Blue-Gray Sky Earns Another Gold Star

Stop everything else you are doing. If you care at all about the X's and O's of Notre Dame football, have your secretary hold your calls and go check out the latest post at Blue-Gray Sky. It is a ridiculously comprehensive look at Notre Dame's offense from a "personnel groups" perspective. If you've listened to Coach Weis in his press conferences, you've heard him talk about "personnel groups" and how he uses them to vary the offense. According to Coach Weis, his offense does not try to befuddle defenses by running an overwhelming number of different plays. Rather, it is his style to have a smaller list of plays, but run those plays with different personnel groups - thus giving the appearance to the defense of running a more varied attack. Michael's post at BGS explains (with pictures) what each personnel group looks like, and explains how Coach Weis has used each group over the past two seasons. He then offers some rational guesses on how often we might see each group used this year.

Michael's post is invaluable, and shows yet again why BGS is the gold standard among college football blogs (and not just Notre Dame blogs). By seeing what Coach Weis is talking about when he says "personnel groups" you can see how he tailors the offense to his personnel. If he has more talent/depth at WR, we'll see formations (personnel groups) that favor the WR. If, as last year, we lack top talent at FB or TE due to injuries, we'll see groups that feature other players. Michael speculates that this year's team is deeper at RB and TE, so we're likely to see formations that include two backs or two tight ends more often, and fewer sets with four or even five wide receivers.

Great stuff.