SB Nation Atlanta: All Posts by Steven Godfrey

Those guys having all the fun: An oral history of the Cincinnati baseball team's videobombs

2013-05-24T23:36:56Z

Players from the Cincinnati Bearcats baseball team have suddenly become the darlings of the Internet because of their spectacular post-game antics.

SB Nation was able to talk to members of the team about their newfound celebrity and exactly how all these celebrations came about.

Ryan Quinn, junior second baseman: I'm the prankster on the team. There's not much sleeping when the Bearcats travel. I'll throw stuff at people sleeping, unplug phone chargers. I feel bad for my teammates. They keep their head on a swivel. It's even worse for the guys who live with me.

Scott Waldrop, GoBearcats.com host and play-by-play man: It's all Quinn. He's the mastermind. It started back in April against Xavier. I had no idea it was happening, but our camera guy told me later that Quinn stood behind me smiling.

Quinn: I walked out there and put on a little kid smile. People thought it was funny so I decided to keep doing it. That's it, basically. I don't really think out ideas too often.

JP Jackson, senior infielder: We all saw that video and thought it was hilarious. That's how it started. Ultimately it’s Quinn who has the final say in what we do, and then when the game ends we don’t know what he has up his sleeve. He lets us know and picks his cast.

Quinn: Some of the guys in the dugout will start suggesting ideas sometimes, but... a few times they've suggested streaking and I'm like, no, we have to keep this thing light, keep the mood happy. I don't want people to never look at us again.

Jackson: We don’t rehearse or anything, we just kind of wing it. We’re not sure what we’re going to do. We're just trying to get the win first.

Quinn: I like to do a quick run through in the dugout, but that's about it.

Waldrop: Quinn's a funny, creative guy. He just wanted to take it a step further each time and build a following.

Mitch Patishall, freshman right-handed pitcher: When I went to get interviewed, I didn’t know what they were going to do, but I saw them doing something out of the corner of my eye. I didn't know until after that they were jousting. I just tried not to laugh.

Quinn: Well, as you know, the joust has become the rain-delay specialty in college baseball, so I just threw that one together.

Connor Walsh, freshman right-handed pitcher: My favorite was the one where they're swimming. It's Quinn and JP. They're both smaller guys, so seeing their little legs kicking across the camera just looked really funny.

Jackson: I'm the one doing the backstroke... I'm proud of that one, that's my favorite. I was proud to be cast in such a prominent role.

Quinn: Whoever was closest to me got cast. Sometimes I'd need a smaller guy, and then we’d need taller guys to hold them so they could be in the picture behind the interview. By the end of the season everyone wanted to be in it.

Walsh: I knew it was going to happen when I went out there, but at the same time I was trying to focus on the questions being asked having my bearings. I really was trying to focus on the interview.

Quinn: That's probably my favorite, when I'm up on the "chair" being fanned, and when I'm on the pig roast.

Quinn: I saw some guys on the field crew walking by with part of the infield tarp and asked them if I could ride along.

Waldrop: They aren't trying to make me laugh or break my concentration. I can't see them anyway. They're just trying to make things fun.

Jackson: Did we get nervous? No. Those videos are all about creating a positive energy for the team. And the fans that came to the game -- and we have great fans -- started to stay after to see what we would do, so it sort of became a thing. Our coaches think they're great, they were all for it.

Quinn: The coaches, after the game they go into their locker room. They don’t stick around and see it happen, but they'll watch it the next day on video. They like it.

Walsh: It's just a little humor on the side of the great game baseball. That's all.

Patishall: I think the coaches enjoy seeing us have a good time.

Jackson: It's important to have a certain level of focus in the game and a winning mentality. I don't think baseball is a joking matter, I'm just saying that I like to really concentrate on the game during the game and then relax afterwards.

Walsh: This only happens when we win. We're focused on winning, so next year hopefully we'll be doing it a lot more. Baseball is definitely a serious game, but there's also a lot more downtime than in other sports.

Walsh: Quinny had a really good game one night. I think he’d just gone 4-for-4, so right when everybody saw him getting him interviewed it was a red flag. We had to get the mastermind.

Quinn: I think it was after we'd won against Notre Dame. I gave them some ideas for what to do behind me, but they didn't. I can't tell what. I've got to hold onto some for next year.

Walsh: Originally we were going to take one of the big laundry baskets, put a guy in there, cover it with towels and then do a jack-in-the-box thing. But we ran out of time, so we just dumped the Gatorade bucket on him.

Waldrop: They told me they were going to dump the water, but I didn't know about the shaving cream, so some of that got on the mic. I barely missed it.

Walsh: Those two clips, that's all in the same interview. We wanted it to be Quinny's most memorable interview. I pied him in the face.

Quinn: Actually, they both caught me off guard. They were within about five seconds of one another.

Jackson: It's kind of ironic that this is happening again. I transferred to Cincinnati from Western Kentucky to pursue a degree in architecture, but I still wanted to play baseball. So I'm also in that famous rain delay video from my freshman year against Florida Atlantic. So yeah, this keeps happening to me. I'm not sure what it is about college baseball... it's just a fun sport, I guess. Focus on your responsibilities, but baseball is fun. Guys forget that.

Patishall: I wasn't in any of the pranks this year, I was just out there being interviewed. I'd like to be in some next year. Hopefully they can top this season's.

Jackson: I wish any team out there good luck in topping us.

Quinn: We have to be the most popular at this ever, right? I actually wanted to do a Harlem Shake video earlier this year but then everyone started doing that. We had to go with our own thing. We set our trends.

Walsh: This whole thing blew up. We just wanted to keep the team loose. The fact this went viral is really cool.

