Multiple schemes and adjustments on defense

[StatTiger 3,188]

I was thumbing through an old Lindy's mag from 1996 and found a comment made by Coach Bill Oliver made shortly after being hired by Terry Bowden.

"Formations, 3-4's or 4-3's don't win championships. You have to do what the players can do. We'll be multiple in our schemes and hope we can take it from the practice field to stadium." - Bill Oliver

His comments about being multiple reminded me of recent comments made by Coach Will Muschamp. He also made reference to being multiple in terms of swapping from a 4-3 to a 3-4. He went as far as moving some of our DE's to LB because he wants more size at LB. Like Oliver, he wants to fit his schemes to his personnel rather than forcing his methods onto his players. Muschamp also spoke of changing his schemes and plays during the course of the season because opposing OC's tend to figure out what our defense is doing after a few games.

Both Gene Chizik and Will Muschamp worked with Bill Oliver and it's obvious Oliver's philosophy of coaching rubbed off on both Chizik and Muschamp.

Was this our problem last year on defense? Did opposing teams have a better understanding of our defense and schemes later in the year because Gibbs failed to adjust and change his approach to each game?

Note of interest:

I made a comparison of the yards and points we surrendered last year to what our opponents averaged on the season and here is what I found.

During the first six games of the season, we held our opponents to 20.2% less yardage than what they averaged on the season. We also held our first six opponents to 52.3% less points than what they averaged scoring on the season.

During the last six games of the season, our opponents were gaining 4% more yardage than what Auburn was allowing on the season and we were holding our opponents to only 18.1% less than what they were scoring per game.

It would appear that our later opponents had a better understanding of what we were doing on defense, which would explain why our defensive numbers slipped as the season progressed.

Thoughts?

Happy 4th to all...

[OKieAuburnDoug 1]

as slow as Gibby was about calling in the schemes it's no surprise! Can't wait for the Muschamp era to begin!!

[Bottomfeeder 244]

Muschamp also spoke of changing his schemes and plays during the course of the season because opposing OC's tend to figure out what our defense is doing after a few games.

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Both sides of the ball should consider this because teams study films and practice to play against those plays/formations...etc.