Practice Pros And Cons Of The Spread
By John Helsley
From the outside, OSU’s spring practices focused almost entirely on new offensive coordinator’s Dana Holgorsen’s spread attack that took OSU’s old spread to a different level, a more air-it-out level.
Friends and fans all wanted to know the same things:
How does it look?
Are the receivers a fit?
Will the Cowboys still run?
The one question — and a vital question — never asked: How will the new look impact the Cowboys defense. The change in philosophy affects both sides of the ball in practices. Outside of the scout team offense, the Holgorsen spread is all the defense will see from a quality standpoint.
That means dealing with a lot of finesse and speed and little, if any, time going mano-a-mano against a physical power running game.
We always wonder why defenses attached to spread teams — like Holgorsen’s at Texas Tech and Houston — have rarely been effective. Maybe they’re soft. Maybe they’re just unprepared for what’s coming.
Cowboys’ defensive coordinator Bill Young, who must replace a slew of starters, downplayed any concern.
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