Quinn: I saw it had like 300 hits on YouTube when it first went up, and probably 98 of those were my family. I went to bed that night, then went over to my sister's house the next day, and all day my phone wouldn't stop ringing. I woke up this morning and I was on SportsCenter.

Waldrop: I saw it once, a friend had put it on Facebook. Then a few days later I'm getting texts that it's on ESPN and MLB Network.

Quinn: Some woman saw it online and liked it, so she started the hashtag #Quinning. I like that. I guess that's a good name for whatever it is we're doing. "Quinning."

Waldrop: It's weird... people are telling me "You’re famous now, right?" and I tell them that the players are the ones who make the video entertaining. I’m just in it. They’re the ones who are being funny and creative; I’m doing just my job. But yeah, if some [media company] sees it and notices I can keep a straight face, that's great too.

Quinn: We were a young team this year. We're expecting big things next season, and now people are expecting big things with this thing, too. Sequels are tough. I gotta come up with something great for the sequel. But I've got all offseason to work on it. We'll just see where this takes us.

An ode to college football recruiting and coaches who pretend to hate each other

2013-05-24T14:47:35Z

As a sportswriter, you live adrift in a sea of measured, mediocre comments from coaches and athletes. At times this ocean has no end, until suddenly...

Just saw the black bears lost to the tide ... Maybe the offer to play for an SEC championship wasn't "committ-able"
— Scott Sallach (@CoachSallach) May 23, 2013

LAND! Unfiltered vitriol straight ahead, and in May, no less.

After this tweet by Mississippi State tight ends coach Scott Sallach, I contacted the sports information departments at both MSU and Ole Miss. As of Friday morning, MSU politely declined comment and Ole Miss has yet to respond. One source with the Rebels shrugged off the tweet's agressive partisanship, but laughed at the accusation itself: "That seems strange coming from them, like they're not doing the same thing."

Both schools should probably comment, because Sallach has lobbed a roundabout accusation of recruiting impropriety (not cheating, because non-committable offers aren't cheating yet) at a rival school.

But there is greatness in Sallach's comment, not really in what he said, but why and how. It's the greatness that allows college football to stand apart from its contemporaries by giving us a better view as consumers into its actual workings.

Recruiting is an awful business, but we're better for it. If college football drafted its players in the same manner as the NFL, it would assuredly become the NFL as fast as possible -- exclusive and restrictive with its access, monotone in its messaging and generally flavorless. Thank God for the awful, crooked business of recruiting, as it allows fans and media a way to reverse-engineer some character and life into coaching staffs and programs.

Rest assured, if they could simply receive a roster-by-mail that was roughly equal in talent to the competition's and then sit in the dark and watch film all day, they would. No other facet of the game forces coaches to not only act like human beings, but do so publicly. How else would we know about bizarre Photoshops and weird notes and the stuffing of mailboxes?

No active professional assistant coach would take to social media to jab and whine about the inequities of a salary cap. Compared to the recruiting processes of major FBS programs, the pay scales and cap rules of the NFL seem like exemplary models of fairness. But at the collegiate level, a coach's worth is at least half-determined by his ability to connect with and cater to the fleeting whimsies of teenage athletes, an inane metric for an industry filled with obsessive control freaks. Many thrive on this challenge and many others loathe it.

That kind of frustration builds towards the public comments above, and why every single coach I interviewed this spring wanted to talk about recruiting, be it early signing periods or revisions on unlimited contact. Often times these conversations came unsolicited, which in the coach/media dynamic is an unmistakable signpost. Many coaching staffs can't control the beast that is recruiting as well as they'd like, so they turn the public forums they normally eschew to vent their perceived victimization.

And without actually confirming this with the man himself (a fruitless endeavor if attempted publicly), I'd guess that Scott Sallach has no real ill will towards Ole Miss. But his usage of the "black bear" trope (a reference to the Rebels' recent mascot modification) combined with commentary on a sport he doesn't coach or participate in certainly has MSU fans salivating.

"He hates those damn black bears like we do, and so much so that he's cheerin' against 'em in baseball... like we are!"

I don't want to discount the natural competitiveness of coaches. Certainly Sallach and the rest of Mullen's staff want to win in recruiting and win on the field, but the fact his tweet could've been lifted straight from a MSU fan message board is by design. Since Mullen arrived in Starkville in 2009, he's spearheaded a marketing initiative of defiance to rally beleaguered MSU fans. When possible, everything can and has been turned into a jab at in-state rival Ole Miss. That approach isn't by accident: Mullen successfully tapped into the resentment built by the Rebels' decades-long aura of self-created elitism. And when you're an ag school school defined by losing in a state battling perpetual inferiority, it's awful easy to hate any neighbor who throws fairy tale antebellum cocktail parties (I should know, I'm an alumnus).

All fans want to believe that their current coaches hate the teams they hate, and with the same ferocity. They don't. Most fans would be crestfallen if they accepted that coaches are, invariably, employees with no job security and little more. As best illustrated by the recent Twitter tête-à-tête between Vanderbilt offensive line coach Herb Hand and a particularly tactless Tennessee fan, most rival coaches are not only colleagues, but friends in a very rarefied job field that promotes a hellacious amount of turnover.

The greatness of Sallach's tweet lies in its perceived inappropriateness. It's half nauseating T-shirt quality smack-talk, half hypocritical bitching about college football's crooked supply chain of talent. Those are unseemly subjects delivered in an often unseemly public forum. What's worth celebrating, though, is Sallach's need to do it anyway, the fact that he either feels forced to show genuine character or fake it. Either way, it's better than than nothing.

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A quick analysis of Jaguar UFA Quarterbacks Kawaun Jakes and Jordan Rodgers

2013-05-03T14:58:45Z

Hello there, irritable north Florida professional football enthusiasts! My name is Steven Godfrey and I write sports words now and again for SB Nation's college football section.

