I have real issues with Wilcox’s decision to run a pro style offense and it ever being successful at Cal.
1. Pro style offenses can be complex and difficult to master due to the lack of practice time and the constant churn of a college football roster.
2. You need a lot of talent to run it successfully and Cal just can’t recruit at the level needed to make it work.
3. Most high school recruits no longer play in pro style offenses in high school. Most high schools have adopted the spread so how many HS players want to go from spread to pro style. The players that do come, you’re often trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
4. You can see even teams like Bama, ND, and just about everyone has moved away from the pro style, college football is evolving. We need to evolve with it.
I love the pro style, but I agree with all of your points against it. Much too complicated for college. Like you said, there is almost always too much churn in college. If you have Aaron Rodgers, it's great, but he's going to graduate or leave for the draft. If he gets hurt, you better hope his understudy has been learning the system for a while and is pretty smart. As Rugbear pointed out, if your tackles aren't top-notch, your QB has no time to set up for his throws. Contrast this with Mike Leach. I don't necessarily want to go all Air Raid, but every single quarterback he puts in his system throws for 500 yards a game. The blocking schemes in the Air Raid also help to compensate if you don't have near-NFL level of talent on the o-line. Whatever system you use has to be more plug-and-play than the pro style.
I have real issues with Wilcox’s decision to run a pro style offense and it ever being successful at Cal.
1. Pro style offenses can be complex and difficult to master due to the lack of practice time and the constant churn of a college football roster.
2. You need a lot of talent to run it successfully and Cal just can’t recruit at the level needed to make it work.
3. Most high school recruits no longer play in pro style offenses in high school. Most high schools have adopted the spread so how many HS players want to go from spread to pro style. The players that do come, you’re often trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
4. You can see even teams like Bama, ND, and just about everyone has moved away from the pro style, college football is evolving. We need to evolve with it.
I love the pro style, but I agree with all of your points against it. Much too complicated for college. Like you said, there is almost always too much churn in college. If you have Aaron Rodgers, it's great, but he's going to graduate or leave for the draft. If he gets hurt, you better hope his understudy has been learning the system for a while and is pretty smart. As Rugbear pointed out, if your tackles aren't top-notch, your QB has no time to set up for his throws. Contrast this with Mike Leach. I don't necessarily want to go all Air Raid, but every single quarterback he puts in his system throws for 500 yards a game. The blocking schemes in the Air Raid also help to compensate if you don't have near-NFL level of talent on the o-line. Whatever system you use has to be more plug-and-play than the pro style.
I liked the spread offense Cal ran around 2006-2007.
As did I. One of Tedfords biggest mistakes was letting OC Dunbar leave.
Although those teams did have awesome RBs, WRs who had speed to separate, and QB who could complete a pass downfield.