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Football
Defending the Mobile Quarterback - Classical Physics Applied to Modern Football
By John Porentas

It isn't very likely that 17th century mathematician and physicist Sir Isaac Newton saw too many football games, making it all the more remarkable that he gave us several laws that really have defined the game over the years. On July 5, 1687 Newton published a work called Philosophiae Naturalis Principa Mathematica in which he postulated his now-famous three laws of motion. That work has come to be known as The Principia. In a funny sort of way, it could also be called The Playbook.

The Third Law in Today's Football

Isaac Newton
This Image Not Taken by Jim Davidson

Newton's third law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Through the years that law has manifested itself over and over again in the game of football. On a micro level, every time a linebacker and running back collide or a quarterback or kicker launches a football or a receiver manages to perfectly time his leap to make a catch, Newton's third law is on display. Today, however, we are more interested in the macro level, the big picture in today's football.

Football has evolved through the years as coaches have struggled to gain a strategic advantage over the opposition. Offenses have morphed from single-wing to double-wing to wing-T to straight-T to I-formation to triple-option to veer-option to speed-option to run-and-shoot to west-coast to spread and spread-option; all that in hopes of gaining an edge on defenses that have been equally as creative. We've seen six-man fronts, five-man fronts, four-man fronts, three-man fronts, two-man fronts, six linebackers, five linebackers, four linebackers, three linebackers, two linebackers, one linebacker, no linebackers, three defensive backs, four defensive backs, five, six, seven, even eight DBs, and every combination of linemen, linebackers and DBs you can imagine, all in the hopes of countering ever-evolving offenses.

The evolution of both offenses and defenses tends to come in bursts. An offense or defense will emerge which dominates the game and everybody adopts it. There is a period of conformity using the successful strategy, then Newton's Third Law comes into play. There is a reaction to the strategy and an innovation takes place on the opposite side of the ball to counter the current can't-miss tactic.

F=d/dt(mv) Takes Over (For you Non-Math/Science People, that's Newton's Second Law.)

Newton's second law says that the rate of change varies with the amount of force applied. Over the last ten years or so we've seen changes in football strategy that have been so successful and effective (forceful) that those changes have required rapid reaction by the opposing side of the ball.

First defenses put eight or nine in the box making it tough to run the football, especially out of the I-formation. It was brilliant, and offenses had to do something quick. Offenses reacted to eight-in-the-box defenses by going to the spread offense. Now you had to defend those receivers out wide and take those guys out of the box. Take that, defense.

Offenses were embarrassing defenses with the spread, so defenses reacted by bringing in nickel and dime packages to counter the number of wide receivers on the field. OK, offense, lets see you throw it now.

Offenses countered with the hurry-up offense which made situational substitutions difficult, and once the defenses got spread out, it became apparent that by putting the ball in hands of great athlete in all that open space made sense, so the mobile quarterback has become all the rage.

All that change has been a real boon to sports writers. Check whatever publication you want this fall and you are sure to find mountains of wisdom in recent weeks on how to defend the spread or spread-option quarterback. Newton is making life easy for those writers, and nary a single one is acknowledging him for it. Hopefully in some small way we are now correcting that.

(Just in case you are getting a bored with the little bit of fun we're having with Newton, don't despair, we're going to get to some stuff relative to the Buckeyes soon, but first, one more geeky subtitle.)

The First Law Rules

Newton's first law says (in part) that bodies at rest tend to stay at rest, and despite the amount of change that we've seen in football recently, football has fundamentally not changed. Sure, the window dressings have changed, and the tactics have changed, but as OSU Head Coach Jim Tressel pointed our recently (see the-Ozone video) there really is no secret to stopping the spread or the mobile quarterback. You just have to tackle them. It's is simple at that, and no matter how much the window dressing in football changes, there are always certain fundamental truths that really never change. Being able to tackle and being able to block and being able to run fast will give you more of an advantage than any formation or system.

"Defenses will catch up to the spread when they catch up to the quarterback and hit him," said Tressel.

That has been true since the forward pass was invented, and it's just as true today. It's also the reason why Tressel isn't likely to ever become a spread-option coach despite the presence on the roster of a player like Terrell Pryor.

"You saw what happened at Oregon," said Tressel.

"They were 7-1. I watched the Oregon vs. Michigan film and I thought that was the New York Giants playing. Everything worked. Then they lose six of their last seven because their guy got all banged up.

