Bucks get creative with installation of offense
Since resuming workouts a month ago, Smackover football coach David Osborn has had to get creative with how to get work done on the field while adhering to the safety protocols laid out due to the coronavirus pandemic. Enter Mike Leach. The first-year coach at Mississippi State is renowned for his Air Raid offense, and Osborn said that with linemen having to be spread out, that alignment has allowed running backs to see where holes can be created and where to run and cut depending on how the play is being blocked.
“We’ll mark each hole they’re going to run through,” Osborn said. “A lot of times people will just fly through that stuff, but for our guys to be able to slow down and see that, they get to see what we’ve done. With the way we’re spacing, we’re taking just a couple of linemen and the back and if the linemen pull, they get to see how he pulls and kicks somebody out. They’re getting to see how they should cut and how we want them to run.
“You can’t touch anybody and you really can’t touch any pads. It makes it rough, but it makes it good for backs with things being spread like that. It lets them see things a little bit better. What’s really been good about it is it’s actually helped us. What’s funny is it doesn’t look bad. Who knows? We might come out and let it rip and see what happens.”
Osborn noted the difference in what the Bucks are doing in practice compared to what he originally wanted to do prior to the outbreak of the pandemic.
“One thing that I’m really stressing this year is we’re really going back to fundamentals and the old school,” Osborn said. “That’s why it’s funny is when you see us at practice so far spread apart, you would think it’s the opposite of that. I’ve liked this time that we’ve been able to do that. We’ve been able to break things down and get everybody on the same page.”
Being able to spread
out and look at things from a different perspective has been an eye-opening experience.
“It has been,” Osborn said. “You're just so used to rolling along and doing things the way you have forever, and now having to make these adjustments, it lets you sit back and reflect on things and see where we need to improve ourselves as a staff.
“For me as an athletic director, it's been a complete change because I'm not going in at a time where things are nice and calm and everything is good, we've got all kinds of stuff going on.”
Osborn added that he could incorporate spreading out into regular practices in the future.
“It's been a good learning experience for us,” Osborn said. “It's something we will definitely look at. We did this a little bit when we were doing our position group work. In the past, we didn't break things down, but as always, you have your position work, then you go to team work.
“We weren't able to actually break things down like we are now. Honestly, we're looking at fundamentals and basics, and the way things are going now, I like it.”
Osborn said he has been happy with the work his players have done.
“I like the way that my kids are working that I have here,” Osborn said. “I like the way that's going. They're coming in and giving me a good couple of hours of work. There's a couple of things I would like to change.
“I wish we could get to where we can get a little more involved in our offense because we are tweaking things a little bit. In a normal year, we would've played so much 7-on-7 right now that we would have the offense almost in. With us right now, we've probably got about a 60 percent install.”
As far as what the rest of July holds, Osborn said he wants to turn his focus on to special teams.
“We're going four days a week,” Osborn said. “We're doing two hours. We're doing an hour of weights and then we're doing an hour of football the best we can with these regulations. We're kind of starting to put a little bit of our offense in. A lot of it is repeating from last year, so it's kind of made it a little bit easier as far as what we're doing. We've been able to spend time working on fundamentals. First steps, stance, receiver's routes, things like that kind of get overlooked.
“We're basically alternating offense and defense, but now we're going to start working more special teams. Our kicker last year was Harley Williams, and it seems like he was here forever, but he graduated and we have to replace him. We're going to start focusing on special teams.
“That's something that I worry about thinking back on it is not spending as much time on it as I need to. We're definitely going to focus really hard on special teams because it can make a huge difference in the game, and we've learned that over the years the good way and the hard way.”