If you want to "punish the defense" try the POWER-I! Without having to pull people, & without intricate ball-handling (& direct snaps with a wet ball) = it would go WELL in 35 degrees & pouring rain!
Watch Michigan St play. They play in a similar environment & have NOT run a UBSW in 60 years! They run a Power running game from a One-Back like ours! There are High Schools in Washington (Craig Beverlin, etc) & Oregon (Wayne Riner) using this style offense WELL.
PS: I have always thought the impact of weather on the STYLE offense you run was over-rated (like Lombardi said = it is a "MENTAL" thing)! I'm old enough to remember the Packers beating the Cowboys in the "Ice Bowl", & the Patriots beating the Raiders in the "Snow Bowl". It snows here in Va sometimes in Oct & Nov, too!
Bill, You gave me examples of college, Pro and HS. I'm a youth coach, now responsible for 15 and lower. I ran the "I" and pro set for years and won most of our games, however, we had trouble losing 3 straight championship games because we didn't score enough points. 24-14, 24-16 and 12-6 in 3 OT. The bullies pushed us around in the big games.
I was intrigued by a few things with the SW.
#1 The indirect snap was a problem in the freezing rain because my QB put the ball on the ground several times, in a triple OT loss that we dominated other then 3 or 4 plays. Even though we didn't turn it over , we were in long yardage.
Dave said we'd eliminate that issue AND I wouldn't spend so much time training my QBs and centers in snap drills. He proved to be correct. Not to say we don't have a bad snap early in the season once in a great while but at the end it is less then rare. Also very few hand offs, no miscues on handoffs in the two years since we changed and not a lot of practice time in hand off drill.
2012 we had only 3 fumbles lost in 12 games all on hard hits on the ball.
#2 Everybody sees the I & pro set most of the year in one way or another and every player and coach knows what is coming for the most part. I cracked and pulled and mixed it up but let's face it, the FB and TB are right there for everyone to see. My wing back was my most explosive player.
I liked the fact that no one here runs the SW and it is unusual.
Dave said that would be an issue for my opponents and that teams would spend too much time trying to figure it out, trying to prepare their teams in practice AND talking about my team and what we do too much. Dave was right, the big shots that won 9 championships, told me after we beat them 22-0 that he wanted to take his team off the field just to watch us execute, watched the film 3 times and thought it was a thing of beauty, actually said we looked like the Harlem Globetrotters.
#3 The idea that we could compete with less then the best players! I always said "good players make the coach look good and bad players make the coach look crappy" and I recruited like crazy to get the best players possible. The fact was I couldn't always get the best players. I'm in a small suburban area and most of our opponents are from the inner city, size, speed and strength is always a problem. If you saw us at the jamboree you'd feel sorry for us.
Dave said we'd be competitive even without the biggest, most athletic players. He was correct again. 2012 we had average speed and middle of the road size. We had only 9 real players. Our only legit loss, 42-36, which we led nearly the entire way was to a team that finished 4th in the Nation in 6th grade unlimited weight and had an DL/OL avg. 225 and 6' and 4 RB's that were the City champs in the 4x100 relay.
#4 I was told to have an open mind. I had no reason to change my team and was 18-4 the two years prior. My Coordinators wanted to know if I had bumped my head. They said,"you want to run some internet guy's offense?!"
However, I was in such total agreement on so many other facets of what I had read in Dave's book that I thought what the heck, I'll give it a try in summer camp and see what happens.
Dave was right again, we went 13-1 won our championship game 32-6, the TD allowed vs our 3rd team defense late in the 4th. We went to the Gridiron Classic and played a team for the championship there that had not lost in 2 years and throttled them 48-13.
It is because of the results and the fact that I can give my assistants a written system to follow that makes us better then we'd normally be. It isn't just the offense, that's true but it is very difficult to stop when played well.