If you're alarmed that my presence in your territory is any way related to Tim Tebow, please take this opportunity to sniff me with caution - Courtesy of Alfie's gracious invite, I'm here to tell you about two quarterbacks going to rookie camp with the Jaguars: Western Kentucky's Kawaun Jakes and Vanderbilt's Jordan Rodgers.

Jakes - He holds most of the records at WKU that his head coach, Willie Taggart (now at USF), had as the Hilltoppers quarterback in the early 1990s. Jakes benefited greatly from WKU's run-heavy power offense that Taggart brought from Stanford. Like the Cardinal, emphasis was placed on play-action passes to tight ends. He led the Sun Belt in pass efficiency (147.77), but that's due in part to favorable match-ups created by the offensive scheme. Running back Antonio Andrews finished the season with almost 3.000 all-purpose yards, a luxury Jakes heavily relied on. When WKU was forced to throw their way back into games, Jakes struggled.

Tight end Jack Doyle (now a UFA with the Tennessee Titans) actually made many of the line calls in WKU's multiple shift-motion looks, and Jakes couldn't find open receivers or check down against top-tier SEC defenses like LSU and Alabama. At 6-3 and 195 lbs. Jakes is an impressive athlete (he actually filled in as a practice player on WKU's basketball team this season) possessing a relatively strong arm but might struggle with a pro system.

Rodgers - He's Aaron's little brother, but at times in his two years with the Commodores, he looked a hell of lot like he was Brett Favre's kin. Rodgers is serviceably mobile in the pocket (420 rushing yards) and worked to not only evade some of the best pass-rushers in the country but also keep game-winning drives alive with his feet.

But much like a mini-Favre, he was plagued by interceptions, most notably in his junior season and in a terrible Liberty Bowl performance against Cincinnati. His deep ball has always been shaky, but given time in the pocket he's an accurate passer. With his steady development over two seasons in Franklin's offense, I'm convinced that if he had one more year of eligibility, Vanderbilt would be a 8-9 win team with Rodgers in 2013.

Of the pair, I'd pick Rodgers to make a roster. His height (a generous listing of 6-2) is no worse than a Drew Brees or Russell Wilson but he never displayed the league-level cannon arm those undersized quarterbacks use to compensate. But I can attest that he's seasoned for the life of a pro quarterback. I also covered Eli Manning throughout his college career, and the nonstop nausea of little brother comparisons from national media outlets matured Jordan much in the same way it did Eli. He models his game prep and film study after his brother and is a locker room presence (in the good way). If he finds a way to increase his downfield accuracy he could be a pleasant surprise after a year or two with a clipboard.

The state of the spread: Mississippi rivals on the future of football's trendiest attack

2013-04-30T15:22:56Z

There's still no definition of the spread offense.

Mississippi State offensive coordinator Les Koenning reverts to his preferred teaching method. The former Texas wide receiver vibrates with enthusiasm, leaping to his feet, but before he hits the whiteboard to chart the evolution of spread offense formations - "I'm a visual learner," he explains - he says:

"This is how I start when I'm at coaching clinics: 'What does the term spread offense mean to you?'" he asks.

There's a pause, and then I realize he wants an answer from me.

Originally it was maybe shotgun, one back, two receivers to either side, that’s probably where it’s started ... but I know it’s changed, because you put a tight end in and run power out of...

"Awesome. Those are great answers," he cuts me off. "You know what spread really means?"

Uh, no?

"Whatever type of quarterback you have, utilize him. That's it. See, you’re trying to get into formations," he corrects me. "Formations to an offensive staff is just a way to create mismatches. The basis of it is how you get the best way for your football team to move the ball."

Head coach Dan Mullen brought sweeping change in 2009, but none more so than the offensive overhaul honed by his years as Urban Meyer's offensive coordinator. Entering his fifth season, Mullen's Bulldogs average more than 1,400 total yards a season and a yard per play more than the previous regime's west coast offense. That's translated to three consecutive winning seasons, two New Year's Day bowl appearances and a level of consistency heretofore unseen in Starkville in the modern era of SEC football.

Most spread offenses are balanced.

Over in Oxford, the offensive transition has been shorter but even more noticeable: After back-to-back Cotton Bowls, Houston Nutt's 2009 and '10 Rebel teams flatlined in a 6-18 run, with the Rebels failing to score more than 13 points in seven games. Nutt's playcalling had grown so stagnant that it was possible to predict calls from the stands. But in Hugh Freeze's first season, the Rebels racked up over 5,500 yards hit the 30-point mark eight times.

Ole Miss offensive coordinator Dan Werner came to Oxford from Miami, first under Ed Orgeron and now on his second tour with Hugh Freeze. A pro-style practitioner, Werner was installed to help complement Freeze's system with his own experience. He was also to help debunk any preconceived notion of the spread being a gimmick attack.

"What is a spread now? I think most people think that if you’re in shotgun, you’re in spread," Werner said. "Certain teams go to the spread to run the football, and that’s basically all they do. Then there are others, the air raid, basically they throw it every snap. We want to be both. We want a pro-style quarterback that can run a true pro-style drop back scheme with the ability to also run the ball and do different things to keep defenses honest."

The Rebels were hardly a Mike Leach derivation - Ole Miss favored the run 551 to 411, despite having only one true tailback (senior Jeff Scott) to start the year.

Speed, not formation, is the equalizer.

An up-tempo spread jabs at a superior defense's conditioning, even if it's one that wins national titles in the neighboring state and same division. One of the reasons so many staffs have latched on is to help even the field, making defenses defend every part of the field and creating mismatches to give undersized players an advantage.

