Chris B. Brown and Football Communication

Welcome to the Solid Verbal.

Coll that for me, I'm a man, I'm forty.

I've heard so many players say, well, I want to be happy. You want to be happy for Dake Edith State is that whoo whoo? And now Dan and.

Tye welcome back to the Solid Verbal Boys and girls. My name is Ty Hildebrand, joining me as always over there beautiful New York City.

Gan Rubinstein, Sir, how are you?

Oh? Ty?

I am jumping out of my seat. I am very excited for this show. You already know because you've already clicked on the episode that Chris B. Brown from Smart Football and Smart football dot Com and the books and everything is on the show. But what I'm most excited about, Ty, and I'm sure you are too, is when we have him on generally, it's like, oh, let's ask him a question about guarding again, you know, defending the spread. Oh,

Is that correct communication terminology language? Dan, Yeah, it's all about building a relationship not just with your players, but with your coaching staff. And how are we going to call the plays? That's the question. How do we call the plays that are going to help the team win?

Sue, And football is no different than any other industry. Is you have to know how to speak, you have to know how to communicate. You have to know what you're doing and how you're doing it. And the only way to do that is by teaching and telling people

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All right, Ty, with that, we are now joined by Chris B. Brown aka Chris by Brown aka smart Football aka the Art of Smart Football. Go to Amazon aka what's the name of the other book.

Chris Essential Smart Football.

The Essential Smart Football. You've seen his work on Grant, on ESPN, SB Nation everywhere, so much fun nerding out over x's and o's and scheme talk and his books by the way, and I mean this sincerely, there's no better book. If you're just like I want to nerd out, but not like spend three weeks. You can breathe through his books. There are visual elements, They're wonderful and you can get through them in a day or two. So yeah,

I'm doing well.

The other thing that I would add here if anyone out there is wondering how intense our guest is when we connected up with him, this is a true story.

Mister Brown, how.

Are you good? Good?

I mean, hey, if you're going to talk about signaling, you got to get a little like Nick Saban with it and gesticulate and do the hands.

It's you got to be you know, it's I'm a method actor. If we're going to be talking through this.

We appreciate that. We appreciate. So let's start here. Okay, we're talking about communication. You've got a freshman coming into a program, you got a transfer of some kind coming into a program. What is it that you always hear something like, oh, I'm getting he's getting caught up, he's learning the terminology. We kind of have an idea what that means here, just as two sad podcast hosts. But when you hear that, Chris, what what do you hear? What exactly does that mean?

Okay, well, the part of the challenge that means different things for different teams. So if you are in it, are you a no huddle team? Are you a huddle team? And then what what? You obviously have to learn whatever language is being spoken to communicate the plays, and then you have to figure out what are the features that are required to actually relay that information to other players

Johnson method when I was in high school, which was.

You have pretty simple play calls and they were old school.

If you want to.

Run the ISO off tackle to the right, it was forty two right. I mean literally our play calls were I right, iformation right, forty.

Two ISO right.

And then in order to get the play in, do you have we rotated receivers, was William the Paul Johnson method.

You'd have a receiver. I did this for a little while.

Myself was a junior, and then when I wasn't going enough to stay on the field the whole game, and then the coach would say, you'd hear the office corner head coach go, what do we call it?

Say? I right, forty two and then it's give it to you run in and then.

You're out of breath and you tell the quarterback, you know, I write forty two, and then he turns round of the huddle and tells everybody, I write forty two and that still works, right, and so and that's pretty simple. And if you're a new player coming into that system.

And then the procedures are pretty simple.

You give it in the huddle and then you line up there and you take the snap and you exec get the play and I said Paul Johnson, Georgia Tech. Does that believe or not. The other system that basically the other place that basically does it the same way is the NFL in terms of procedures, because they can use the communication headset right, so they're just stating in the huddle and they just say, hey, go run, I

You know, you just got up with the ground.

You got to find the coach and then turn around and communicate or make sure everyone else is, you know, on the same page.

So that's to me as the challenge. I think that's and I think that's.

The underrated part of it, which is it's not just learning plays and learning names. It's it's learning multiple communication methods, sign language, you know, code words, and then actually doing in a physical environment.

