Seth Littrell and the Air Raid - podcast episode cover

Seth Littrell and the Air Raid

Mar 08, 201843 min
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Episode description

Ty and Dan are joined by Seth Littrell, head football coach of North Texas, to discuss the evolution of his air raid offense, the process of teaching his players and staff, the ways that defenses are adapting to his system, and emerging trends in offensive football. Scheme Theme Month is presented by Olivers.

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Transcript

Speaker 1

Welcome to the Solid Verbal. Come out for me.

Speaker 2

I'm a man, I'm forty.

Speaker 3

I've heard so many players say, well, I want to be happy.

Speaker 2

You want to be happy for day Edith State?

Speaker 3

Is that? Whoo whoom? 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 in snowy New York City. My good friend Dan Rubinstein, Sir, how are you?

Speaker 2

Scheme Theme, Scheme Theme. I'm excited, ty, I'm a great play that is right.

Speaker 3

Welcome one, Welcome all to what we're calling Scheme Theme Month. Here all throughout the month of March on the Solid Verbal. It is presented by our good friends over at Oliver's Apparel. All month long, we're going to be diving into the minutiam college football. Let's talk about offense, Let's talk about defense. Let's talk about secret languages that evolve around a system. Let's figure out what the hell those big picture boards mean, you know, the ones that you see in the sidelines

of the funny Picture got my favorite time. What do those mean? Let's figure it all out together, everything that we combine to form a particular scheme that your favorite team runs on a Saturday. That's what we're going to be focused on all throughout this month. And we are super excited because we've got a great roster of guests that are going to stop by and help us do just that.

Speaker 2

Daniel, I am truly and I don't say this lightly. We have let's see this month. I don't want to give anything away. Obviously you already know if you've clicked on this episode who. This episode features our new friend Seth Latreuelle. Very excited to nerd out about, you know, his backstory and his history and what he's doing in Denton with North Texas is super interesting. But we've got I think another head coach, another prominent head coach, which

I think we're very excited for. We've got a recent star quarterback to talk about communication and game planning and playbook stuff and how that all evolved at a huge place. And we're gonna work of course, Krispy Brown. Yes, of course, how do we do this month without Krispy Brown? So we're gonna deep dive communication stuff on both sides of the ball with Krispy Chris B. But we like calling

him Crispy of course. Of smartfootball dot Com. But we have We've lined up all sorts of fun people to talk to.

Speaker 3

Today, as you mentioned, and surely if you've downloaded the show, you know what you're in for. We're very excited to kick off scheme theme with Seth Latrell, the head football coach. As you said, of the North Texas Mean Green North Texas dan they were one and eleven before he took over in twenty fifteen. Seth Latrell comes over his first season in twenty sixteen, they go five and eight. Last year they go nine and five. They've been to a

bowl game both years that he has been there. Last year, the offense was all sorts of revd up, scoring thirty five and a half points per game. He had a sophomore quarterback in Mason Fine who threw for over four thousand yards. There's a lot story of steam, a lot of positive momentum on what coach Ltrell is doing in Denton, and we're going to talk about the air raid offense. We're going to talk about its place in college football and in the football world as a whole in twenty eighteen.

So pumped to get this started with coach Holtrell.

Speaker 2

Oh absolutely, and in case you don't know his background, of course, he helped coach positions and then coordinate the offenses. At Arizona, he was the running backs and tight ends coach.

Unfortunately Gronk was injured when he was coaching tight ends at Arizona, but obviously worked with our good, good digital pal Nick Foles and Super Bowl champion It's right, worked with Mitch Trubisky and Marquise Williams at North Carolina, Nate Sudfeld another Super Bowl winning quarterback tie at Indiana, and huge offenses at North Carolina, and to immediately come in at North Texas, as you mentioned, going from a pretty down place in an area that I think you should

be able to win given the talent and the huge amount of high school football influence and availability, and to win with the mean Green and turn that program around quickly and not even just win, but they're super fun to watch, and that I think goes a long way when there are what one hundred and thirty teams to pay attention to, and North Texas this year, especially with Mason Fine, a really cool story to pay attention to.