But Koenning expands further, pointing to the easy-to-apply marriage of the two most common offensive line blocking schemes: zone and gap. To illustrate, he stands and pulls his shorts almost sternum-high, then squats.

"So if everybody stops and we get our jocks on and we get our pants straight and we get ready to come off the ball and their guy weighs 290 and ours weighs 220, who’s gonna win? But if you go really fast, that 290 guy, he gets tired and a little confused. And all of a sudden that’s an advantage for the offense. And if you’re always running laterally [in a power formation] all of a sudden those big guys are tired. And so all of a sudden you can gap it down, pull around and one guy gets out his gap - he scrapes too hard? Say the backside 'backer scrapes to the top, you gash ‘em to the safety!"

"the only thing slowing us down is the ref."

it also temporarily locks them into personnel groupings (something certain winning head coaches in certain Alabama towns absolutely hate). As Red Cup Rebellion breaks down here, Ole Miss ran the same play five times in a row in a minute of clock time for a 48-yard scoring drive against Pittsburgh in the BBVA Compass Bowl.

"As fast as that ref will set the ball down is as fast as we should go," Werner said. "Some refs will take their time, and I see different crews ... some whip that ball in and set it down and they're gone. Others will sort of walk it in and make sure defenses are set. We want it to be as fast as possible."

While it sounds like a baseball problem of varying strikes zones depending on each night's ump, there's a fair amount of consistency in the speed of ball-setting from conference to conference. He notes that the Pac-12 crews are especially fast.

"I've seen Oregon games where the guys are whipping the ball to each other to get the next play set. And we see other conferences take time enough for the defenses to get set."

And the SEC officials are how fast?

"You're not going to get me to say anything about the SEC officials," he laughs. "But put it this way: as fast as they want to put it down, we'll snap it. We tell our players that when we get into that tempo that the only thing slowing us down is the ref. If he can set it and walk away before we snap it, we're going too slow."

Quarterbacks cannot be one-dimensional.

Does a quarterback have to be able to run like a tailback? Not to a Michael Vick or Vince Young standard. But the quarterback must be some kind of threat to run.

"Old school thinking was that we never wanted our quarterback getting touched. But now, I just think that to even the odds up he has to be in the process somewhere, whether it’s running or throwing more," Werner said. "I think I was hard-headed for a long time, thinking it wasn’t my style or whatever. Teams used to play base defenses, and it wasn't an issue. But the more you kept running into an extra defender, coaches just got sick of it. And so now people are starting to realize you have to recruit the right type of guy for that position."

The biggest bullet point on Mullen's resume is Heisman winner Tim Tebow, who overshadows former No. 1 draft pick Alex Smith of Utah as an example of the system thriving without a track star behind center. Smith was a traditional quarterback, but implementing him as a runner allowed Utah to keep defenses honest. Smith's starting run in San Francisco ended in part because he wasn't as mobile as Colin Kaepernick, yet he ran for 1,072 yards and 15 touchdowns at Utah.

"It's not mandatory, but it helps," Mullen concedes. "But I'd say that decision-making trumps mobility greatly. You don't have to be mobile to run option football; you have to be a great decision-maker. If you've made the right decision in option football and you keep the ball, you can still run even though you're not dynamic, but because you've made the right decision."

When Ole Miss quarterback Bo Wallace pulled on a zone read against LSU and, uh ... lumbered for a 57-yard touchdown straight through the defense, it was the right decision and execution, but was still shocking to Freeze, who had coached Wallace at Arkansas State before the quarterback transferred.

"When we were at Arkansas State it was a big joke, like 'Oh, Bo runs a 4.9, he's slow,'" Wallace laughs. "So as soon as I scored I went straight for him on the sideline, and Freeze pats my head and says, 'I'm so sorry for making fun of you your freshman year,' but you can see me on film tightening up around the ball, thinking, 'Surely to God, someone's about to catch me.' I couldn't see, because at LSU there's only a Jumbotron at one end."

According to Koenning, a stiff-legged passer rumbling through a secondary is the essence of the system's beauty.

"That’s the benefit of the spread," he says. "You still have gap schemes, you still have zone schemes, you’re still making them think, but when I go to run the zone read, if Tyler Russell’s running the zone read, what’s the defense going to practice? Tackling the running back. But when Tyler gets a pull, it’s for 20 yards, because they can only practice against so much."

Wallace against LSU. Crystal LoGiudice-US PRESSWIRE.

The spread also cannot be one-dimensional.

MSU and Ole Miss will enter 2013 with starting quarterbacks considered to be passers, yet both will continue to be spelled by runners Dak Prescott and Barry Brunetti.

Brunetti appeared in 12 game for the Rebels last season, but had only 36 pass attempts to Wallace's 368, whereas he had almost half as many rushing attempts (60 to 143). That tendency created a trend in coverage when the former West Virginia quarterback would enter the game.

"Oh yeah," Brunetti admits. "I’d go out there last season, and I’d hear the checks. They’d be checking to certain places ... I’d hear them say, ‘Watch the option, watch the run.’"

Neither team is quarterbacking by committee, but the matter at hand will be maintaining versatility no matter which quarterback is in the game. Mullen enjoyed three years of success in Starkville with Chris Relf, the 6'4, 240-pound, run-first threat. His career totals at State are impressive (1,578 yards rushing, 3,297 passing, 37 total TDs) but his run/pass ratio (401 carries to 460 pass attempts) shows that he was more Tebow than Smith. Enter Russell, a nationally ranked pro-style quarterback. He became the full-time starter in 2012, spelled by redshirt sophomore backup Prescott, a more Relf-ian type.

