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X&Os and more on KD's complicated WCO ...

By Nestor

Previously in this space we have wondered out loud exactly why the hell KD has been working to implement a West Coast offense ("WCO") in Westwood, which by all accounts it looks too damn complicated (for him)?  It didn't exactly pan out for Bill Walsh in Stanford, didn't totally pan out for Willingham in South Bend, and is not exactly working out for Bill Callahan in Lincoln. Time and time we hear from Dorrell lovers that we should give their boy wonder some time because, the WCO is sooo complicated. So, if KD's WCO is so freaking complicated, why not simplify it? It seems like all the other explosive college offenses are sophisticated yet simplified, but there is noting complicated about them unlike KD's quantum physics based WCO.

The folks over at Blue-Gray Sky have a great XandOs post honing in this point on the need to simply offenses for college kids, and not burdening them too much with the pro-jargons, which may take too much time to deploy effectively, before kids are basically ready to skip their senior years and enter the draft (the good ones at least).  Of course they are looking into the offense being put in by their new HC Charlie Weis, former OC of the Super Bowl Champions New England Patriots (not a clip board holder like Dorrell):

One of the big questions about Weis moving to the college game has been the complexity associated with a Patriots-style pro offense, and the concern that it may be too difficult to implement at a college program. But take a look at what this frequent Pats' opponent had to say in an August 2002 article entitled "Stopping the Patriots offense can cause headaches":

"I think Charlie Weis is one of the best; he has great schemes....they will run the same plays but they would do them from so many different formations." - Dolphins linebacker Zach Thomas

When it comes to the playbook, size doesn't necessarily matter: Weis's offenses desire the appearance of complexity, emphasizing a lot of different formations, packages and shifting/motion to confuse the defense, but because the same base plays are used in each look, the complexity is only skin-deep. Now, I'm not suggesting the offense is easy to learn, but rather, there's an underlying system and the learning curve might not be as steep as you would expect.
Interesting observation that size doesn't matter.  All we heard KD's first year was how freakin' huge his playbook was, and ridiculous updates like ... oh about 30 percent of KD's offense is in place, it is not up to 45 percent, and now up to 70 percent, yadi, yada, yada.  By the time KD's first season was over UCLA ended up producing one of the worst offenses in the history of our football program.  And yes in his second year offense improved somewhat however if someone took a close look even those numbers (we were number 28!) were all that impressive.

So again, it begs the question, what the hell is KD doing trying to put in a pro-set WCO, which he has never really been in charge of?  Remember he was never in charge of the WCO in Denver.  He was not even the Broncos OC or QB's Coach.  He was just a WR coach.  So we are not even sure he really mastered the complicated WCO in Denver, which masters like Bill Walsh (who invented the WCO!) were not able to effectively implement at the college level.  I guess we will find out this year.  Hat tip to HeismanPundit for pointing towards that great post from BGS.

GO BRUINS.

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