So super pumped to talk to Seth Latrell because I mean, this is an up and coming or arrived coaching mind, and to hear what his philosophies are, what he's been through and how he views the evolution of offense is something to look forward to.

Speaker 3

We're going to get into all that and much much more Coach Latreill in just a few minutes. But before we do scheme theme Month, Dan is presented by our friends over at Oliver's Apparel. Yes, surely you've heard of They're all over Short. Obvious I'm wearing mine right now literally as we're doing this.

Speaker 2

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Speaker 2

Listen, ty we've all been in that place where we have Jim Shortz or something from college, from not making any money just after college, and hopefully at this point, if you're listening to this show, maybe you've worked for a few years. It goes a long way to replace some of your your older, gunkier stuff. Maybe the elastic the waistband has sort of loosened up, you know, maybe you got some It just sort of it feels old, Tye. And there's something about oliver Is that just immediately feels

high quality. Yeah, I'm the n seam. Yeah, do you know what? Do you know what that means, Tye? The end seme.

Speaker 3

I've learned it when I bought a wedding suit. Yeah, oh good.

Speaker 2

So that's obviously just like the length of the pant or the short whatever, it's a great length. It makes you look lean, Tie, and I'm not always feeling lean, but I put on these shorts.

Speaker 1

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Speaker 2

And with that, it is my pleasure Tie to introduce today's guests. Everywhere he goes, he helps to put up yards, points and wins. It's a good thing to have. He's coach positions, coordinated offenses. Texas Tech, Arizona, Indiana, North Carolina. Now he's engineering I guess not just a turnaround, but their sustaining success North Texas. Seth Latrell, how's it going.

Speaker 1

It's going great. I appreciate you'all having me on. It's always talk ball.

Speaker 2

Oh can't wait? All right? So we're talking offense and what you've done, what you've been doing, and obviously there's a wide variety of schemes and terminology for those schemes. What would you call how would you classify your offense?

Speaker 1

Well, it's a little hybrid of the air rate I guess that's the system I played in, and that's just the system coach Harrow played in, our offensive coordinator, and so everywhere I've been, it's always been a form in some form of that in the passing game at least, and you know, just getting cre creative at different places of you know, what your strengths and weaknesses, who your quarterback is, you know, and then also just trying to evolve in the run game, making sure that you know,

still believe in running the football and being physical and being able to be balanced enough to keep defensive of honest. But again some years or different others, you know, I've been at Arizona where you know, at times of folds we had to throw fifty times a game. After Gronk left, we didn't have tight ends at the edge, so you know, it was a little bit different in our run game. And you know, since I've been in Indiana and North Carolina, we've done a lot more run game and established from

the quarterback run game. Just different schemes, and I think most of it just kind of fit, you know, whatever fits your team. You know, we're always going to have our base system of what we do. I think year in year out, it is a little bit different in what you do, uh, just because of the quarterback and and what you got around. You got to make sure you put them in the best situations to be successful. And that's all the players.

Speaker 2

What is that process like feeling out the sort of strengths and weaknesses of your quarterback. Is that something that happens in the spring? Is I mean that happens you can't really get a sense for it until you reach live action. What is that sense of like, Okay, he can do this, he do that?

Speaker 1

Yeah, a lot of times, just through spring practice and getting through spring and then fall camp, you know, and just building the system around him. Uh. You know, the first year is a little bit different because of you know, when Mason came in, we weren't projecting projecting him to be the starter, but you know, through game one, I think halfway through game one he ended up taking over that job and kind of ran with the rest of

the year. Year one was definitely challenging for all of us, implementing a new system, having a true professional quarterback, you know, so we we had to keep it pretty simple and try to play you know, just try to play our base stuff, you know, but this past year with his experience kind of being here two in the system and getting a lot more confidence and uh, we were able

to open the package up a little bit more. We had a really good running back with Jeffrey Wilson, so we also you know, build some of it around and making sure that we were running the ball and uh putting in you know, the different schemes that you know, he was really good at running. And then uh, you know, just continuing to uh, you know, find different ways to make Mason comfortable and continue to teach him the offense and you know, reading defenses a year two just figuring

everything out. So you know, we evolved a little bit this past year and we're going to continue to grow and evolve. And you know, the biggest system is not evo. Biggest thing is not evolving too much too fast, you know, making sure we keep it simple. That's still one of the things that we like to do. And I take that from coach leads and their rate. You know, make sure that you know, keep your your your system simple

and your players are able to play fast. So you don't want to have too much in but at the same time, you also want to evolve and grow, So.

