Can College Football Defenses Stop the Spread Offense?

Will defensive coordinators ever find a way to stop the spread?

"Stop it? Are you kidding me? I'd just like to figure out a way to slow it down!"

Defensive coordinators at colleges nationwide are screaming this at the top of their lungs. During the off-season, they place their differences aside and band together to hopefully find a way to stifle the spread attack in all its many wicked forms.

Although the spread was originally introduced by Glenn Ellison in 1958 (a.k.a: The Run and Shoot), you'd think it had just recently hit the scene with the arrival of Tony Franklin and his "spread for sale" scheme at Auburn.

The media have jumped on the Auburn/Franklin bandwagon and haven't looked back, and maybe for good reason.

Franklin's one and only game to date as O.C. for the Tigers was last years Chick-Fil-A bowl. His spread offense put up 423 yards on 90 snaps, helping Auburn to a 23-20 overtime victory. All this, and he only had a few practices before the bowl game to install the new scheme.

Then you have the Rich Rodriguez/Urban Meyer spread option. This version employs dual-threat quarterbacks like Pat White and Tim Tebow, with small but lightning-fast slot-receivers and all-purpose backs like Percy Harvin and Noel Divine.

Add a couple of larger receivers or tight ends who can hold their blocks, a mobile offensive line that can pull and trap effectively, and a whole helluva lot of misdirection, and you have the reason why so many defensive coordinators are going bald.

I'll be the first to admit that I never thought Urban Meyer could succeed in the SEC running the spread option.

"There's a big difference between the MAC and the SEC; there's just too much speed on defense for that to ever work here; after a couple of years running that gimmicky offense, we'll send him running back to Utah with his tail between his legs!"

Was I ever more wrong? Well, maybe I wasn't completely wrong, there is a big difference between the SEC and the MAC, and I do believe the SEC is the fastest conference around (offensively and defensively).

In order to stop the spread attack, or maybe just to slow it down, players will need every bit of that speed.

Defensive coordinators will need to take their players back to the basics: speed everywhere, no missed tackles and disrupting receivers' routes and the WB's rhythm. Pressure, pressure, and more pressure.

The spread, in a lot of ways, makes the defense choose the lesser of two evils.

For example, on teams that run the spread, the offensive linemen take wide splits, which leaves the D-linemen with two options.

They can maintain their normal, narrower splits which gives the offense better blocking angles, or they can widen out as well which creates bigger running lanes and leaves pass rushers farther away from the QB at the snap.

Going up against a pass-happy spread, like Mike Leach and Texas Tech, the 3-4 has seemed to work in the past. But nothing is for certain.

The reason the spread has worked so well over the years is because there are so many different versions. Two recent iterations are Chris Ault's "Pistol Offense" at Nevada and the latest version used by Air Force, the "spread-flex."

The latter type combines the flex-bone and the spread offense together in order to cause confusion for defenses and to take advantage of mismatches.

It can be effective in many ways to spread the ball out to the wide receivers; it also uses a lot of pre-snap shifting and motion to run the option zone read plays.

The spread has changed a lot since its first evolution came about in 1962, when Mouse Davis adapted his philosophy to Ellison's but created a more pass-first version. Defensive coordinators have been racking their brains ever since to find ways to stop it.

If history has taught us one thing, it's that sooner or later they will indeed find a way.

R.I.P. "Wishbone"

R.I.P. "Run and Shoot"

R.I.P. "Run and Gun"