[washingtonismoney]

I suppose....they do qualify on the "really good" part, but how "spready" they are....they did not play with nearly as much tempo as the Oregon teams of old, for example.  I'm particularly thinking of those teams that pass to the flats as much as 50% of the time, going side to side to deliberately wear down the line, or jet sweeps with ultra fast runners.  SC did more conventional running and downfield passing compared with the side-to-side stuff that forms the backbone of the spread offenses that we will likely be seeing.  But when SC did do the flare passes and the WR screens, they did quite well with them.  Scored a touchdown at the goal line on one that left us confused. 

UCLA has tried to do the sideline to sideline strategy to us the last couple of years, in a deliberate effort to wear us down--but we had the depth and endurance to hold up.  In general, the spread requires very deep defenses, and I'm not sure we have that with our front seven this year.  We will find out with Arizona, UCLA, WSU and C.al who will probably all play us that way.

I dunno, I disagree. There are a lot of flavors of spreads and SC's is definitely on the Baskin-Robbins' list. A lot of spread offenses emphasize taking shots downfield -- see Oklahoma State's, for instance.* While many spreads do enjoy the dink-and-dunk, many don't. I suppose you're concerned about the ones that do, but it's incorrect to define spreads in that way.

* (Or take one of the most famous spread plays, four verticals: http://smartfootball.blogspot.com/2009/0...zalez.html)

[washingtonismoney]

I suppose....they do qualify on the "really good" part, but how "spready" they are....they did not play with nearly as much tempo as the Oregon teams of old, for example.  I'm particularly thinking of those teams that pass to the flats as much as 50% of the time, going side to side to deliberately wear down the line, or jet sweeps with ultra fast runners.  SC did more conventional running and downfield passing compared with the side-to-side stuff that forms the backbone of the spread offenses that we will likely be seeing.  But when SC did do the flare passes and the WR screens, they did quite well with them.  Scored a touchdown at the goal line on one that left us confused. 

UCLA has tried to do the sideline to sideline strategy to us the last couple of years, in a deliberate effort to wear us down--but we had the depth and endurance to hold up.  In general, the spread requires very deep defenses, and I'm not sure we have that with our front seven this year.  We will find out with Arizona, UCLA, WSU and C.al who will probably all play us that way.

I dunno, I disagree. There are a lot of flavors of spreads and SC's is definitely on the Baskin-Robbins' list. A lot of spread offenses emphasize taking shots downfield -- see Oklahoma State's, for instance.* While many spreads do enjoy the dink-and-dunk, many don't. I suppose you're concerned about the ones that do, but it's incorrect to define spreads in that way.

* (Or take one of the most famous spread plays, four verticals: http://smartfootball.blogspot.com/2009/0...zalez.html)