Speaker 2

I'm glad you said that. So what does a year one system look like? You said simple? You know, is is it a matter of the number of plays? It's Is it a matter of responsibilities When a quarterback's approaching a line, what is that that base level to set up? And as you mentioned, a fresh foot quarterback in a new system, what is that year one what does that sort of teaching process?

Speaker 1

Well, in the system, you know, we rely heavily on the quarterback to get us in good plays when they're not, you know, being able to check it. And the more you uh, you know, start trusting him and understanding that he understands leverage and what they're trying to get accomplished, the more you'll give him freedom. And so some of that is just some of the stuff we check. Other

things just keeping formations as basic as possible. You know, your base schemes, stuff you're going to do every single week, making sure you wrap them enough to where you know that they get comfortable with in it and trying not to you know, again each week, coming up with too many different schemes throughout a game plan at times, just especially our on it's just better to run what you

run and keep it simple for those guys. And the biggest thing, you just want to be able to let them go out there and play fast and you know, with some familiar things.

Speaker 3

Do you think your offense is difficult to learn relative to other schemes that might be out there.

Speaker 1

You know, I can't say that, you know, because I haven't been in some of those other schemes. I know that. You know, we feel like it's it's it's player friendly. You know, we have a three day install for a based offense. You know, we we basically, uh install our whole offense in three days. Now. It may be challenging on the front end, you know, but it really helps us.

I think it's better to overload them in the beginning and then as they kind of get through either Spring or Fall camp, you know, they they're able to once it's all in, it's pretty much from there, just different tags here or there. So you know, we believe in putting a lot on them on the front end because it's not as much as most and you know, let them grow within it and continue to watch tape and

understand it. But we basically run a three day script where you know, we may change up formations or something here and there. But we have base plays that we run on day one, base plays day two, and base plays day three, And you know, I feel like it gives us a lot of opportunities to rep those plays and not just call them a couple of days or times throughout a practice, but continue to rep them throughout the whole practice.

Speaker 3

To what degree, as a quarterback gets more comfortable in your system, do you turn over some of the decision making to him to help him modify, help him be part of the scheme that you're that you're going to run out there on a Saturday.

Speaker 1

Absolutely. The more they get to know and again, understanding leverages, the more time to have meeting with coach Row and watching tape understanding again defenses leverages. We start allowing them to do a little bit more and make more checks shoot. And you got a guy like Graham Harrow, who his senior year was h you know, my my last year

at Texas Tech. Uh. He had the freedom to check every single play and he did it quite frequently just because he understood what he liked and understood what they were trying to do. And the great thing for Mason, he is a guy that's been in the system has played in it. That understands that, you know, he's really learning and gaining a lot of knowledge through through Graham on just having another set eyes who has been there, who's done it. So you know, I think that's helped

Mason grow even faster. But at the same time, we're still we're still growing with him, and we're still not putting too much on him, but we are giving more freedoms as it goes. In the spring hadn't changed. We've continued to, uh see how much we can we can help him grow and start to take ownership of some of the stuff that we're doing.

Speaker 3

You mentioned this a little bit, Coach, but obviously you run a hybrid version right of the air raid, and you know you've had a chance over the course of time to evolve that. Now you've got Graham Harrell as your offensive coordinator. How have you seen defenses change their approach to what you're doing? What is the state of the air raid in twenty eighteen, just as it relates to how people are trying to stop it?

Speaker 1

Well, I think it's again it's been a little different back when we're at Texas Tech and really kind of my last year there, and last maybe with Foals at Arizona, people were playing so much different because we were so heavy and warrants balanced, and so people were playing a lot more coverages, you know, a lot more drop eight.