"The biggest issue we have is what our kids can do the best. In order to be successful offensively you've got to utilize the talents that you're given. We're not a place where we get a Christmas list all the time," Koenning said.

Russell, a Merdian, Miss., native, was the best quarterback in the state when he committed to the Bulldogs, so in what Mullen calls "the big thick playbook," State dropped a few chapters and added some different ones.

"I’m looking to throw the ball but when we have a run play called, I’m looking... 'OK, what are they doing? Are they going to respect me on this play? Is the end just going to crash down and go for the back?' I might get six, seven yards from that. It’s not going to happen every time, but it’s going to happen at some point in a game," Russell said.

When teams shift their defensive calls dramatically depending on State's quarterbacks, Russell doesn't get offended if he's left relatively alone on a run assignment.

"It doesn’t really make you mad, it’s just kind of funny," Russell says. "You’re supposed to play sound football. The defensive end has the C gap, and if you’re not going to respect the C gap and just try and tackle the running back and there’s nobody else out there, I’m going to take it."

State fans would tell you that Russell is the passer (231-394 for 2,897 yards) and Prescott is the runner (32 carries, 118 yards), but because of the way defenses play the pair individually, Prescott must maintain the ability to throw (18-29 for 194 yards) and Russell must be some threat to run (43 total carries, but -5 net yards due to sacks). Koenning and Mullen both contend that either can command the offense, because the offense must always be versatile enough to fit the talent, whatever the talent may be.

"We're in a situation where our 'passer' can run," Mullen said. "He's not a dynamic runner, but in the open field if you don't cover him he'll go run down the field. And our runner can throw, he threw a bunch of touchdown passes last year. And that aspect of things changes based on your personnel."

Mullen points to the difference in running the zone read at Utah and a Florida - the Utes featured pocket-passing Smith, who had little perimeter speed, whereas in Gainesville the monstrous Tebow was flanked by light backs like Chris Rainey and Jeff Demps.

"If Peyton Manning wanted to come play for me, I'd figure something out."

"All we did was reverse the play," said Mullen. "Tebow would read to go inside, the running backs to go outside. You're still reading the same way, but instead of the running back going inside and the quarterback (Smith) keeping around the edge, it's the quarterback (Tebow) keeping it inside or giving to the running backs around the edge. Those are the little flexibilities you have to have in your system. It can't ever be just one particular way."

"Hey," Mullen adds. "If Peyton Manning wanted to come play for me, I'd be all in. I'd figure something out. But he probably wouldn't run too often."

Who can be a quarterback has changed.

Veteran NFL receiver Roscoe Parrish played wide receiver for the Hurricanes while Werner was on staff at Miami. But Werner also had a package of plays for Parrish, a high school quarterback, in 2005 that would've constituted spread-option offense. Today's demand for that type of athletic talent at QB has outpaced the evaluation skills of some veteran recruiters, and cautionary tales of mobile Heisman quarterbacks Cam Newton, Johnny Manziel and Robert Griffin III being unsuccessfully offered to play other positions give coaches nightmares.

Werner agrees that the sample size for potential BCS-level quarterbacks has grown substantially, but the core demands on the position haven't changed.

"No doubt we're looking in more places. But this is what I stress to our recruits: I think some schools are looking for athletes who can throw, but I'm still looking for a quarterback who's a good athlete. You have to be a quarterback first. If you can run, great, but when it's 3rd and 8, we can't win if all you can do is run."

The success of NFL offenses in Seattle, Washington and San Francisco was celebrated outside their respective fan bases, as scores of college and high school quarterbacks felt validated. Werner admits that as a coach on the recruiting trail years ago, he was able to campaign against offenses that weren't specifically pro-style by using the fear of the NFL when recruiting quarterbacks.

"I was an old pro-style guy. When I was at other schools that's what I sold them on: look, you can go to one of those schools but nobody does. Whereas now they are, so I want to make sure ... in the NFL it's not like they're only running the quarterback. They still have to learn all their protections and reads. That's a big selling point to our quarterbacks now is, hey, we're going to teach you the pro-style schemes, the drop backs and reads, with an addition to what the pro-style is going towards."

This doesn't mean Denard Robinson wouldn't have to change positions if he came out in three or four years - height and weight nullify some outright - but it does mean that a quarterback like Prescott, who was labeled "ATH" by recruiting services, isn't forced to become a tight end or flanker to make money professionally.

"Being in a run-first college offense - and we’re still 50/50 - but being in that, it’s hard," Prescott admits. "It’s like Denard moving to receiver. It’s hard when you run the ball to actually get in the NFL. Even when you believe you can throw, the film says you’re running the ball 60 percent of the time, they’re going go off that. It’s a business. Now that they’re integrating the dual-threat quarterback and the read option, it’s actually helping us and making it easier for us."

"I feel they’ll definitely take a chance on a guy who has more of a running ability then just what you would call a simple dropback passer," Prescott said.

Prescott against Arkansas. Spruce Derden, US Presswire.

It's no easier on an offensive line.

One of the lingering falsehoods about the spread is that a shotgun somehow allows for offensive line play to become less aggressive. Ironically, the resurgence in power running plays has come from the spread and option, most notably with Newton and Gus Malzahn at Auburn and since replicated all over.

"When I came back here, taking to booster clubs that was the mentality. 'Are we going to be tough up front?'" Werner said. "Well, it's not like we're telling the offensive line 'Hey, since we're in shotgun you guys can go be soft.' We're still running the inside zone and the power, and they're still blocking. There were a lot of people nervous about that, but when they see how we run the football it makes them feel a lot better about it."

Koenning, along with a host of NFL general managers set to wager a few million, is convinced the secret to the last Heisman-winner's success in Texas A&M's offense came along the line specifically.

