Origins of DoGs no-turnover offense
Rob Barrett asked in a comment:
Alex,
What or who led the switch from get it back offense to no-turnover offense?
That's been covered in a lot of places, and I think the Ultimate History book will have a nice blurb about it, based on some of the prerelease stuff I've been reading (and perhaps editing in my favor...).
In a nutshell, the no-turnover offense came from the old Earth Atomizer crew. There are those who would argue that it was the Mothers Day Philly 8 in spring of '93, but that was just the ultimate expression of the Earth Atomizer credo. Basically, no turnovers was the ONLY way that Earth was able to compete with the big boys, because if you ever compared our roster with most of the other nationals level teams, it was laughable. While other teams had used a dump before, that was more personnel related (Windy City and Mike O'Dowd). It was Earth that really codified that in a high-level offense for the first time as a position and not a player, and this interchangeable player would follow the action up the field BEHIND the thrower. If you didn't have something good to throw (to), far better to reset the count than to try something long and risky, much less short and risky.
The key with the Philly 8 is that none of the rah rah defensive personnel went to that tournament. In fact, there were only 7 Boston players and one pickup from Westchester, Neal Perchuk, who, while being the only sub, STILL had difficulty getting in the game at times. That was how efficient the team was, and how powerful the strategy was. Offensive officiency was the only way that they were going to even be competitive in the tournament, which they ended up winning over a large pre NY, NY breakup team.
After the fall of '93, everyone was disgusted with each other after falling short of our very high expectations yet again (I wasn't kidding when I said somewhere else that even down 17-10 to NY, NY in the semis, I thought we were going to win the game, not thought we might, but thought we definitely were. It was a stunning loss!).. When DaG(stupid Jordan) started that spring, there was a core of 8 players, Dennis McCarthy, Mike Kizilbash, Jim Parinella, Michael "Coop" Cooper, Jordan Haskell, Scott Goodrich, Corky, and myself. We invited other random Boston entries to the spring tournaments, Jim "Bim" Johnston, Mooney, Erik Sebesta and others. We never went to a tournament with more than 12 people until Easterns, and at Easterns we had all of 13. Having such small squads meant two things. We couldn't waste our energy playing man-to-man defense for an entire tournament, or even having very long points. This is where playing clam for the point (!) as opposed to 3 or 5 passes became a defensive staple. Basically, we had to get the early turnover, or make them throw a lot of passes while minimizing our own running, or let them score quickly so that we could get on offense. There was also a LOT of defensive switching, especially on in and out cuts. That is something that the current DoG has given up on to what I feel is its detriment. And on offense, we were priding ourselves on averaging less (fewer?) than 1 cut per pass (measured as 1 person moving faster than a walk) for long stretches. It was the 'ultimate' in efficiency.
Of course, none of this would have meant spit if we hadn't dominated all the way through Easterns, beating the other random Boston teams like Somerville Youth (Gary Lippman, Dick Brown et al), Left at the Altar (Seeger, J-ro and company), and, of course, the NY entry We Smoke Weed. This gave us the leverage we needed for the fall to completely revamp the offense and attitude of Boston. Rob, not sure if that covered what you were looking for, but if I remember it that way, then that's how it happened.
Alex,
What or who led the switch from get it back offense to no-turnover offense?
That's been covered in a lot of places, and I think the Ultimate History book will have a nice blurb about it, based on some of the prerelease stuff I've been reading (and perhaps editing in my favor...).
In a nutshell, the no-turnover offense came from the old Earth Atomizer crew. There are those who would argue that it was the Mothers Day Philly 8 in spring of '93, but that was just the ultimate expression of the Earth Atomizer credo. Basically, no turnovers was the ONLY way that Earth was able to compete with the big boys, because if you ever compared our roster with most of the other nationals level teams, it was laughable. While other teams had used a dump before, that was more personnel related (Windy City and Mike O'Dowd). It was Earth that really codified that in a high-level offense for the first time as a position and not a player, and this interchangeable player would follow the action up the field BEHIND the thrower. If you didn't have something good to throw (to), far better to reset the count than to try something long and risky, much less short and risky.
The key with the Philly 8 is that none of the rah rah defensive personnel went to that tournament. In fact, there were only 7 Boston players and one pickup from Westchester, Neal Perchuk, who, while being the only sub, STILL had difficulty getting in the game at times. That was how efficient the team was, and how powerful the strategy was. Offensive officiency was the only way that they were going to even be competitive in the tournament, which they ended up winning over a large pre NY, NY breakup team.
After the fall of '93, everyone was disgusted with each other after falling short of our very high expectations yet again (I wasn't kidding when I said somewhere else that even down 17-10 to NY, NY in the semis, I thought we were going to win the game, not thought we might, but thought we definitely were. It was a stunning loss!).. When DaG(stupid Jordan) started that spring, there was a core of 8 players, Dennis McCarthy, Mike Kizilbash, Jim Parinella, Michael "Coop" Cooper, Jordan Haskell, Scott Goodrich, Corky, and myself. We invited other random Boston entries to the spring tournaments, Jim "Bim" Johnston, Mooney, Erik Sebesta and others. We never went to a tournament with more than 12 people until Easterns, and at Easterns we had all of 13. Having such small squads meant two things. We couldn't waste our energy playing man-to-man defense for an entire tournament, or even having very long points. This is where playing clam for the point (!) as opposed to 3 or 5 passes became a defensive staple. Basically, we had to get the early turnover, or make them throw a lot of passes while minimizing our own running, or let them score quickly so that we could get on offense. There was also a LOT of defensive switching, especially on in and out cuts. That is something that the current DoG has given up on to what I feel is its detriment. And on offense, we were priding ourselves on averaging less (fewer?) than 1 cut per pass (measured as 1 person moving faster than a walk) for long stretches. It was the 'ultimate' in efficiency.
Of course, none of this would have meant spit if we hadn't dominated all the way through Easterns, beating the other random Boston teams like Somerville Youth (Gary Lippman, Dick Brown et al), Left at the Altar (Seeger, J-ro and company), and, of course, the NY entry We Smoke Weed. This gave us the leverage we needed for the fall to completely revamp the offense and attitude of Boston. Rob, not sure if that covered what you were looking for, but if I remember it that way, then that's how it happened.
posted by Alex de Frondeville at 6:25 PM
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