You know, you'd get certain blitzes, but for the most part it was you know, it was kind of no I wouldn't say a little softer, but I mean just pass past defense, you know, and just being able to run the football. As I started cheating people up, your play action passes have gotten a lot better. And again it takes pressure off that quarterback and your own offensive line. So, you know, people us all sorts of ways. Now every every week you're you know, you're you're seeing something a

little bit different. You know, some teams come in and play us a lot of too high. Other teams plays a lot of single highs. So some guys this past year, a lot of you know, we got a lot more pressure than maybe we've got the previous years. And so you know, I think, uh, people are again just like us. They're game planning, they're adjusting and trying to you know, see what best fits their game plan and who they have.

But by this time, you pretty much have seen everything and you know there's well there's offense, defense, best teams. I mean that the schemes you know, usually weekend and week out, you've seen some form of them, you know, with with different wrinkles and adjustments. But again, you just continue to grow and develop your guys and your and your coaching staff, making sure you're staying sharp en up

to date with everything you're seeing on tape. And again it's football, just going out there and execute.

Speaker 2

So one of those wrinkles or adjustments recently over the last few years, and we just sawt in the Super Bowl, was obviously the run pass option with some run run blocking and the quarterback is reading various players to decide whether he's going to hand it off or throw it quickly, ar throw it deep whatever. When was the first time, I guess you implemented that into your system and where did you first see it?

Speaker 1

We were doing a lot of that back when I was at Indiana off the run tags, you know, and basically what we were doing was more of the screen game off of it, maybe some sticks here and there, some quick hits throws or quick out route throws to the single receiver, having a maybe a three man game with some of your inside zone outside zone stuff, your three year server side. Maybe we're throwing some type of stick,

you know, something like that. But it really evolved when we went to when I was at North Carolina with Coas Fedora, and you know, we started, you know, really getting more involved with reading safeties and second level defenders, especially off some of your quarter stuff fit defenders when they're rotating you know, single higher where they rotate and you know, maybe throwing some more glances or or post routes and behind some different guys and trying to fill, uh,

trying to find that grasp in behind the linebackers or fitting and the safety is getting down in a fit. So it really started evolving more at North Carolina. And again that's one of the things that early on here I didn't put much on Mason that you know, it can get challenging and you have to wrap it a lot. So year one we weren't doing much of the run

pass off and stuff down the field. And so now that you know, year two, we kind of put a little bit more of that in and and again he's still getting comfortable with it, and the more you wrap it, the better he gets. And some of it again, is

what you play against every day too. You know, it's some of that stuff's a lot more, especially the second level breeds are a lot more complicated when you start getting three man front teams and extra cenders out of space and knowing if they're blitzing or not, and so versus some of the four man front teams. So you know, it's just getting all the different looks that you can get on those run pass option and the more you can wrap, the more comfortable we get and the better

they get. So again, that's something that we've continued to implement as we go, and again we haven't put all of it in, but now that we were kind of two years in the system of Mason and some of our experienced guys are coming back, especially at the receiver position, we're starting to do a lot more.

Speaker 3

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Speaker 1

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Speaker 2

So you're in Texas obviously, which is the cradle of high school football, and everybody sort of credits you know, high school. Those are the trends. You know, Texas opens things up maybe before a lot of people outside of the the lone star state in terms of offense, and we see that bleed over to college and now it's

bleeding over to the NFL. Are you getting a sense that quarterbacks coming in to college, especially from Texas or for whatever, are are better prepared, you know, are more comfortable doing things like you know, running an air raid type system, running our pos like do you feel like you have to rep less because of their experience.

Speaker 1

I think it's just different now it's order to get somebody under center and short yard situation. So you know, one strength becomes another another weakness, you know, and so it all evolves eventually, you know. And you know, I think this really took off. You look at you know, our first year back in nineteen ninety nine, when when coach Stoops came in and brought Mike Leach. Not many people were doing in the Big twelve the spread and

the air raid type stuff. And there's a lot more you know, option and power eye type stuff, you know, power football, and I think that's really in the state of Texas. So it was a lot like that. And you know, I think once the Big twelve kind of took off and you know, it kind of started evolving in high school and texts and you know a lot of teams start going more towards that spread, no huddle up tempo. You know. I think, you know, when Texas even have Vince Young, some of that stuff that they

are doing just kind of took off. And I think, yeah, it continues. It's like a rotating door. I mean, all these all these schemes, they end up going full circle one way or another. Sure, hopefully one day we'll look up, we'll I'll be running a triple option out of the other wishbone. Wudn't that be.