"You know why Manziel’s really good?" he asks. "Number one, he’s a really good football player. That’s number one, but number two are those offensive tackles he has [No. 2 Draft pick Luke Joeckel and Jake Matthews]. Imagine a kid with that much athleticism sitting back there going [Koenning yells] 'One Mississippi, two Mississippi ...' [Texas A&M] reminds you of that. We’re playing in the backyard. 'Oh hey, he ain’t open ... Three Mississippi! Move over a little bit!’"

Koenning said the Mississippi State staff spent time in the offseason breaking down A&M film to watch the Aggie offense specifically.

"We counted eight seconds in the pocket a couple times. That doesn’t happen. Those two tackles are really really good. Johnny Manziel is good, don’t get me wrong, but you’re going to find out those two offensive tackles helped him a lot more than what people really thought."

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Injuries happen in every offense.

"Getting hit, that’s probably why the NFL didn’t use this offense for so long," Brunetti supposes.

He's probably right. The concept of turning $100 million franchise players into less-durable tailbacks never sounds appealing to a general manager. But there's no hard proof that one particular system injures quarterbacks more than another. Wallace spent the spring on the sidelines and in the film room recovering from surgery on his throwing shoulder, an injury he sustained on a zone read play against Tulane in September. The hit - Wallace hit a linebacker head on before his lineman could create a block - clearly affected his accuracy and arm strength for the remainder of the year, but Wallace said he didn't change his running style, despite the multiple protests of his coaches.

"Once I got banged up I should've changed a lot of things, but that's me just trying to compete and fight for every yard. We were 5-5 trying to get a bowl game, so you're trying to do every little thing you can. I guess I'm just hard-headed, but yeah, going forward I'll have to change things."

While not season-ending, the injury had a direct effect on the entire offense ("By the end of the year I was lucky if I could throw anything 45 yards," he said), an issue Werner is still addressing in the offseason. According to Wallace, the team spent some of the spring trying out new formations, pistol included, and he's anxious but unable to try them out.

"We're not the type that's going to run him 20 or 30 times. But if they're going to give us the run, we have to take it. People don't like that quarterback running down the middle because usually when he does run, we're getting nice gains out of that. As soon as they start taking that away we can go to different things," said Werner.

Consequently, Brunetti and backup Maikhail Miller spent the spring learning to fall correctly - forward unless arriving at head-on contact, with the ball tucked and on your non-throwing shoulder - while Wallace is still immobile until he starts throwing rehab the first week of May.

"Anytime you have an operation on your throwing shoulder it makes you nervous. You can go a month without throwing a football and come back and for a couple days you won't be the same. So I'm interested to see where I'm at," Wallace said.

The NFL will adjust.

The zone read is only one way of answering the pass rushing defensive end, and it's not foolproof. Coaches insist it's not just about freezing out all-world defensive ends like Jadeveon Clowney, but Brunetti and his fellow zone read enthusiasts wax poetic at the thought of doing just that:

"My favorite moment is once [the defensive end] pulls down, and I pull, it and it’s open field... If I see ‘em start real wide, I figure he thinks it’s going to be a straight-ahead hand off. I watch his shoulders to see how he’s leaning. Is he playing with me? Is he trying to play both ways? If he tries to play me and the running back I’ll try and hold it a little bit longer than I would usually. I learned that from watching Cam Newton."

In the SEC, zone read quarterbacks attest that the adjustments are already in place, including specific changes late in 2012. Wallace said that of the entire conference schedule, Georgia's 3-4 was the most frustrating due to its twisting linemen late in the game.

Brunetti breaks down the most common technique he saw in 2012: "They’re shooting the [defensive] end down and making the quarterback pull it, and then scraping a linebacker over the top to make it a one-on-one play between the linebacker and the quarterback. But one thing I was always good at in high school and this level is one-on-one in the open field. The worst is when that D-end really can play both guys, when you’re playing against a great end who’s athletic enough to stop you from handing it off and stop you from getting outside."

Mullen shrugs off the idea that one play can be an inarguable answer at any level, merely that it's an issue of matchups and little else.

"If your two D-tackles absolutely dominate the O-line it doesn't matter. The simplest [defense] in zone read is if you can't throw the ball or you don't have great wide receivers, well, then our corners can completely lock down on your receivers, and I'll stand two extra guys on the line of scrimmage. It's not hard to defend the zone read ... you're just having to give up something to do it."

Rest assured that the confirmed (and unconfirmed) visits from NFL defensive coordinators to a variety of college coaching staffs running air raid, pistol and spread concepts were to accelerate the learning curve.

"It's not hard to defend the zone read. You're just having to give up something."

"It's just something that no one in the NFL has done until here lately," Werner said. "There's a lot of different things going on, but the simplest part is on the backside of a run they [the defensive coaches] can teach that guy [the defensive end] to squeeze and he'd squeeze, and every now and then we'd call a naked [bootleg] off of it. You could hit 'em with a little pass in the flat, and you'd hit for a six- or seven-yard gain. The defense says fine, you can do that two or three times a game, but we're going to stop the run, whereas now, they've got to come up with another defender because the quarterback pulls it and gains 15 yards or more, and they've got problems."

Mullen agrees: "The defense of it in college is much better because kids see it in high school. The ability to understand the zone read as a college player, you've defended against it in high school. It used to be 15 years ago there were 10 teams in the whole country running, and it was like going to play against the wishbone. If you don't ever see it it's hard to prepare for it one week. It's hard to simulate what they're going to do in just one week. The zone read and spread option stuff used to be very similar."

The spread era had no beginning and will have no end.

