He said he liked that Herman is experienced in the spread, but he plans to hire other coaches with experience in the I formation “because we’re going to do both.”

I want to make it so hard," Meyer said. “Michael Jordan’s quote about why the games are easy, that’s going to be plastered all over the weight room.”

Meyer said he didn’t know the quote exactly, and I haven’t been able to dig it up yet, but the basic idea is that practice is so hard, the games are then easy.

I posted a couple things i found noteworthy int he article(s) linked.

Sounds as though the “base” offense will be designed around plays that can be run from the spread and I – meaning the blocking assignments, reads, routes, etc., are the same or similar enought that little adjustment is necessary. I wonder if motion will play into this? Motion to an I, or motion from an I to a spread. I’m also curious about the use of an H-Back. This seems perfect for Stoneburner with Fragel being an inline TE. He’’s got assets in Boren (as a traditional, blow open a hole FB) and Stoneburner and wonder how they’ll be used.

I don’t know how practices were conducted under Tressel and the current staff, but it’ll be interesting to see just how hard they’ll be with the 20 hour limits and something of a lack of depth, especially along OL and with coming (even if not severe) schollie reductions. I don’t forsee much best-on-best. But it’s the right attitude, practice hard so the game is easy.

He mentions bigger backs with speed.
Looked at but passed on a no huddle option.
Go outside to open the middle (nothing new in itself).
Have to be able to turn around and hand the ball off (Woody smiles from above).
Concerning OC – He wanted “a guy that’s going to learn offense, not bring his offense.”
Herman is experienced in the spread, he plans to hire coaches with experience in the I formation “because we’re going to do both.”
The offensive staff will put together the plan for this team in February.

Combined with Urban’s comments when his hire was announced, am I alone in thinking Urban:
1. Spent a lot of his time away from the game thinking football offense?
2. Is about to implement a new spread that is a mix of the I blocking and spread isolation?
3. Will use motion to change from a very few initial formations – if you are a QB/RB/FB/TE/WR you could end up anywhere?
4. The limiting factor being his personnel – the better and more versatile the personnel, the broader the range?

…this could be a whole lot of fun to watch…

“You go to church together, you eat together, you get to know their families and you have to dig in below,” Meyer said. “So number one is that, those kids need to know you care about them.”

Earle Bruce’s coaching tree, they do it right, they work extremely hard and they treat their players like they’re their kids, and that’s what I learned from him.

…and Earl learned this from Woody. I used to believe the tOSU coaching tree was a result of changing assistants in a high profile program under highly respected HCs, but I am beginning to believe there was a lot more to it…

Offensive Coordinator/Offensive Line- Greg Studrawa
Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks- Scot Loeffler
Wide Receivers- Billy Gonzalez
Running Backs- Stan Drayton Jr.
Recruiting Coordinator/Tight Ends- Tim Hinton
Co-defensive Coordinator/Defensive Line- Luke Fickell
Co-defensive Coordinator/Inside Linebackers- D.J. Durkin
•Outside Linebackers- Mike Vrabel
•Defensive Backs- Taver Johnson

This was actually pretty accurate, and even some misses were a result of the coach not having interest in the position.

So far:
Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks- Tom Hermann
Running Backs- Stan Drayton Jr.
Co-defensive Coordinator/Defensive Line?- Luke Fickell
Outside Linebackers?- Mike Vrabel?
Defensive Backs?- Taver Johnson
Other future coaches are coaching bowl games – a nice gesture not to release their names yet.

I get a feeling Urban is waiting to see if Vrabel buys into his “The players are our own kids” philosophy. This is a huge difference from the pros. Having played for Cooper, this could be the 1st time Vrabel has been exposed to this concept. A lack of prior coaching experience doesn’t help.