Speaker 2

H And like most modern offenses, even the option, even if it's a pro style, even if it's a spread or an air raid whatever, everybody's running their offense at various tempos. Sometimes they're more deliberate. Sometimes people are running, you know, at a faster tempo. And the keys for everybody is communication. So I guess how does that change when you're going from a more deliberate pace to sort of a hurry up pace.

Speaker 1

Well, everything we do, we can run our entire offense and coive minute mode or hurry up mode. And I think it's just find a way to It's like a language, it's like anything else, and making sure that you keep everything as simple as possible. The more words you have within a play, the more room for error there is on communication, whether it's being through a signal or or

a vocal. You know, I think as long as you can try to keep it short and to the point you're not putting too much in you know, your play calls the communication aspects easy. It's like learning another language, like learning Spanish. Once you know it, it's you know or read to some people mean the color red red,

and our offense maybe mean a formation, you know. So it's just learning that communication, learning that language, and keeping it simple for the guys, because again, I think sometimes when it gets challenging is when you have too many tags a play or too many words, and then there's always there for communication when the more you have, the more and more chances of the air you have. So just trying to keep keep it as simple as possible to the communication process.

Speaker 3

You talk about the teaching process, what do you find to be the most challenging component of that. Is it teaching players who just need a lot of information to learn your system in the vocabulary, or is it teaching your staff which might have experience but also some pre existing habits or notions of their own.

Speaker 1

Both, there's no doubt us both and making sure you hold each other can when they got to do the same with me, because again, we all grow comfortable in the things that we've done in the past. So when when when stuff gets challenging, you always want to go back to maybe something else you did somewhere else, or how you taught up somewhere else, And so it's making

sure you hold each other accountable. It starts with me first and making sure that myself and our staff are on the same page and communicate well with each other. And then it goes down to our players. But the biggest thing is you got to understand us. Everybody learns different with some of the visual guys. Some guys have to write it down, others, you know, have to see it on tape. You know, it's everybody learns a little

bit different. You got to find each and every guy and know each and every coach has to understand who's in their position room, how do they learn, what's the best way for them to learn, and you got to teach them that way. And that's why it's it's it's being a teacher. And you know, teachers all across the country have to find different ways to teach in their

classrooms and every student's not the same. And so just understanding that, putting your ego at the door and just finding the best way to, you know, help help everybody grow and get to the best they can. Base we can be the best of the team. Yeah.

Speaker 3

And to that end, coach, your promotion essentially from an assistant head coach or assistant coach to the head football coach. With more responsibilities, You've got more people underneath you. I would imagine that there was a learning process there as well. How did that process affect how you assess how you apply your own scheme when it comes to game day? Did that change?

Speaker 1

No? The biggest thing was, you know, just instead of being you know, basically the head coach of the Allen or you know, having forty something players, it goes to one hundred and sixteen players. It's still managing people, still about relationships. To me, it's still about you know, getting around your guys, hiring the best fits, not only best coaches, but really the best guys that fit your culture and are going to be believing and selling the same thing

to your players each and every day. And once you hire those guys, you've got to coach them up on, you know, what you want and communicate well what you want and then trust them to do their job. And that's I've been very blessed to be around guys that have hired me, have coached me up on exactly what they're looking for and let me do my job. And I think, you know, if you're always standing over someone shoulder or browbeating, I don't. I don't think that's uh

that works as well. So you know everybody, you know, I think as a head coach, you've got to be who you are. That's my personality. That's kind of the way I was brought up to the business. And again we got an unbelievable staff. You know, I can't say enough about coach haerb Brant's done a great job. You know. I'm always going to be involved on offense. Uh, you know, I'm always going to you know, help game plan and be a part of it and be coaching out there

on the field. And again I had to do it, you know with uh you know, Larry for Door and Kevin Wilson. Those two guys were offensive guys who really helped me grow and learn. But the one thing, uh I I learned, especially from Larry for Doras is uh he never questioned one call him on, you know, always had the opportunity to learn from him and asked him advice, and uh, he was always there to help us game plan.

