Defending spread offenses takes plenty of team speed

The spread offense should dominate the Mountain West scene this season, but what about its victims?

Utah's up-tempo, no-huddle spread option attack against Alabama completely befuddled the Crimson Tide in the Sugar Bowl. UNLV is trying to keep the concept afloat with Mike Stanford, and new coaching staffs at Wyoming, New Mexico and San Diego State are looking to mix four to five receivers from sideline to sideline.

Air Force, with its flex-bone under Troy Calhoun, is already an established spread option. More and more MWC teams will go no huddle and speed up the pace.

Against Oklahoma on Saturday at Arlington, Texas, the Cougars will see a blue-ribbon version of the spread, one that set an NCAA record last year with 716 points, with Heisman Trophy winner Sam Bradford at the controls.

Urban Meyer has everyone trying to copy his offense at Florida, and the Sooners and his Gators lead the way.

Defending the spread? It is doable, even against the best. Texas and Florida slowed down Oklahoma last year, and Mississippi clipped Florida last year. It can be done, but it helps if your spread is just as efficient as theirs.

But what about this league's Big Three Ds? Defensively, TCU was the best in the nation at stopping teams, even after the Frogs took a mulligan at Oklahoma last fall. Otherwise, the Horned Frogs led the opposition to the spread and ranked No. 1 in the NCAA in total defense.

TCU's Gary Patterson used a food analogy to describe spread offenses to the New York Times this week. Some teams have five sprinters, some have a couple of blazing receivers plus a good back or tight end. It's a buffet.

"It's kind of like people cooking chili," said Patterson. "Everybody's got their own recipe. Everybody loves chili, but some like it hot, some like it meaty, some like it with more tomato sauce. There's a hundred thousand million ways to cook chili. You've just got to figure what their recipe is and what you're going to do to play against it."

Patterson has defended it with a 4-2-5 scheme that puts a premium on speed, back-loading his secondary. Utah attacks it with similar speed, but favors a more traditional front and relies heavily on corners who can play man coverage. It works if a four-man rush overpowers blockers, and corners and extra safeties lock down receivers.

Utah, it could be argued, has the deepest commodity of those tough-to-find big defensive linemen, which enables D-coordinator Kalani Sitake to try and win line battles man-on-man and that, in theory, frees up the other eight defenders.