'There's about five people who say they invented the zone read," Werner said. "From what I hear it was an accident. The story I heard was that one day the quarterback missed a handoff in practice, and he just took off running, and the coaches noticed what happened. That's usually how this stuff happens. People always talk about football geniuses, and if we were geniuses we wouldn't be coaching football. All it is is the option."

Koenning can chart a quick-look evolution of what the layman fan recognizes as the spread evolution - a split-back look, a one-back offset, the pistol stacking the running back and removing tendencies for the defense to scout, and the next great wrinkle, which he either isn't telling about or is among those still searching for.

"You’ve got to think outside of the box. you think inside the box and you’ll never progress. That’s where it’s going; you’re seeing more people thinking outside of the box. Everybody’s becoming more broad. We’re all thieves by nature. Don’t think that we’re all geniuses. Yes, we do have good ideas, but we’re thieves by nature," he said.

Mullen's name will sit forever next to Meyer's in the annals of offensive scheming, if only for their introduction of the spread option and its subsequent application to a national champion. But in 2013, as over half the conference that once shunned the idea as a gimmick will run some form of what he and Meyer brought to Florida, he's hesitant to anoint the popular trend as the new standard.

"The general consensus," said Mullen, "of who the top three teams in the SEC were last season were Alabama, LSU and Georgia. Pro teams, all three of 'em are under center, I-formation teams. Any offense can beat any defense. I can beat any zone blitz if I've got the right play called. And any defense can stop any given play if you have the right kind of defense called. You see that in good old Tecmo Bowl, right? Just hit the right button and Bo Jackson scores."

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Urban Meyer courts the Queen City: Why Ohio State fights for Cincinnati

2013-04-15T15:43:40Z

CINCINNATI - Despite official claims, Ohio State didn't leave Columbus to break even on a meaningless exhibition because the seats weren't fixed yet. The Buckeyes came south to ensure that the future of the Urban Meyer regime would enjoy as many Adolphus Washingtons as possible.

The former five-star Washington's high school, Taft, is less than two miles from Paul Brown, and the sophomore end was arguably the breakout star of the Scarlet's 31-14 win over the Gray. The Buckeyes will replace their entire starting defensive line in 2013, and Washington finished with four of the Gray team's nine "sacks" of quarterback Braxton Miller, who wore a no-contact jersey.

Ohio State played in front of an announced crowd of 37,643 between Paul Brown Stadium's Bengal-orange end zones Saturday afternoon. That's a staggeringly low count for any kind of Buckeye home game, because even spring ball averages over 60,000 fans in Columbus.

More: Ohio State spring game recap Daily Ohio State recruiting coverage

Yet head coach Urban Meyer didn't waste a second wrapping an otherwise newsless press conference in good tidings for his former hometown, a city once thought of as "hostile territory" for the state's flagship university and what Land-Grant Holy Land's Luke Zimmermann calls a "region historically unusually difficult for Ohio State to recruit."

Greg Bartram, USA Today Sports

Former head coach John Cooper once said Cincy was harder to recruit than anywhere else in state. The 2013 Buckeyes roster lists just four Cincinnatians, the same number as either Notre Dame's or Louisville's.

"To have almost 40,000 people show up for a scrimmage, there are so many things I wish we could do here [in Cincinnati]," the former Cincinnati Bearcats defensive back said. "Coach Hayes started the tradition years ago when they would go visit a place, he'd take them around and educated the players."

So OSU made it a point to announce it was hitting the Montgomery Inn and Skyline Chili, that the Buckeyes got a special tour of the Reds Museum, and that they even stopped by Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis' house. That's because this region is rich with BCS-level football talent, and for all its seemingly worldwide branding, OSU has yet to truly dominate recruiting it.

"I can tell you for me personally I couldn't be more proud of my town," assistant coach and Cincinnati native Kerry Coombs said. "There's something that fills your heart as a Cincinnati guy to come down 71, and then you turn and there are the buildings. For me, thank you to the people of Cincinnati. This was special for a lot of kids today."

Coombs joined Meyer's staff from UC and is still the area's lead recruiter for the Buckeyes.

"I've been to a lot of spring games when I was coaching high school ball, and to me an environment like that is special. You've got the band and the Jumbotron and you're in a NFL stadium. You're not even in your town. We're not in Columbus and we have a crowd like that. So if I'm a local kid -- if I'm any kid -- and I see that environment, I can't imagine why you'd pick anywhere else if you had the opportunity to come play here."

Steven Godfrey, SB Nation

There are seven current commitments for OSU's 2014 class, and linebacker Sam Hubbard is the only current Cincinnati area player (Moeller High). Of the 2013 class, only wideout Jalin Marshall came from the area (Middletown, about 40 miles out). Meanwhile, local guard Dylan Weisman spurned an OSU offer for Tennessee (via Butch Jones leaving Cincinnati).

"Cincinnati kids have certainly always been aware of Ohio State, but their natural allegiances have been more spread out than other parts of that state, when you look at Cleveland or Dayton, for instance, those kids have historically accepted offers from Ohio State immediately," Rivals.com midwest recruiting analyst Josh Helmholdt said.

Helmholdt also pointed to some unusual competition, namely Catholic institutions like Boston College and Notre Dame having a historic backdoor into the city's Greater Catholic League stars like Luke Kuechly and Kyle Rudolph (Zimmermann calls the GCL the "de facto AAA" for the Irish), as well as the suddenly resurgent Kentucky Wildcats.

"Mark Stoops is an Ohio guy, and they're already starting to show a tremendous success in the area. I think [bringing the game to Cincinnati] is Urban making sure that they solidify the borders of Ohio more than anything else."