But at the end of the day, he hired me to do a job, and uh, he let me do my job, and that's no different than than what I have to do with Graham again, coach him up and making sure that we're putting our players in the best situations to be successful, and then let him go out and do it, do a great job of doing it. And he's he he's done a fabulous job. He Uh, he has no ego. And our entire staff I have

no egos. Everybody's here to do one thing, accomplished the mission of winning football games and and and making sure we're great mentors with these kids. And uh, you know they've done a great job doing that. But I think Graham's special. You know, he's he's he has an unbelievable right future. He's as sharp as I've been around in the game.

Speaker 3

In the game, well, there's no doubt you guys have done a tremendous job thus far at North Texas. There's no reason to think that won't continue. And specifically, as it relates to offense thirty five and a half points per game last year, it's pretty apparent that you know how to install your system and run it effectively. So with that being said, where does this all go next coach.

Are there any emerging trends that you see on the horizon things around college football, just on offense that you think will play a larger role next couple of years.

Speaker 1

That's a good question. I think again, as offenses are evolving, short defenses, and you know, they're doing a great job. I think early on in some of the spread stuff, some of the up tempo, no no huddle, you know, they lagged behind a little bit defensively, rightfully. So, I mean it's a challenge. And you know now that as offense is evolved, the defenses the start of evolving, and so now you know, just trying to find different ways to you know, I don't want to say stay ahead

of the curve, but just you know, different ways. If guys are gonna you know, bring in more Nickels and and and you know, maybe maybe not as many what I call huge mike linebackers run stoppers, they're gonna have athletic guys with speed. You know, I think, uh, you're gonna have to do some different things in the run game and getting bigger guys, bigger sets, trying to pack you know, guys in a little bit more at times.

But who knows. I mean, I think it all evolves, and the biggest thing for us is whether it's year one to year two has always been better? Uh, you know, just because I think year two in the system, everybody gets a lot more comfortable. You should obviously progress and get better as we have, but you know the thing is from year one to year two there's always been a big jump. The thing I always am concerned about is year two, year three. Don't get comfortable, don't relax.

Make sure you because again we have a lot of returners back, and it's if you allow it to happen. It's very easy to get relaxed and comfortable, and when you do that, you're fixing to get your head beat in and not be as successful as you should be. So it's just always trying to keep those guys on the edge, having a chip on the shoulder, understanding that we have to get a day better, we have to get a week better, and we have to put it

all together. It all starts over every single janney, where after your bowl, it starts over and you go back to day one and make sure that again you continue that edge and that chip on your shoulder of making sure that you continue to grow and get better as coaches and players.

Speaker 2

I'm curious because you run offenses now for so long and you mentioned having you know, broader responsibilities now and relationship building and sort of dealing with everything on a day to day basis, and you bring in Graham Harrell, of course you are familiar with before and now he puts, you know, his fresh eyes, his stamp on the offense and is running things on offense day to day. What

has been that stamp? What has he added? What what is he tweaked that you know, maybe you didn't see before and you've thought, oh, that's that's sort of clever, that's a good idea.

Speaker 1

Yeah. Then just again just different tags that they've done in their raid, in the passing game, some of the passing game stuff that you know, we we maybe got away from, uh you know, throughout the years. And then some of the stuff, you know, some of the stuff I was maybe more comfortable calling other things than he is one thing and I am the other, which is fine.

Everybody has their uh, their go to plays, and every personality is a little bit different, and so you know, just making sure that again he has to stay true to himself as well. And make sure he's the one who's gonna have to call it on game day. So, like I tell him all the time, there's different things that we'll look at it. I may have done a couple of different tags here and there that you know, maybe he's not as comfortable with and we'll rep him.

And if he's not, I tell him to throw him out, because again, you're not gonna call him if you're not comfortable with them. So to some of that, you know, I think again, uh, him getting around me and maybe some of the right game he hadn't been around over the last few years, and so uh, you know, I think he's really learned to evolve with that and having to call it. And I think we're pretty balanced last year.