So we're going to dive into a lot of what you just mentioned there, but I want to start with the composition of a play call. So forty two might be some sort of running play in high school, in college, you mention. As you go up through the ranks, it tends to get a little bit more complicated. I think the secret language term that a lot of people. If you've watched Monday Night Football, John Gruden, you're used to hearing spider too. Why banana? What is the composition of

Yeah, So there's there's a couple of structural similarities because there are just things that are inherent and calling a football play, meaning that the first thing you got to tell people is where to line up? Right, You got to have a formation, and then the second thing is are you going to do anything else pre snap before the formation, like a motion or a shift. And so you can have a whole system of how you call

And I didn't have to add new words for everybody. The problem in a no huddle context is.

Two concepts takes two signals or two words, so you're always trying to fight the urge to make your play call longer. And this is where and I'm a big fan of simpler shorter, but remember simpler shorter means more memorization.

Scott Frost did some clinic stuff recently and talked a lot about that.

With formations, they basically if they've added a lot of formations to what they did at UCF, and we'll be doing it Nebraska compared to even what did it at Oregon. But that requires more memorization of players because they're not willing to have these multiple word formations, which would give you a lot of flexibility.

And that's one thing the NFL guys.

Will do because they can give you, you know, one way you're going to have hundreds of formations is to have twenty formations and then have eight tags on those formations, and then that you can just do the math.

It's an exponential increase.

And then you get into shifts and motions, which are a whole other ball of wax, which is, you know, how many different types of motions and then how do you designate who's doing what? So those are that's before the play even starts, right, So then the question is is how do you call the play? And that can mean a lot of different things, and there's a lot of different ways to do it. You have eleven guys, so you need to tell eleven guys what to do.

You can do.

It as my high school did, or like a lot of teams still, do you have one one word or one number that tells all eleven players what to do, or you can have it where you have different words or codes or signals that tell the different groups what to do. It may actually be the same play, or as we can get into later, you know package plays and things where it allowed and RPOs where allows you to actually mix the match a little bit. But that's a way to give yourself more flexibility.

And.

As we'll see with some of the tempo teams, that actually can make you faster because you can have different people communicating with different players at the same time to make you go a little faster while having more variability. So if you just break it down, usually the offensive line needs at least one call.

What are they blocking?

And then the receivers need some kind of doesn't Are they blocking, are they running a pass, or are they running a screen?

Whatever it is?

And then sometimes it's common to have a base play and then you've got to tag on that play. And then the last thing that's often overlooked is many plays need a directional call just right or left, and so there's different ways to do that. But when you have to factor that into so you add that up, even if you're a no huddle temp, you can wind up with six or seven different things that you've got to

And then run whatever the play call is. And then the quarterback has.

To mentally be able to build a picture of that in his mind so that he knows what he's supposed to do.

So we know about coaching trees, and I guess let's use the example of Scott Frost now that he's been at Oregon. I guess Northern iowall be for that. But ucf now at Nebraska is there like are there different As you mentioned theories of communication that that would travel

Yeah, I absolutely, I acsolutely think so. But I actually think college probably less so. And I think that's where you get into the NFL where team players move around a lot and sometimes they'll get it picked up off the street and they've got to drop him in. And

But I know high.

Schools that will just call it whatever they want because a usually there's some up tempo team and they don't want the defense and know what it is and then be some fifteen year old has no idea that the weak side counterplay is typically called stutter, which is sort of a you know, a you're anachronistic term. But if you ask almost any NFL offensive lineman, they'll they'll, you know, say, oh,

I can basically tell you exactly.

How the old school air raid guys will communicate from start to finish, from when a play comes into Mike Reach's brain to how he gets into all the players. I don't know if that's useful to do, because I think they have a really simple system that arguably people think they could steal the signals, which is a different problem, but it's a good.

Introduction to like how all these work.

And then all these air raid guys they've now evolved, but they all started basically with the same procedural mechanics.

What is that root? What is that root system?

So so here's I mean.

The two things to know is that they have a really simple structure where they have formations most of them have one word because they don't want a lot of formations.

And then most of.

Their plays are they've got numbers. It's they have a system where almost all their pass.

Plays are numbered, but the numbers really don't mean anything.

They've vaguely mean something, but but they're kind of it's weird, like you know, their five step dropback passes are ninety plays like ninety one, two, nine, three, nine, four, ninety five and then but there for some reason, they're three step quick game. It's like sixty two or six nineteen or six seventeen or like or eight. It like doesn't make sense, but the point being the players learn it. And then it's they've only run some many place that's

Probably run the most.