19 minutes until kickoff and EVERYONE is stomping on the logo. Meyer oversees a bull ring / cat drill. twitter.com/38Godfrey/stat…
— Steven Godfrey (@38Godfrey) April 13, 2013

Wide receiver prospect Derek Kief, among the five Cincinnati recruits invited to Paul Brown on Saturday, is a standout at GCL member LaSalle and just received an offer from Notre Dame to go along with 16 others. He's the Washington-type talent the entire program uprooted itself for a day to impress and part of the idea behind this national power's pointless April exhibition. They didn't aim for the GIF pool or the heartstrings -- the decidedly more football-centric matter of recruiting was paramount.

Helmholdt will be on hand April 20 for a Rivals-Under Armour camp in nearby Lakota West high school, and will gauge any lingering goodwill from the reinvested interest in the region by Ohio State.

"It shows that they care about the city. That might be a short-term gain though, and moving forward it’s something they’ll have to continue to work at. It was a smaller crowd on Saturday, but how many people there were future high school prospects? Or how many might not be legitimate prospects, but how many will be friends with those kids being recruited?"

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2013 Ohio State Spring Game: More Braxton Miller TDs! Scarlet leads, 24-7

2013-04-13T19:00:24Z

- The second half began with a botched trick play: Kenny Guiton passed to Cardale Jones, who passed back to Guiton... who dropped it. It looked like the intent was for Guiton to then go for a home run pass down the left side.

- A few players later Jones was stripped in the pocket (he's not wearing a no-contact jersey) by corner Eli Apple, who recovered the fumble as well.

- Braxton Miller's first pass of the second half was a very nice 42-yard pass to Devin Smith that put Scarlet on the five-yard-line. Two plays later Miller would score on a five yard rush, scrambling left and faking the pass while moving. Drew Basil tacked on a PAT (just one!) from the 10-yard-line.

- Gray's second drive lasted just one play. Cincinnati local Joe Burger recovered a fumbled snap by Jones, setting up Scarlet on the Gray 34-yard-line. The drive stalled - multiple penalties were called on both sides, but Meyer had all declined - and Drew Basil (kicking against his own team, for shame) hit a 25-yard field goal to give Scarlet a 24-7 lead.

- Field goal break! Scarlet's Kyle Clinton hit from 25 and 31 yards.

- Jones returned for the Gray team, allowing Scarlet's defense to hit the quarterback. If Kenny Guiton's day is over (it seems so), he looked impressive against the not-exactly starting defense: 9 of 14, 116 yards, 1 TD. Jones had a pretty deep pass to Chris Fields, but Fields couldn't hang on.

2013 Ohio State Spring Game: Scarlet leads 14-7 on two Miller touchdown passes

2013-04-13T18:18:36Z

An Urban Meyer spring exhibition in a neighboring city will be friendly, but ruthlessly paced. We're trying to keep up here:

- Position watch: Late in the first quarter, Scarlett's Chase Ferris was beat out for a sack by Adolphus Washington.

- Gray quarterback Kenny Guiton made a questionable call on a second down rush out of the pocket, electing to run out of bounds rather than throw to an open receiver. A few plays later Gray receiver Michael Thomas broke the hold of Eli Apple on a short pass and ran for a nice 13-yard gain.

- Guiton found Chris Fields for a five-yard touchdown pass across the middle to cap a 14 play drive, tying the game at 7. It was a 90-yard drive marked by Guiton's arm - he's 9 of 11 passing for 118 yards through two quarters.

- Drew Basil then had to hit a series of "PATs" with Meyer looming right over him. He hit from 49 and 29 yards and missed from 54, 54, 54 and 39 yards.

- Noah Spence and Adolphus Washington are ruining Braxton Miller's afternoon thus far. Gray has recorded six sacks thus far, Spence has three and Washington two.

- Armani Reeves knocked away a deep Miller pass to Smith prevent a touchdown down the left sideline. Reeves had his break-up timed perfectly.

- Miller has looked progressively less effective in the passing game, especially if you take away what could be considered a blown coverage on that first play of the game.

- Scarlet would retake the lead with under a minute left. Bri'onte Dunn had a nice run-and-catch on a 17-yard reception from Miller to set up a first and goal at the Gray 8-yard-line. Miller followed with a scramble to the three, then found Corey Brown for the touchdown pass.

2013 Ohio State Spring Game: Braxton Miller touchdown pass give Scarlet 6-0 lead

2013-04-13T17:48:11Z

Hello from Paul Brown Stadium, where Ohio State has just sped through their first 10 minute quarter. Here's a few quick notes:

- Position watch: Chase Ferris got the start for the Scarlet team (the starting offensive line) at right tackle.

- The first play from scrimmage was a 49-yard Braxton Miller pass to Evan Spencer. The pass should've been a touchdown as Spencer was past the safety, but the receiver slipped extending for the ball. Two players later Miller would leave the pocket and wave Devin Smith into position for a 20-yard TD pass..

- The Gray team failed to convert on their opening drive when a six-play drive ended on a 28-yard missed field goal from Drew Basil.

- On his next drive, Miller was "sacked" four times, underthrew one receiver and gained a first down from a blatant PI call downfield. Two players later he brilliantly evaded a collapsing pocket but struggled to throw his receiver open.

- Receiver Corey Brown dropped a gimmie pass on a wide open crossing pattern. He hauled in a quick, tight pass on an out route the next play.

- The pregame ended with both teams meeting a midfield for a bull ring / big cat drill with respective positions from Scarlet and Gray going at each other. It culminated with quarterbacks Braxton Miller and Kenny Guiton locking up to a consensus stalemate.

- Linebacker Ryan Shazier is in pads after missing most of the spring with a sports hernia, but not expected to play. Not dressed out today: Bradley Roby (shoulder), Rod Smith (concussion) and Nick Vannett (concussion).

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