If Sun Tzu was a football coach...

Sun Tzu wrote:
The pinnacle of military deployment approaches the formless: if it is formless, then even the deepest spy cannot discern it nor the wise make plans against it.

I've been thinking about this quote in relation to football for years now - probably since I watched Florida's defense absolutely destroy Troy Smith and the Buckeyes in the national championship game back in '07 or whenever it was. But the thread on talent level brought it back into focus for me.



What do you think Sun Tzu would do as an offensive coordinator? Defensive coordinator? I've always considered superior strategy to be the only way BYU wins another national championship. In most cases, I think you can overcome a moderate strength disparity with speed, and moderate speed disparity with strategy. Obviously, that doesn't always hold - if the other team's o-line can blow you off the ball every play, you can have the best scheme in the world with the world's fastest athletes, and you'll still lose that game, guaranteed. Speed can't be coached. Strength can be developed to a degree. But strategy can and must be taught. In our situation, we need to get as much as we can of the former two, while realizing that strategy is what put us on the map in the first place, and is the only way we're gonna get back to that level.



Think about it. Our quarterbacks were putting up absolutely ridiculous numbers year after year, and who were they throwing to? Usually not super fast guys, with a few good exceptions (Tyler Anderson) and bad (Rod Wilkerson). They just ran their routes, and they got open, because defenses hadn't caught up to the air assault yet. They didn't know how to defend it. Also, they caught the football. ;)



I think this is kind of what GFGH is supposed to do - don't give the opponents enough time to read your formation or substitute to match it, and thereby catch them off guard. But I don't think it goes far enough, and I'm kind of intrigued about the idea of a truly "formless" offense, what it would look like and how it would hurt you. What would your Sun Tzu-inspired offense look like?



I'm also intrigued about the same idea on defense - maybe more so, because defense is usually reactive, rather than proactive. The closest thing I've seen was that Florida-Ohio State game. It seemed like Florida would just line everyone but the corners up in the box, move around like an angry hornets nest pre-snap, and then go do whatever coverage / blitz package they had called from wherever they were when the ball was snapped. Obviously, that takes serious speed, or else you'll be out of position at the snap. How do you think Sun Tzu would call a defense?



If BYU is ever going to win a national championship, I think the necessary ingredients are 1) superior strategy along the lines of the above, 2) mean, nasty, strong, huge guys winning the line of scrimmage, and 3) luck.

The difference though is that BYU always had hogs on the OL that allowed those crossing patterns to develop. And they had QB's who were accurate. We haven't seen this combination in 5 years now. 5 years.