And if you watch a lot of other area guys, they still use the same signals for formations. It's ace, which is they're two by two four wives, which is you point your finger up in the air, or early, which is trips right, which you literally just rub like your eyes like you're getting up early, or then late which is like tapping your wrists like which is trips left. So early has an R in it, so trips right and then.

Late trips left. Really simple stuff.

And then then each play just has like a one hand signal to it. So and it's and one of the nice things about studying to get introduced, Like you watch Leech, He's the one signaling it. It's not one of these teams with five signalers. Signalers on the sideline, and so you know what he'll do if he wants to call just one play, you know, one.

Play which is the one I'll give you, which is simple.

I think everyone knows it, which is their one, their snag concept sort of try and go read. The flat receiver runs, the corner back runs the flat, and then the outside receiver runs like a quick slant or a little sit down route. It's eight and so he just taps his shoulder and so he can just call that and then that goes into the quarterback and everything runs to the quarterback. Or the thing Leech likes to do is he'll do think about and so you'll see him

Five being their their their white cross play which everybody knows. And then the quarterback.

Then I think about that system as the quarterback can either call one of those plays or any other play he wants, but then at that point attend to the quarterback. So if you watched last year. Like Luke Falk, this is where the leech has his signals, right, and all the area guys they kind of have their signals and then but then at that point it becomes the players.

So they got to they figure out how do.

They want to communicate and so the and this is true for all most tempo teams, though this is changing and we can get into Scott frost taw he does a little differently, but most tempo teams, the quarterback then relays the concept to the offensive line through a code word and so which you can guess why. It's a little harder for the offensive line to turn and look at a signaler on the sideline, or certainly they can't turn and look at a signal from the quarterback, So

And you can even call the same thing over and over.

Again, especially with protection schemes where you might change the past play.

But the protection scheme will stay the same.

And so you use word association every high school the college NFL team doesn't.

So it could be words.

That star with b you know, you know, Budweiser, Bronco, whatever it is, and they all mean the same thing or a really common one and give you give you one old one from Gus Miles on which sure's changed so I won't get in trouble. Which is their their counterplay, like the counter blocking play. For a long times called cult was one word, but then you could use you could call it Indie or luck for Andrew Luck.

There's a quarterback of the cult. It's really simple stuff, not exactly brain surgery.

But you know, if you're the defense and you've got two seconds, you don't necessarily know that there's a luck and culture that's necessarly the same thing.

You might get used. Over time, they change.

Their calls, and then then the quarterback and the air raid system will then signal everything to the receivers, which he has his own signal. The receivers and the quarterback just make up their own signals a year to year, and so that's where they.

Can kind of take ownership of that stuff.

And then the nice thing of that system, since everyone's looking at the quarterback, if he wants to audible, he can make a call.

Usually it's like easy, easy, easy, and then he just sort of.

Resignals everything and then that's it, and then they get up and go. And then the other advantage of that is you can call like a block like a run play at the line, and then you could call either a pass route or a screen to the receivers.

And it's just done by signal.

So that's that system, which is really simple, and that's been the framework for a lot of those guys. The problem with it is, as you can guess, is that if you want to go really really fast, it's actually kind of slow. Coach the quarterback, quarterback to line, quarterback

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Obviously, tempo is a relatively modern concept, especially with what it now means and teams going pretty quickly. Who is who would you say has done the best job or has been the most influential in terms of taking the concept of tempo and no huddle and turning it into something that's super easily digested. I mean, you mentioned Scott Frost, you mentioned Gus Malson obviously the you know, Chad Morris

Yeah, it's hard to say because the thing you have to remember, piets of different goals when they want to want to what they want to do, so and there's a big difference between being a tempo team sometimes and being a tempo team all the time, and that has significant implications on how you build your communication system. So simple example, the New England Patriots, especially if you go

And it goes back.

You know, BILLI Bryan's talked about US a bunch. You know, in twenty eleven and twenty twelve, they sort of stole the idea from Oregon where they would just have six for eight calls in the game plan for that week, which were one word calls. And again that goes We literally did that in my high school too. It was

You do is no huddle or built to be no huddle. So when you're.

Teaching on day one, you're not teaching forty two and then translating it to here's the no huddle version of that in you know, later in the system, you're teaching it as this is what we do.

Everything is being signaled.

