JessN: 2025 Roster Rundown: Wide Receivers and Tight Ends

BamaMoon

Hall of Fame
Apr 1, 2004
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"Seaside Joe: What would you say are the 'non-negotiable must-have qualities' in a quarterback if he was tasked with successfully running Grubb's offense?


TCP:
In spite of this being a spread offense, the QB really doesn’t need much that’s different from a typical NFL pocket passer. You’d like him to have some mobility, but if the OL can give him good protection then you don’t need a ton of it. The system really runs through the QB’s mind, pocket presence, and downfield accuracy. A nice, underrated secondary trait would be good ball-faking, since there are a number of delayed routes and different types of backfield action that open up a lot more with good mis-direction. These are often sequenced with bread-and-butter plays, so the more wily a guy is, and the more able to make everything look the same, the more you’re going to get from the whole package. "
We didn't have Grubb last year, but no wonder the offense didn't work last year.
 

gtgilbert

All-American
Aug 12, 2011
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What we were running was straight out of Pete Carroll's early Seahawks stuff, a 2-4-5 sub front with the Jack and the SLB playing down. It was somewhat predictive of what Wommack had last year until they figured out that our Wolf LB spot got really weak if they either didn't have both Robinson and Russaw healthy or if those guys were having difficulty with the opposing blocking schemes that week. We ended up doing a twin-Bandit look in a lot of those cases against teams that could run (and they're leaning into that this year, too, especially in light of Latham dropping weight).

The point I was making was that when Anderson was playing 6-technique and was on the strongside, Golding (and it had to get Saban's blessing or it wouldn't have kept happening) had him fall back if that guy went into the pattern. It looked like an automatic key. Why they didn't flip Anderson with an ILB, I don't know, but I have a feeling it's because they had a couple of things going on at that level: One, we've had some ILBs during the Saban years who couldn't cover a bed with a sheet; two, the weak spot of Saban's defense has always been over the top of the ILBs down the middle so they might have been trying to defend it a different way. Whatever the case, Anderson was dropping on what looked like a pure key.

As to your question about how we pattern matched to two TEs, we almost never were in dime against Ace. We would go regular, regular with a heavy safety (i.e., a safety playing LB -- we liked this against HUNH offenses) or nickel and/or nickel sub, and in the latter you sort of hope for the best and want them to throw it.
the point still holds that it wasn't a 2 TE look that was forcing Anderson to drop, it was something in the scheme - when he dropped we either only rushed 3, or blitzed someone else (both questionable decisions IMHO). Whether the grouping was a 2-4 or a 3-3, we were most often aligned as an even 4-2 front and next most common was a 4-1. We were in nickel 83.7% of the time, and dime 12.7%. I guess by 'regular' you mean the 3-4, that we only ran 3.6% of the time, including goal line and short yardage, so that doesn't really seem regular to me. We pretty much always had enough cover guys to not have to drop anderson, but mysteriously we were.
 
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tusks_n_raider

Hall of Fame
May 13, 2009
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Mobile, AL
I've always focused a bit more on the D side of things than the O, but this thread got me thinking so I spent some time reading this weekend and found a great article that went pretty deep into the CKB/CNG offense at UW in 2023 to see what their general tendencies are and what made it so noteworthy.


Yes, the title says seahawks, but it's a guy writing about what UW did in 2023 and what that might be for the NFL.

Here are three key aspects he noted:

"Seaside Joe: What made their offense different than the rest? Like, can you summarize "Deboer offense" in a few words?


TCP:
In some ways, the DeBoer/Grubb offense was a typical 2023 college spread. They overwhelmingly lineed up in 11 Personnel (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR’s), and their run game makes heavy use of Run/Pass Option plays, where the QB has the ability to either hand the ball off, or to pull it and throw it, with that decision being made either by reading a specific defender, or by simply counting the number of defenders in the box. It is NOT, however, a big QB run offense, and in that way a good NFL comparison might be the 2017 Eagles, who ran a lot of RPO’s with Carson Wentz and Nick Foles at QB. "

" One thing that I would disagree with a little bit, though, is that Grubb and DeBoer did a little bit of everything that you’ll see in the NFL. While they did have some two- and three-TE sets that looked a little more like the traditional definition of a “pro style” offense, at Washington those were almost exclusively for short yardage situations, and so they didn’t have all of the versatility and complexity that you’d need, say, to develop a full gameplan around them if that happened to be the thing that gave them the biggest advantage in any given week. "

and finally:

"Seaside Joe: What would you say are the 'non-negotiable must-have qualities' in a quarterback if he was tasked with successfully running Grubb's offense?


TCP:
In spite of this being a spread offense, the QB really doesn’t need much that’s different from a typical NFL pocket passer. You’d like him to have some mobility, but if the OL can give him good protection then you don’t need a ton of it. The system really runs through the QB’s mind, pocket presence, and downfield accuracy. A nice, underrated secondary trait would be good ball-faking, since there are a number of delayed routes and different types of backfield action that open up a lot more with good mis-direction. These are often sequenced with bread-and-butter plays, so the more wily a guy is, and the more able to make everything look the same, the more you’re going to get from the whole package. "


Net - they have a history of running a lot of 11, just like we have mostly run 11 in the modern, post-Kiffen, Saban era. I guess they might shift the approach some, we'll just have to see how things play out.
I studied it pretty heavily in 2022-2023 and another trademark is how they build the WR route trees and coach WRs.

The plays always attack multiple levels of the secondary in multiple areas from short to med to deep and left to right.

More often than not extreme pressure is put on the safeties to make a choice of which route they will give support towards and then the route they didn’t choose becomes open/1-on-1 with a CB.

WRs and the QB have to be on the same page because each route has its own options that can change on the fly.

It’s almost like having a baked in post snap Hot route that can be switched to depending on what coverage is being shown by the Safeties.

It’s pretty impressive in design and man I really wanted Grubb a few years ago.
 

JDCrimson

Hall of Fame
Feb 12, 2006
6,589
6,638
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52
This sounds a lot like the Mike Leach "concepts" passing game rather than preset passing plays.

I studied it pretty heavily in 2022-2023 and another trademark is how they build the WR route trees and coach WRs.

The plays always attack multiple levels of the secondary in multiple areas from short to med to deep and left to right.

More often than not extreme pressure is put on the safeties to make a choice of which route they will give support towards and then the route they didn’t choose becomes open/1-on-1 with a CB.

WRs and the QB have to be on the same page because each route has its own options that can change on the fly.

It’s almost like having a baked in post snap Hot route that can be switched to depending on what coverage is being shown by the Safeties.

It’s pretty impressive in design and man I really wanted Grubb a few years ago.