"Tom Brady looked very ordinary in that super bowl. Why? Because they were hitting him, and all of a sudden he wasn't completing a flat route. It still comes back to your basics of football and that's you've got to hit somebody, and that's how you apply pressure," Tressel said.

Newton distilled his laws of motion down to three statements that covered all the possibilities. Tressel has the same kind of approach to football, and if you have read his book, to life in general. He believes like Newton that a few certain fundamental principals govern how all situations play out. He seems to believe that the micro-details are very important, but that the micro-details in fact make themselves evident if you keep the all-important big-picture principles in mind.

So How About Stopping that Spread?

It's been amusing to see all the Xs and Os talk about the spread offense and the way to defend it this preseason. It certainly gives plenty of fodder to sports writers, but we think a bigger-picture view (like Newton and Tressel) really reveals what has happened and how things will evolve.

The recent changes in football haven't been so much about techniques and strategy but about personnel. What has really evolved is the emergence of the specialist on both sides of the ball. We have spread option receivers, third down receivers, first down running backs, third down running backs, drop back passers, spread quarterbacks, option quarterbacks, power running backs, scat-backs, run blockers, possession receivers, deep threats, pass blockers, all of whom fill a very narrow role as offenses try to get an edge. Offensive coordinators then scheme to take maximum advantage of the talent they have assembled.

It's much the same on defense. We have nickel backs, we have dime backs, we have rush defensive ends, we have drop defensive ends, we have drop linebackers, we have run-stopper linebackers, we have support safeties, cover corners, center-field safeties, and so on. Like their offensive counterparts, defensive coordinators spend their time trying to "put their talent in the best position to make plays". How many times have you heard that in the last few years?

We have finally come to the climax of the specialist era, because the new trend is to take the most important guy on the football field, the quarterback, and specialize his talents in such a way that, as Tressel points out, he is at risk. It is a great system when it works, but as Tressel also points out, when the risk goes against you and you lose him, it's a disaster. We think that is going to happen more and more, because defenses have recognized what's happening, and they are moving toward an obvious solution.

The new offense counts on getting their specialized player (athletic quarterback) matched up in space against a defender whose specialty doesn't match up well. Tim Tebow against a cover corner is very one-sided. Juice Williams against a big linebacker who is there to tackle big tailbacks certainly favors Juice Williams. Add to that the offensive dimension of the no-huddle which makes it tough for defenses to substitute, and the solution for the defense becomes apparent. Defenses must de-specialize, an irony since offenses are now counting on the ultimate specialist, the specialized quarterback.

"You have to be a lot more simplistic. It's almost back to where we used to be where you play your 11 best players and you don't play the nickel or the dime," said OSU defensive coordinator Jim Heacock in a recent the-Ozone video with a line that probably slipped by a lot of people that heard it.

More than anything else, de-specialization of defenders will stop the spread offense. The matchups will be less one-sided as running quarterbacks are matched against fewer defenders specialized for pass defense. That will increase their attrition rate and the "Oregon Effect" will become more and more common.

We predicted above that Jim Tressel would never go to a pure spread option. We think that for a couple of reasons. There is the injury factor, but there is more.

We think that Jim Tressel has had a parallel thought process about his offense, that de-specialization is really the key to success. He has said time and again that he wants his offense to be able to do a little bit of everything, that opposing coaches always marvel at how diverse the OSU offense is. When Tressel has the players to run his offense that way, the opposition cannot specialize its defense to a style of play and you end up with lots of yards, points, wins, league championships, an occasional national championship, and an occasional Heisman Trophy winner who was probably not as good as a passer as lot of other people and not as good a runner as others, but could do both well enough to be a threat doing either. Forcing a de-specialized game gives the advantage to which ever team has the best unspecialized players on the field.

Really, its Newton's first law over and over. The fundamentals of football are inert and don't change. Eleven guys on the field who are good, not necessarily great, at blocking, tackling, running, throwing and catching will usually beat a specialized system. Throw in a great player or two now and then, and you have a run at a national championship, especially if his special skills are diverse. If your personnel doesn't allow you to play an unspecialized game, then you must specialized to try to gain an advantage, and that leaves you vulnerable to the counter-tactic (remember the third law?).

In football it works on the micro level and the macro level time and again. Hey! Have we stumbled onto a unified level playing field theory? Eat your heart out Albert Einstein. (How geeky is that!?)

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