You actually will learn the place in a no huddle context, and then you're ready to receive the information that way, and that's how the plays are taught, which significantly impacts how you set up your offense because one of the downsides of being a no huddle up tempo team all the time is and this is one reason why the

You want to run it, but you want to do it a little differently or out of tag you can't. You're just you're in. You run Patriot again and so, and then.

The only way you could also do it is you get on the sideline and say, next time we call Patriot, we're going to do this.

So it's it's it's it, you know.

So, which are not to say that Gus and his system they don't have the answers to that, but they have to build it within a no huddle framework because they can't just go huddle and then make easily call a couple extra tags.

I think Tip Kelly was a big influence.

I think the air Ray guys is there's so many of them, and they've been going no huddle since like the nineties, so they've gotten pretty good at it. There's a bunch of schools of thought, certainly all the teams that started doing the freeze call, where your call formation, you fake the snap and then everyone looks at the sideline. I mean, there was a time when every team did that, So whoever was the first to do that was obviously influential.

The other thing that comes to mind, Chris, because I'm guessing there are people at home listening to this, who are blown away by the complexity of it all. But we all know those rushed moments in a game where it's very apparent that two plays have been called in

Well, I think that's the key.

You probably wouldn't do it much in a two minute offense setting. I thought, we're breaking in a couple categories. So one I already touched on, which is the maybe most unique. But I do think one of the more interesting ones, which is the Mike leachs where he does think about and he just sort of gives a couple of suggestions and the quarterback just calls one. There's the Peyton Manning version, which is where you actually huddle and then you lay out like you spill out a.

Whole long thing, and then you get to the line and then.

You call kill kill kill, which or whatever your term is, which basically means run the second.

Play or the third play or whatever.

And then everyone in the huddle heard what are the options?

And then and then most no huddle teams.

Don't don't don't really call the college no huddle teams which you say, don't call multiple plays to the line, because it sort of defeats the.

Purpose of being no huddle. It requires another call.

So typically what they'll do is we'll either do the freeze call, which I said before, which is.

You don't call a play. You you get lined up, you do.

That, you fake the snap, and then everybody's you know, you see what the defense does, and then everybody looks to the sideline and then they then then you call the play. The other thing to remember is that one of the constraints of these no huddle teams, and this is one of the problems that Chip Kelly had in the NFL, is he had no audible mechanic, which is sort of hard to believe for an NFL.

Team, But.

You know, by going fast and having multiple signalers for multiple positions, you didn't have that central person who could then come Peyton Manning or Tom Brady who could then say, you know, just change the play. And that was a constraint. Now what they had was it one they'd go no huddle and.

They could get the defense lined up.

And then two, this is where RPOs have come in and package plays and all that stuff is the idea that you've build or just read options. You build the answers into a single play, and now you don't have to check to a pass or check to a run.

Use them different ways.

You can give them to the quarterback or you'll see a lot of teams they give them to everybody, and so that allows a little it's slow because you've have to call something out and usually it's just a list of plays that are that are numbered, so someone can either signal or a quarterback could announce twenty five.

And everybody looks at their wristband. It's he's twenty five.

Are there any Are there any kind of like situational guidelines on those wristbands? How detailed or complex do they get?

I mean it sort of toy. Depends on who you are and what your team is.

And and what what purpose you're using them for. So one example is and Peter King wrote like an mm QB piece right after the Super Bowl. Nick Foles wore a wristband in the super Bowl and the sort of the final touchdowns, I don't know, I to go ahead, I can't remember. For just the final touchdown the slant passed to Zach Ertz where they ran bunch the right and put the back and bullet motion and went the four receivers one side and through a slat back side.

So they had the whole play call which communicated to the players. But in that.

Context, it was just a more efficient way to get the concept to the folds. The other thing you'll see tempo teams do, and you see a lot at the high school level, they'll give everybody risk bands so that the coaches when they're doing these signals, they don't have to have as we talked about with like the air rate system, they have to have a signal for every play.

To flip to the other side of the ball.

Good example of this is Gary Patterson at TCU, who has to deal a lot of up tempo teams in the Big twelve. He's got a very crisp and well thought out system for calling his defenses. And I don't just mean calling the coverage, but there's what Gary Patterson does on defense.

He'll he calls.

Different coverages the different sides of the field. He often also often calls a trips check, meaning.

That we'll do this eatside of field.

