THE SCRIPT
September 16, 2011 10:07 AM | General
Scripting plays is by no means a new practice. Paul Brown was one of the first to do it all the way back in the 1960s, and his protégé Bill Walsh later employed the practice when he was coaching the San Francisco 49ers to all of those Super Bowls in the 1980s.
Don Nehlen, too, used to script the first 15-20 plays of each game. I can recall an instance during the 1981 Peach Bowl against Florida when Nehlen’s script called for a quarterback draw and the Mountaineers were faced with a third and long situation at midfield. Nehlen chose to run the scripted play and Oliver Luck was able to get the first down.
“I told (offensive coordinator) Gary Tranquill if we run it, they’ll think we’re crazy,” Nehlen laughed.
Scripting is obviously done to help the coaching staff prepare for what they are going to face during games, it’s done to see how the defenses are going to react to the series of plays being called, and it is also done to provide a comfort level to the players (it gives them one less thing to worry about at the start of the game).
Dana Holgorsen has a bank of plays that he puts into each gameplan that he believes will work best against the specific defense he is facing, but he doesn’t script them per se.
“If we put one through five out there, it’s always going to change,” Holgorsen explained. “We talk about coming out faster. You never know what they’re going to do anyway.”
The subject of scripting came up during Holgorsen’s Tuesday afternoon news conference when he was asked if he had any idea why West Virginia's offense has started games slowly against Marshall and Norfolk State. He said he’s not sure.
“I’ve been in charge of offenses that we start really fast, and then we’ll start really slow,” he said. “If I had a magic formula, we’d always start fast. We’ll keep track of the positive plays; maybe I didn’t do a good job of calling plays the last few weeks.”
Many times, Holgorsen’s best play call is his fastest one. Even though the coaches have been dissatisfied with the pace of the offense so far, there were times last week when the Mountaineers were able to create substitution issues with Norfolk State’s defense.
That remains a work in progress.
What Holgorsen is seeing a lot more of is some unorthodox calls by defensive coordinators trying to slow down his offense.
“It’s a bit of guesswork and rolling the dice on their part,” he noted. “That’s what I’ve seen. You watch a bunch of film, and you develop tendencies of the defense to try and figure out what they’re going to do. You call plays based on what you think they’re going to do.
“Sometimes you start a play and they hit it right in the teeth,” Holgorsen added. “It’s discouraging as a coach when it’s a tendency they didn’t previously show. You have to know that people are going to change tendencies. We need to be more alert on the sidelines between plays and between series to figure it all out.”
In the last analysis, even coaches who come up with scripted plays eventually have to leave the script and anticipate what defenses are doing. The play callers who can think the fastest on their feet are the ones who are usually the most successful.
“You can’t come up with 25 plays and run them consecutively and expect to find success,” Holgorsen said. “You have to figure out what they’re doing on both sides of the ball.”
Don Nehlen, too, used to script the first 15-20 plays of each game. I can recall an instance during the 1981 Peach Bowl against Florida when Nehlen’s script called for a quarterback draw and the Mountaineers were faced with a third and long situation at midfield. Nehlen chose to run the scripted play and Oliver Luck was able to get the first down.
“I told (offensive coordinator) Gary Tranquill if we run it, they’ll think we’re crazy,” Nehlen laughed.
Scripting is obviously done to help the coaching staff prepare for what they are going to face during games, it’s done to see how the defenses are going to react to the series of plays being called, and it is also done to provide a comfort level to the players (it gives them one less thing to worry about at the start of the game).
Dana Holgorsen has a bank of plays that he puts into each gameplan that he believes will work best against the specific defense he is facing, but he doesn’t script them per se.
“If we put one through five out there, it’s always going to change,” Holgorsen explained. “We talk about coming out faster. You never know what they’re going to do anyway.”
The subject of scripting came up during Holgorsen’s Tuesday afternoon news conference when he was asked if he had any idea why West Virginia's offense has started games slowly against Marshall and Norfolk State. He said he’s not sure.
“I’ve been in charge of offenses that we start really fast, and then we’ll start really slow,” he said. “If I had a magic formula, we’d always start fast. We’ll keep track of the positive plays; maybe I didn’t do a good job of calling plays the last few weeks.”
Many times, Holgorsen’s best play call is his fastest one. Even though the coaches have been dissatisfied with the pace of the offense so far, there were times last week when the Mountaineers were able to create substitution issues with Norfolk State’s defense.
That remains a work in progress.
What Holgorsen is seeing a lot more of is some unorthodox calls by defensive coordinators trying to slow down his offense.
“It’s a bit of guesswork and rolling the dice on their part,” he noted. “That’s what I’ve seen. You watch a bunch of film, and you develop tendencies of the defense to try and figure out what they’re going to do. You call plays based on what you think they’re going to do.
“Sometimes you start a play and they hit it right in the teeth,” Holgorsen added. “It’s discouraging as a coach when it’s a tendency they didn’t previously show. You have to know that people are going to change tendencies. We need to be more alert on the sidelines between plays and between series to figure it all out.”
In the last analysis, even coaches who come up with scripted plays eventually have to leave the script and anticipate what defenses are doing. The play callers who can think the fastest on their feet are the ones who are usually the most successful.
“You can’t come up with 25 plays and run them consecutively and expect to find success,” Holgorsen said. “You have to figure out what they’re doing on both sides of the ball.”
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