense this year. At 6-foot-1 and 230 pounds, Leonard Fournette carried the ball 300 times last season. Expect the Tigers to hammer away with Fournette plenty in 2016.

Still, there’s an ever-increasing push for speed among several of the SEC’s programs.

“At times we didn’t have great tempo last year,” Auburn coach Gus Malzahn told AL.com last week. “We will play extremely fast in the spring.”

Keep in mind Malzahn’s Tigers snapped the ball once every 24.8 seconds, the same rate the team did in 2014 — sixth-fastest and fifth-fastest in the SEC, respectively.

Even those numbers are somewhat deceiving, as Auburn ran the ball 607 times and passed 332 in ’14. Texas A&M, with the league’s fastest offense between snaps that season (21.9 seconds), threw 514 passes and ran just 421 times. Passes are more likely to stop or halt the clock (incompletions, first downs, receivers getting out of bounds).

“Tempo” has become a sexy word. This time of the year, many programs talk about just how fast they’re going to be. We saw it in 2015 when Mike DeBord was Tennessee’s new offensive coordinator and we’re seeing it now with Noel Mazzone at Texas A&M.

After a failed political campaign to change the NCAA rules, coach Nick Saban even said “forget it,” hired Lane Kiffin in 2014 and ratcheted up the Tide’s offensive tempo. Alabama jumped from 65.9 offensive plays per game in 2013 to 75.2 in 2015.

Faster doesn’t necessarily mean better. There is statistical evidence that it can strain a team’s own defense. We won’t get into those numbers here in an attempt to keep the deluge of numbers at a palatable level. But Saban blamed the shift in offensive tempo in part on his team being so tired during a College Football Playoff game against Ohio State following the ’14 season, citing all the extra plays accrued during the course of the schedule.

Arkansas edged Ole Miss, 53-52, in a riveting 2015 overtime game thanks to a flukey fourth-and-25 conversion that preceded a game-winning two-point play. The Rebels operated at the fastest tempo in the conference, while the Razorbacks took an additional 8.6 seconds between every snap all season.

But there’s no question that when an offense runs a successful play, then hurries to the line of scrimmage and snaps the ball without huddling, it strains the defense both from a fitness standpoint and in terms of potential substitutions.

Let’s take a look at the speed of every SEC offense the last few seasons. We’ll follow that with some observations.

SECONDS BETWEEN OFFENSIVE SNAPS

Calculations made based on data from cfbstats.com. Schools ranked in order of fastest to slowest in 2015.

OBSERVATIONS:

• In at least most cases, familiarity with the offense and proficiency at quarterback seems to boost tempo. Mississippi State sliced a full second off its time between snaps during Dak Prescott’s senior season, while the presence of Chad Kelly helped Ole Miss cut nearly three seconds from its offensive time.
• There appears to be a loose correlation between run/pass balance and tempo. Ole Miss and Mississippi State were throwing teams in 2015. Alabama, Georgia, LSU and Arkansas all featured strong running backs.
• Tennessee and Auburn, among the SEC’s five fastest offenses, run a similar version of the hurry-up, no huddle that is predicated on the read option and a power running game.
• Just a handful of teams experienced a change of at least 1.5 seconds (average time between snaps, 2014 vs. 2015): Florida (+2.8 seconds), Ole Miss (-2.7), Vanderbilt (-2.1), Alabama (+1.6) and Kentucky (+1.5).
• The Gators went through a major transition on offense. Even though Will Muschamp kept things conservative, his offensive coordinator Kurt Roper comes from a spread background and ran a relatively fast tempo in 2014. New head coach Jim McElwain and offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier slowed things down considerably last year, as only LSU and Arkansas operated at a more casual pace.
• Saban hinted that the Tide would be more judicious in picking its spots to go up-tempo in 2015. It probably also mattered that the team transitioned from Blake Sims to Jake Coker at quarterback. Alabama was one of three teams to slow down by a significant margin compared to the ’14 season.

OFFENSIVE PLAYS PER GAME

Data pulled from TeamRankings.com. Schools ranked in order of most to least offensive plays per game in 2015.

SEC SPEED — Vols, Aggies and Rebels set standard

When placed into context, “SEC speed” looks rather pedestrian. At least in terms of offensive tempo.

College football’s 25 fastest offenses in 2015, as judged by offensive snaps per game, did not include a single program from the Southeastern Conference. Tulsa (86.3) ran nearly nine more offensive plays per game than Tennessee (77.7), while No. 2 Arizona State (85.7) bested the SEC’s fastest offense by eight plays per outing.

Still, offenses that flirt with 78 or more plays per game generally are putting up big numbers in the form of yards and points.

Within the last four years, two offenses have topped the 80 benchmark — Texas A&M in 2012 (83.5) and Mississippi State in 2014 (80.2). During those two years, Johnny Manziel won the Heisman Trophy and Dak Prescott led his team to its first No. 1 ranking in school history.

Three offenses have dipped below 65 snaps per game during the 2012-15 window:

1. 2013 Arkansas (64.7). The Razorbacks finished 12th in the SEC in scoring offense, leading to a winless SEC season.
2. 2014 Vanderbilt (64.1). The Commodores lost an astounding 29 turnovers and finished last in the SEC in nearly every major offensive category, leading to — you guessed it — a winless SEC season.
3. 2015 Georgia (64.0). The Bulldogs finished ninth in the SEC in scoring offense, behind all seven SEC West teams and Tennessee. UGA lost three October games and closed with four consecutive one-possession wins. The school fired coach Mark Richt.

Again, there’s at least a loose correlation here. Run a high number of offensive snaps per game and you’re probably having a decent season, and vice versa.

BOTTOM LINE — SKINNING THE CAT

To borrow an old cliche, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. As far as SEC offenses are concerned, do what you do — and do it well.

Balance trumps everything, as we’ve seen time and again in football.

Arkansas’ offense was much more difficult to defend in ’15 when the Razorbacks could run Alex Collins down your throat or unleash Brandon Allen for a 400-yard passing game — or both. Shut down Derrick Henry and Alabama went to Calvin Ridley, or O.J. Howard, or ArDarius Stewart.

In 2013, Auburn was capable of winning with Tre Mason and Nick Marshall on the ground. But Sammie Coates had an outstanding year as a deep threat.

Still, if you have a quarterback who is an effective runner, or at least mobile — and he’s capable of running an up-tempo offense and foregoing a huddle — your chances of winning seem much greater.

To put it another way, you can be as proficient as you want with a butterknife (looking at you, LSU and Georgia). And perhaps that conservative, slow, ground-based method is less messy for a team, when it works. But sometimes you’re going to need to pull out the electric fish scaler, because the butterknife isn’t powerful enough.

You can win games in bunches by slowing it down and playing smash-mouth football. But if you want to win championships, you’d better be able to turn it up on occasion, when you’re trailing in the second half or when you come up against an offense like Clemson’s.