But then if the lineup and Trips will call this other coverage, and then he's got what he wants the front to line up in, meaning where did the defensive line and the linebackers line up. And then he'll have stunts and blitzes which tell and he can put him in combination so that guys can do different things, which is a great system, but as you can imagine, it can get wordy, and so when you're going against Oklahoma or Texas Tech or whoever's going fast, you got to

Air RAA guys know it, and.

Gary Patterson's offensive corners for air ray guys. But and they were joking about, oh, we know the signal for ninety five and had to change the signal, and then I think it was Major Apple apple White, but it could have been. Holgerson turned to Patterson and said, do your players all still look at their wristbands whenever you call it blitz? And Patterson's face like dropped and everyone and like you had like Billima and those guys like burst out laughing, uh.

And it's and and and it was.

It was funny because Patterson's blitzes are worthier than his base calls. So they had picked up on a little tell, which is and he said it it's someone. It was like it was like that was like Big twelve knowledge. It was as like, yeah, you know, you tell your players if they look at the wristband, they're bringing the lips. That's that's that's a good coaching point you give them during the week.

Well, you you enter into territory that we had planned to ask about. And hopefully it's not too CD. But of course everyone knows about Spygate and what went on in the NFL, And look, it goes on at all levels of competitive sports. I don't care if it's baseball or basketball or football. There is always some kind of

Yeah, I'd say it's not actually that hard to pick up. How complex it is is a good question.

And I don't I don't know. You know, I couldn't tell you if you took the SEC.

Program X, which has a lot of they all have a lot of resources and people. Do they have people who are just basically trying to crack the code all the time. Probably, I'm not sure exactly what they what kind of operation they have. I can tell you from the other side, there's a couple of different schools of

Does the more harm than good.

I was talking to a high school coach recently talked about that, you know, the opponent they you know, at halftime, he could tell these guys were stealing their signals, but they were killing them. And so they they did a couple of things where they kind of faked the signal and then ran like a faken go or something.

But then also they just kept doing it. Then after the game they.

Won by like forty point, the other guy was like, I was all over your signals, and it was like, okay, very helpful and and and actually it could work against you because you're you're you know, especially if you're facing an up tempo team where you're trying to tell your players watch for this or that and they're not bringing.

Their keys, it could work against you.

I will say that means if you're not an up tempo team, it may not make a lot of sense to be saying they're doing your signals to where the other team can pick them up, because then it maybe becomes a little more actionable. The other thing you think about at the college level is and I've talked to head coaches about this, and they say that one of the bad parts if you're the signaler and you're a

So it look it happens.

It's it's it's a question of how actionable it is and is it a problem?

And then how do you respawn?

Because the answer from if you're going to keep them from cracking the code is to make your system more complex, but probably the biggest thing is just to be intelligent about it. One of the two I'll mention is one is that I've talked to a bunch of coaches about this.

One of the hardest.

Things in that if you're going to signal or do any kind of up tempo is how do you indicate direction. It's it's it's the thing no one thinks about. But if you've got to play power or counter or even your past protection scheme, right or left can often be a it's sort of like cracking these like you know, these like World War two codes, like if you can find the common link, then you can use that to crack the rest of the code. And it's it's very often the thing that can be a giveaway, and you

One.

You just have a bunch of different ways, say right or left, and then somemes. You you know, if you take Auburn, for example, they can say right or left. They could say red white, they could say colors differings. Alabama, I know for the last few years, they may change it for next year. For a lot of their run plays use north and south a lot that's a code word for right or left. So if they've got a run play, they can say it and they say north

Means right or left. You can also do it with I think.

Alabama for their protection schemes, the jack jill is one, so jack being right, Jill being left for a six man half live protection. So you just you do it that way and then you can also do things the other one. You see a lot a lot of teams put their Z receiver on the right and their X and the left, so you can use X and Z words so you know, exceon and zebra stuff like that to combine them.

So you could you can you can do it.

So the point being, if you've got a robust system, that's that's that uses multiple signalers a few different ways the signal. You can do some code words or you can do signals, and then it's not easy to tell at some point it's diminishing returns. She just had to try to spend a lot of time on this stuff and then really make it actionable. As long as you

Had many.

Many people he wasn't very happy with, especially coming out of his recruiting process and his transfer process.

So I stored a few years ago.

