Another great photo from E. Corpuz of Rahim and Jet Ski's return to Dorsey High School this past...

Another great photo from E. Corpuz of Rahim and Jet Ski's return to Dorsey High School this past Friday.

GO BRUINS.

2 months ago Nestor 10 comments 0 recs |

Comments

Hey Nestor...

I love college football and I definitely love all things UCLA.
The more that time goes by, the more I realize that I know very little about actual positions and rules in the college football game. For example, what exactly does the Defensive Back do? What is a nickel formation? I want to learn more about the technical aspects of the game. Do you have any recommendations for me? Anything I could read? Please let me know.

ps- tried to e-mail you or message you, but I guess there is no feature for this.

"One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things." - Henry Miller

by MidvaleLives on Sep 20, 2009 4:45 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Google is your friend

That’s the best recommendation I can give you.

Also, if you have DVR … watch the replays … or just watch football, football and more football. :-)

by Nestor on Sep 20, 2009 5:28 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

A defensive back

Is an overarching term for basically any defensive player that isn’t a linebacker or a defensive lineman. Typical base defensive sets include either 4 linemen-3 linebackers or 3 linemen-4 linebackers, which leaves 4 “defensive backs”, typically 2 cornerbacks (like Alterraun Verner, who plays near the line of scrimmage on a wide receiver) and 2 safeties (like Rahim Moore, who roams the backfield).

Sometimes the offense will bring out more than 2 wide receivers, in which case a defensive coordinator may figure an extra cornerback is necessary. Swapping in a cornerback for a linebacker or a lineman – this extra back is called a “nickel back”, and a formation that uses one is a nickel formation. (A fourth cornerback is called a “dime back”)

I took a quick glance at wikipedia and it seems to have a decent introductory explanations for all the positions. From there, just continuing to watch more of the game will help a lot.

by Tydides on Sep 20, 2009 5:31 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

LOL

Nicely done man. Now I feel so worthless!

by Nestor on Sep 20, 2009 5:38 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Thanks...

I feel like at this point in my fandom, knowing the positions and what each of them does is somewhat necessary. How about this:
I went on Wikipedia, as per your recommendation. My question now is:

Not the positions itself (those are listed in the formations and I can read about them separately), but what are the main formations? What do we use?

BTW, why I didn’t check Wiki before, I have no clue. A whole galaxy awaits…

"One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things." - Henry Miller

by MidvaleLives on Sep 20, 2009 7:26 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Damn...

There is a lot about football I don’t know…
- I-formation
- Pro Set
- Single Wing
- Pistol
- AK-47
- Colt .45
- Krazy Ivan

…and that’s just the OFFENSIVE formations!
But thanks, guys. You know, learning the positions and rules is surprisingly easy.
But getting to know formations?
I got some work to do…

"One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things." - Henry Miller

by MidvaleLives on Sep 20, 2009 8:04 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

You'll have to look into the archives for the single wing

That’s what the Bruins ran when I started watching, a long, long time ago. We ran an unbalanced line, meaning that there were more guys on one side of the center than the other. When the guys huddled up, they were in their proper positions, so they just turned around and ran to the line of scrimmage to start the play. But if the unbalanced line was to be on the other side, then they would serpentine out of the huddle, and that looked VERY cool.

I would suggest that you try YouTube also. Some of the stuff can be awfully complicated, and it is made over-complicated by most of the guys doing commentary on TV. Except for Coach Dungy (don’t recall who he commentates for. (I like “commentates” – it sounds more official than just “comments,” but I digress).

This place is also a good place to get questions asked. There are plenty of guys who enjoy pontificating (not me, of course) and will be happy to give you much more info than you probably want to get.

Good luck.

by Fox 71 on Sep 20, 2009 9:09 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

The best thing I can tell you to do

is just watch. The more you watch, the more you can pick up on. If you have a friend who knows the game, watch with him and listen to what he says, then ask questions. Like most things, the more you do it, the better you get or more you know. The more you watch, the more you’ll understand.

by Ryan Rosenblatt on Sep 20, 2009 9:32 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yep

by Nestor on Sep 21, 2009 4:23 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I love that shot

but the secular in me wishes we could keep religion off the football field…even though, by all accounts, it seems to permeate it thoroughly. I don’t have a problem with it at all, it just looks out of place to me…

But hey, what do I know. I’m just the 800 lbs bruin in the room.

by tasser10 on Sep 21, 2009 9:44 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs