Canard;582170 said:
I put "solved" in quotes because there is no riddle there in the first place. My contempt for this line of thought about offenses being puzzling for professional defensive coordinators really runs towards Rick Neuheisal, who is the highest placed moron holding this opinion.
It is really quite astounding to me that people go "Wooo. Clancy Pendergast really showed Oregon in 2010." They are operating off of a sample of one.
And what is really amusing is recalling 2009. The Bears were #6 or something and Bob Gregory had solved the Oregon offense in 2008 to the tune of 16 points, or just six points worse than Pete Carroll's last salty defense managed.
Suddenly in 2009, Gregory couldn't "solve" it to save his life. Did he forget the answer to the riddle or something?
Back after being gone a couple days. I understand your point Canard but I don't think you're understanding mine, or that of many others who say Pendy "solved" Oregon's offense last year.
The more you write the more it becomes apparent that you're really irked when people say that. Perhaps that's because you've taken so much pride in Chippy "out-smarting" other coaches with his innovative scheme that it pokes your swelled-up pride to hear others suggest that Chippy himself got out smarted, or at least caught up with. But regardless of why the "solved" comment bothers you so much, it leads to you coming off like a total freakin' prick.
And more germane to this conversation, it blinds you to the point others are making. Chippy's scheme doesn't have to be complicated in order to require "solving." Simple puzzles can be quite effective at times, and the fact is no team has demonstrated an ability to stop it under normal season (1-week prep) conditions. Except one. The 2010 California Golden Bears.
I'd love to hear you admit that you fully expected the ducks to waltz into Memorial last year and hang their typical 35 or 40 (or whatever their per-game average was) on the Bears. I know I did. So did the hundreds of other duck fans I saw before, during, and after the game. They got one, ONE offensive TD. Compared to their per-game average that qualifies as stopped-in-your-tracks, and since no other team has been able to do that under those conditions, that qualifies as "solved." The relative complexity or simplicity of Oregon's scheme has nothing to do with that, so hearing you repeat how simple the scheme is and how few plays the ducks run is vacuous.
Your point about execution having as much or more to do with success than scheme does is obvious to any football fan. So what? The fact is scheme does matter, Pendy attacked the Oregon O in a way that other teams hadn't tried yet, and his players executed the scheme. And Oregon's offensive attack was stopped, meaning virtually by definition it was solved.
The only way around this would be to argue that Cal did almost nothing to stop oregon, and that every D-line penetration, dropped pass, solid open-field tackle, fumble, etc. were all simply Oregon "mistakes", and duck players just having "an off night." Of course if you argued that you would be saying something far more patently stupid than anything that has yet been claimed about last year's game.
ork: 
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