When the year he sat out at Oklahoma, his quarterback coach at Texas Tech when he was freshman with Sonny Comby, who went and then after that left and became a co offensive coord at TCU, And then of course Baker was at Oklahoma and there's a story and Gary Patterson after the game said that Baker Mayfield was standing on the sideline next to I don't know if it was Stoops or some other defensive coach watching Sonny Comby to steal their signals and then telling them their signals during

Saw Peyton Manning.

Give a talk not that long ago, and actually I asked them about this because I remember the play. It was like the year he broke like the touchdown record and the first game they hit like a like a receiver screen. A couple of times, I can't remember the code word, but he would often audible the receiver screens at the line when he's got a favorable look, and then he used a code word. And then in like the third or fourth quarter, he used the same word, and then they ran the fake pump and go screen.

And then went for a touchdown.

And I asked him and he didn't come out to say it, but he confirmed that they that was an adjustment they made that they thought the other teams, the Ravens, were trying to steal the code word, that that was the receiver screen. So then they just said, I mean, talk about a great fake. Not only do you pump and you fake the play, but pre snap you make the same whatever he was, you know, you know, like rocket screen or something. You say rocket and then everyone's

So you can use it. You can always break the Tennessee and use.

It offensively to your advantage, even if you think the other side stealing your signals.

Picture boards on the sideline, are they a thing? Are they not? A thing. Are they sort of a thing? Uh?

There, there they are. They are definitely a sort of a thing. You know, they're They're actually a surprisingly controversial topic in the in the coaching world. In that I've I've I'm always surprised, even up Temple people are like, oh, those stupid coaching boards or picture boards, Like I hate those things. I think the thing to remember about them is that unless you have like sixty boards in your sidelines, they can only convey so much information because you're gonna

I think most.

Teams that use them use them for some limited purpose, and then it's also a way for everyone to have fun with it. I think, uh, the most common.

Way to use them, and there's a couple of sect at schools and I know, we'll do it this way.

They have a couple of different signalers and then which boards or which side of the boards you hold up basically tells the players which.

Signaler to look at, which one's.

Live, and then that's the way to just create some confusion around uh, you know, the so the signals can't get stolen, and that's something you can change quarter by quarter or you know, you know each half of which which side of what board is right, and it can take a while for the defense to and the coaches

Different things will be.

Different things depending on what kind of play call he uses a lot about series like this will be live on pass plays, it's.

On run plays, I's on specials, that kind of thing.

So, but the picture boards in his system typically will tell you which signal to look at, or it can be a directional term.

We've talked to a couple coaches and players who all actually sort of said the same thing about coaches consulting players when it comes to favorite plays installation and saying, oh, I'm third and seven plus what types of plays do you like between the twenties or something like that, and across the board, everybody says they, you know, coaches will consult players because they want them to run what they're

Sure if methods do.

I think that ends up being like a team function, and so that a lot a lot goes into it.

There's obviously other players, there's what.

Kind of tempo they want to do, what just seems most efficient, And I think it's also hard to do that sort of in season.

Those are typically you know, season to season.

Judgments, and it's often a reaction to, you know, can we get faster? Can we get slower? Do we need to add more offense to to have a wider variety of things like maybe we were really fast, but we just couldn't We weren't very flexible. But I do think in terms of what the signals are and what the code words are, almost every code you talk to will tell you. The more you can make the players involved in that, the better, because for no other reason, they

Spring or the summer even And again, the more organic you can make it.

And the more the more ownership the players have, the better.

And then and that's where.

Language is dynamic, right, I mean, this is where you know our language, English language, you.

Know all this stuff.

It's they evolve their dynamic, all that David Foster Wallace stuff and linguistics. So it often takes the life of its own. I mean you have again, I use like mamin Vin has got a very formal, rigid here's this

It's just learning another language.

I think Seth La Trail was on there on your show talking about that it's just like learning a language. I mean, it's it's learning another language, learning sign language.

I mean, that's all. It is, fair enough.

And I'm sure you saw the I think it was called the Two Bills, Bill Parcels and Bill Belichick, And one of those sort of antidotes was anecdotes was Bill Parcell's killing Bill Belichick calls. You know, the call would come in and as you know, traditionally, you know, a head coach would hear the call and either not say anything or tweak it or whatever, or say you know, no that we're not doing that whatever, we're doing this.

I think I think there's not enough time if you're if you are a go go, up tembo team to do it between plays.

You know, at most it's.

