Well, in a new twist, our Powerhouse OD file got destroyed so we ended up restarting anyway. I'm taking over Clemson (with 2015-16 rosters). That means I have Deshaun Watson at quarterback. It doesn't necessarily change anything, but Clemson does have a ton of TE and OL depth which would allow me to go power pro if necessary.
I don't know what I want to do. I made the created head coach Chip Kelly so I was kind of thinking about running a one back gun offense. My backs aren't super explosive, but I love my TEs and could use Watson in the run game. Like usual my debate is between going with my usual two back power/play action offense(s) or going with something more spread and one back. In this case, my top 4 WR and top 2 TE are probably more effective playmakers than my top tailback, who is 86 OVR but more of a downhill power runner (who I bet would do wonders in Ace).
If I went one back, I'd probably go entirely Ace and Traditional Gun. Ditch pistol, ditch the two back under center stuff I've been using here and there, ditch all my two back offset wing stuff and go entirely one back football. That is similar to what I was planning to do with Nebraska, but with Nebraska I was going to be all one back offset gun in order to take advantage of the hard hitting inside zone run game to replace the lack of QB run ability. Watson can run so I'd like to take advantage of that with power/wrap/blast. I'm not sure what a good real life example of this type of offense would be, Kelly's Eagles stuff is similar but without the QB run game. Maybe really early in Urban Meyer's UF days, before it became all Tebow all the time. I'd love it to look like Oregon's offense in Mariota's final year because I see Watson as similar to Mariota in a lot of ways, I just don't know how to make that happen within the game.
If I went two back, it would pretty much be what I'm doing now. Two back offset gun with one of those TEs as a wing plus some Pistol for power run/play action. Obviously lose the designed QB run game, but gain a more effective run game in general and it's what I am used to with minimal disruption (could easily use any of my 4 versions of the Spread-I playbook with little editing). I've uncovered some new ways to make two back offset wing gun counter incredibly effective. To the point where it's become my primary answer to aggressive option defense in my triple option offense. I probably ran Counter 15 times against Bluejay in the Sun Belt Championship in BSCFL just isolating that aggressive DE and getting a really nice arc block from the H.
I do know I want to get under center a bit more. Not necessarily to run a ton of stuff, but more to run special series of plays. I've had a ton of success jumping under center in my pro-style Spread-I and running Trap/PA TE Screen in Ace Slot Flex and running my Toss/FB Dive/PA FB Dive/FB or HB Screen series in various Strong formations. Seems like I gain huge yardage on those series every time I use them, but I don't use them a lot because I want it to be a shock play.
No matter what, I am still going to be in a spread offense, just trying to decide how best to go about it. I have 5 TE rated 74-82 OVR, all 5 are fairly athletic for the position, all 5 are fairly big, 3 of the 5 are very good pass catchers and the other two are very good blockers. Any of the group could play a wing/H-Back/FB type role, although at the moment I'm redshirting 2 just to break them up class-wise. If I want to be fairly QB run/pass based, traditional gun is obviously the only option. If I think I can get away with the only QB runs being off of read/option, then maybe I stay Pistol/Offset.
In one of my soon to be many offline test games, I ran my existing Spread I Pro offense. It wasn't bad, but it is always so hard to judge QB run game vs the CPU because the CPU has no damn clue how to defend the read or QB scrambles off of bootlegs, etc. I will say I created some really interesting pass concepts just using one or two hot routes to alter existing routes, stuff I had been toying with but never really used much in game. One of them is creating a Texas concept (where the HB runs an angle), but with the wing TE doing it using Verticals in various wing offset formation The receiver to the side the angle route is run gets hot routed to a shallow to serve as a clearout (although occasionally it is wide open vs zone) and then you hit that little angle to the TE. You usually have a deep out/vert concept backside as well.
I'm also trying to get into some more shallow/pivot stuff where I work people over with shallow cross and drive and mesh type concepts and then turn the shallow route into a pivot with all the same routes. That play exists already in Empty, but not so much in one/two back formations. I even started doing it using PA Crossers in Trio Offset. Normally I hot route the TE to a shallow and create mesh with a deep cross and post above it, but at Nebraska and my stud TE I then would compliment it by having that TE run a pivot. Great short yardage play to the boundary because most people play man against me in short yardage goal line anticipating run.
Just brainstorming and thinking out loud. The good news is I can do pretty much anything with this combo of personnel. If I wanted to run option, I could. If I wanted to run heavy pro style ala Stanford, I could. If I wanted to run air raid or a one back spread, I could. If I wanted to run a more heavy two back spread like Malzahn does, I could. That's usually when I get into the most trouble, knowing I can run anything and then trying to run everything and having nothing.
