Its time to dive into what we might see next year from K-State's offense. I finally got a chance to watch NDSU's 3 playoff games, charting each offensive play by formation, personnel, play call, yards gained, and success rate. The following will be a) a look at the personnel and play calling over the course of the last 3 games and b) a series of separate posts throughout the day with GIFs and (hopefully) simple explanations of some of the major schemes Messingham used in those games. Ian Boyd describes the NDSU offense as "a million ways to run power" and he's not wrong. Over 40% of the calls I charted were some sort of power, ie. pulling any and all offensive linemen and tight ends. I would probably describe it a bit differently; the main goals of Messingham's schemes are to flood or outflank the defensive gaps. Simply put, NDSU is going to put more bodies at the point of attack than you can account for as a defense and the problem is they will do that anywhere and everywhere across the offensive line out to the sideline. To compound that, they often use 2 TEs, which adds an extra gap for the defense and makes getting defenders to the ball even more difficult.
One thing that will be similar to Bill Snyder coached teams is a plethora of formations and personnel groupings from the offense. Notice that 1 back sets are used slightly more than 2 back sets; granted, NDSU often uses TEs or FBs in their spread packages. TEs are used a lot and 2 TEs are on the field nearly half the time. A lot of it is the Jimmy's and Joe's Messingham has to work with at their level, but notice the crazy yards per play and success rates they put up out of nearly all of their formations.
The Bison offense is run heavy, but a lot of different ways. The RBs are the feature, but the QB will be used as well. It's notable that most of the designed QB runs occurred in the SDSU game, the first 2 playoff games featured the crazy trio of NDSU backs torching Montana State and Colgate. Power is over 40% of the offense and 60% of the running game with the A gap or inside power being the feature scheme. No surprise that play action is a feature as well, but the drop back passing game is very effective when it is used.
One thing that will be similar to Bill Snyder coached teams is a plethora of formations and personnel groupings from the offense. Notice that 1 back sets are used slightly more than 2 back sets; granted, NDSU often uses TEs or FBs in their spread packages. TEs are used a lot and 2 TEs are on the field nearly half the time. A lot of it is the Jimmy's and Joe's Messingham has to work with at their level, but notice the crazy yards per play and success rates they put up out of nearly all of their formations.
The Bison offense is run heavy, but a lot of different ways. The RBs are the feature, but the QB will be used as well. It's notable that most of the designed QB runs occurred in the SDSU game, the first 2 playoff games featured the crazy trio of NDSU backs torching Montana State and Colgate. Power is over 40% of the offense and 60% of the running game with the A gap or inside power being the feature scheme. No surprise that play action is a feature as well, but the drop back passing game is very effective when it is used.
