Old school is back

Welcome back to another Leech Letter,

Turn on an NFL game this fall and count the fullbacks. More teams are putting the quarterback back under center. More teams are running downhill.

Then last week, Chip Kelly’s Northwestern offense opened the new Ryan Field against Penn State and ran for 413 yards on 55 carries. Good old-fashioned, run-it-down-your-throat football.

The pendulum is swinging back. My friend Nick DiMarco wrote about this exact idea this week, and he’s right. Football has always worked this way. Defenses loaded the box, so offenses spread out. Now defenses are putting more DBs on the field than ever, so offenses are getting big again.

It will swing the other way someday too. It always does.

But here’s what I keep coming back to. There are high school programs that have always run the Wing-T. They never chased the spread. They never chased anything. And they keep winning.

So it was never about the scheme.

It’s about effort. It’s about the culture you build. It’s about the standards you set, and whether you uphold them yourself.

Old school or new school, spread or under center, the answer is the same. Have a system that works for you. Trust it. Know why you do what you do.

The trends will keep changing. Your why shouldn’t.

Keep the Fire Burning,

Leech