Like one word like no, yes, run, you know, and then maybe cand blurt out something. I think what it does is it one one reason why you see a lot of these up tempo play callers or head coaches because because they're they're they're they're they're not delegating that stuff. They're doing it themselves. And so the second is that there's a lot of in between serious communications. So there's a lot of between serious saying that work, that didn't

You got flexible enough calls.

With r p O s and whatever it is that you can on many situations just look or most you just look down at your sheet and call the next play on the sheet for that situation. And that should be as simple as it is, and if you're not having a terrible day, that should be how it works. Not to say it works all the way in practice. They come up with a different defense. You can't block a guy, you know, you have an injury. There's different

So that means, yeah, that was my sort of follow up is just sort of tiny. And an extension of that is situationally how much is on that call sheet? How much is sort of situationally determined ahead of time? You know, is it you know every third and third down situation distance and place of field? You know, is every you know, thirty second offense, two minute offense, goal line, red zone? Like how intricate is it situationally pre determined?

Totally depends on the play caller. I mean we use Mike Leads to an example. I mean he's got like five categories. It's called she's got openers. There's like twenty plays. He's got third and long, third and short coming out, going in and specials and screens and then and that's like it like right, so, and then you've got the NFL type guys where they have you know, very broken out.

I mean.

The other thing you got to you remember is that you do it proportionally based on how many of those situations you have.

In a game.

So most teams go into the under the game, you know, with for two point.

Plays, it's it's.

One, maybe two, and then often they don't call them and they go four weeks and they have the same one on that situation for two point plays. The good teams only have so many third and long calls because there's so many third and lungs you actually really encounter in a game. You have a lot of first and second down calls, you know, third and short, second and short, the sort of things.

You just have a couple. So it actually works out if you do it. You know, you organize it. You don't have like ten ten, ten, ten ten for every situation.

It's proportional, so you know your total is not overwhelming. And then it's just the feel of the play caller. You know, do they feel like they need more more categories?

Is that helpful?

It's also something Kyle Shanahan's you know, call sheet has like very intricate. He's got like every situation broken out and different things, and that allows him to go to the situation more quickly because he's got some complicated calls he's trying to get to. Or is again he used like a Mike Leach, It's like, just call the next.

Thing, Chris.

We're going to get you out here with two quick ones. My first, and it's sort of a question we've been asking all of our guests here during scheme theme, but we talk a lot about emerging trends, about evolutions of be it a scheme or some other element of the game. Is there any innovation afoot as it relates to communication. We talked earlier about technology and the impact perhaps that it is having on the way that plays are called.

Yeah, I guess a couple of things, but I think the biggest drivers is technology and rule. So it's just a different world in the NFL where you've got the.

Helmet radio, so you can communicate.

And I think one of the interesting trends you saw, actually Chip Kelly was doing this a lot with the tempo stuff, but the guy who probably did a better Sean McVay there with the rams, is that.

In the NFL, almost to pick this up.

They get the play call early and then but trying to get lined up quickly so the radio is still running and so they can basically have an ongoing dialogue quarterback about what they see and then even audible and things with you still keep coaching them all the way up to that moment by getting lined up more quickly, which a big advantage over getting lined up with four seconds left and you just have to call to play.

I think you know you can't do that in college obviously.

I think one thing you're seeing is that I think more teams are moving to almost a pure signaling system because I think the fear is that the code words are a little bit easier to crack. And then obviously you can then run up in a very loud stadium and it's hard to communicate and things like that, and then obviously signaling to the line and everyone is it

But I do think teams are increasingly.

Going to signals because I think the thought is that the signals are a little harder to crack. But I think the only other thing is is that tension of how fast can we go versus how much flexibility and how much complexity can we add in Because the days of just running fifteen plays out of four formations really fast and having the defense off kilters is quickly going. By the wayside, defenses are too good.

They're able to react, they.

Can call complex stuff on defense and sort of shut you down.

So how can we efficiently do that.

That's why I mentioned you know, Scott Frost, because I think he's been He's taken the chip Kelly system and has added a wider variety of run schemes, more formations, more of things like that I used, you know, not that they were Juggernaut this year, but Jeff Brohm there at Purdue, but especially when he's at Western Kentucky, he took kind of the pro style system they learned in the NFL and from Petrino, and he took the whole system,

You can't you know, adjust to the defense. You can get you can get bogged down. So I think that's really where it is is that can you come up with simple, easy.

To learn things that actually give you enough flexibility so that when Alabama and Nick Saban show up with a thousand defenses, that you're not just stuck running like fourteen plays, because all of a sudden you go from looking like you're the greatest offense in the world to like you no longer have the answers.

All right, Chris, We're going to get you out of here with perhaps the hardest question yet. What is the longest play that you can both remember and recite on the podcast today?

Oh? Man, I can't. I'm not doing this. I'm sorry, Like, I mean, I can like look them up and all that.

I mean, it's just sort of a I try to block that stuff from my mind.

I mean, I'm not.

Trying to do the the Kyle Shanahan John Cruden thing, you know, like I write forty two blasts seven z jet. I feel like when people do that, they often throw in a couple of those as you brought up tize like to kill well.

They like the extra play, so they like it makes it sound like really long.

But really they've called like four plays and then now we have like seven unnecessary shifts.

So if you really want, I can try to dig something out. I mean I can.

We can make it as long as we want. But I mean, and I think that's the But that's the interesting tension, right is it's you know, do we literally need a play where we tell a formation where we have five ways to tell everyone where to line up?

There's just eleven.

Guys, and then do we need to tell all eleven players individually what to do? Or can we try to break down in a way that's coherent? But then we're not stuck calling forty two blasts over and over again. So if someone else has a better answer than me, that's that's that's that's fine.

I'm happy to get with that. Mantle.

Let's go with forty two blasts.

Yeah, I'll stick with that.

Well, I'm fine with that. His name is Chris B. Brown.

You can find him and all of his fine work out on smartfootball dot com. Chris, this was incredible, Dan, Is that the right way to characterize illuminating?

Illuminating? This was tremendous. Thank you so much for all your time.

Trust me, my pleasure.

And also when you guys get critiques and corrections, silver to pass in my way.

We will, we will get we will add all addendums to your inbox.

All right, Dan, Again, that is Chris B. Brown from Smartfootball dot Com. If you've listened to the program, you know that we've had Chris on the show over the years, again to learn all about the x's and o's of college football.

Yep.

Today though his insight was particularly tasty, and so tasty that he very much earned the moniker Chris by Brown that we've given to him over the year. It just I am blown away by the complexity of all this. I am a nerd at heart, as I know you are as well. To hear the thought, to hear the fact that they made up their own language, that they have to that it requires them to make up their

Yeah, and it's it is kind of crazy that Chris is not a full time football writer. He just writes books because he loves the stuff, and you know, wrote for grant Land, Espiona and all these plays. Is it's it's so cool, and that's so the crispiness is that the caramelization of knowledge, Tie, Oh yeah, the caramelization. No, it's it's all fascinating. I will not watch a football

Tie.

This has made me and I was already excited to watch Nebraska football, but I'm actually now like, oh my, Nebraska's coming into the modern era and they're going to be doing like this is going to be super fun. So even if Nebraska year one doesn't, you know, overwhelmingly impressed, maybe it takes a year two to get the quarterback situation situated. The Scott Frost stuff, you know, Chip Kelly at UCLA should be very interesting to Bruins fans, Pack

After I gotta go load up Madden and see if these plays make any more sense now in hindsight, knowing the terminology, knowing at least a little bit about the convention of the language of football, very insightful. We appreciate Chris's time spent like an hour with us talking about all things football communications. So Scheme Theme Month rolls on again, presented by our good friends over at Oliver's Apparel Oliver'sparel dot Com. Use the code Solidy'll knock fifteen percent off your order.

It's getting sunny out ty. You gotta prepare. You're gonna be outdoor to prepare.

Gotta prepare.

We've got more Scheme Theme Month content ahead, but for the interim, Dan, I need to go and catch my breath, do it. I need to get some food and recharge for another great show that we've got planned a week from now.

Okay, I listen, I'm right there with you. I gotta sit down. I gotta take take a breather here. I don't want to pull a hammy getting so excited about these x's and.

O's or that guy over there. His name is Dan Rubinstein. And of course, for our guest of honor, Chris B. Brown from Smartfootball dot com. My name is Ty Hildebrand. We'll catch you all in a week. In the meantime, stay solid, Hey, today's show is brought to you again by our good friends over at Oliver's Apparel. Use the offer code solid for fifteen percent off your order. Also, today's show brought to you in part by our good friends over at proper Cloth, the leader in men's shirts.