I think actually we're we're around fifty two forty eight somewhere around there, run past and uh, he's done a great job of managing the offense. But uh, you know, again, everybody has their own personality and how they how they call things, what they like. And again some of us that and again some of us what you have, who the quarterback is, who's the run back? What do we

have up front? What are we what are we doing to take care of you know, maybe some of the areas that we're we're not as strong and and how do how do we fit the It's all a puzzle. How do you fit it together to be successful? And you know, it's fun watching him, watching him grow and do it. And again our whole staff again, they work very well together and it's been great.

Speaker 2

And of course it's sort of early springtimes is when everybody starts freaking out over the NFL drafts and you now have a super Bowl winning quarterback, a super Bowl winning backup quarterback. You obviously worked with Mitch Trubisky at North Carolina, so you sort of have an idea about you know, high high level development of quarterbacks in your

system and beyond. So I guess, aside from heavier shotgun versus under center like you mentioned, where does the teaching and experience differ from more traditional pro style type schemes and more air raid, wide open schemes, where is that teaching different?

Speaker 1

Well, I think again, concepts or concepts to me, whether you're under center, in the in the shotgun again, you're you're running a lot of the same concepts, you know, and with different tags. Maybe here there your run game under center, maybe look a little different on the footwork and all that stuff, but are still inside zone, still inside's own you know, pen and pool, still pen and pool. I think where it comes is the more you do

from shotgun a pistol formation to under center. You've got to work those different techniques of you know, center snapped exchange, you know your your your run game, polish uh from under center, Uh, from the gun to the pistol, your plans, your footwork, you know, your your your rhythm, three steps and all that. And so the more you do and then those different whether you're undergun or pistol, I think

it's just more the fundamentals. It's just teaching the different fundamentals and then having enough reps uh, you know, to where you can be good at all of it. And again, uh, that that's the biggest challenge to me. It's it's the more you do. It's not so much yeah, scheme wise as well, but also the fundamental just the basic fundamentals of just center uh, quarterback exchange. You know you're polished

from there. Again, it's when guys haven't done it. It's not like you just walk up behind the center and snap the ball and be able to run in side zone. It doesn't work. But you gotta rep it and the more you wrap it, the better you get. But again, some of us time we only had. There's only so much time in the week with a twenty hour rule. Whatever it is to be able to rep and polish everything to where you're you're good at.

Speaker 2

It fair enough. And this is my most important question, in my last question, because I love food to an unhealthy degree. What's what's the best thing, what's the best thing you've eaten in the like sort of DFW Denton area. What what is your number one bite, your number one meal that that you've had up there?

Speaker 1

Man, there's there's so many great places around here and the again, you know, when I do go out, man, it's going to sound pretty base stuff here. But I haven't been around the Rudi's here in a long time. And I like me some barbecue, and we do already shows shows a Rudies, So I'll go to Rudy's all day long. But there's a there's a number of great restaurants around here. There's a great banana pudding soon, No, there's no doubt. And again I can sit Rudy.

Speaker 2

They'd all have okay, Seth Latrell North Texas Mean Green, an unbelievable turnaround job. He's been producing big offenses for a while, an up and coming program, an up and coming coach. Very cool to uh to nerd out with you over offensive stuff and thank you for coming on and we're looking forward to twenty.

Speaker 1

Eight Absolutely, I appreciate you. Man. We got to go go hey, we got to get a whole lot better if we get to twenty eighteen. Now we get a long way to go from when need to open that season up.

Speaker 3

All right, Dan, there you have it. It is coach Seth Latrelle from the North Texas Mean Green and that was awesome. He's really good.

Speaker 2

Yeah, they and he's really good. And the Mean Green last year were really good. You look at their numbers just looking back how efficient they were. And just year two, Mason find did a great job. What do you say through for over four thousand yards thirty plus touchdown passes and from what I can can tell, am I smart tie not particularly, But here's my opinion. Cepha Charles going places.

That name is going places, and you know, hopefully it's at North Texas for a long long time because that's a good place to be tie you have that much local talent, you can win games. So looking forward to seeing the evolution of the Me and Green and beyond. So I could not be happier we were able to have Seth on the show.

Speaker 3

Yeah, And to that end, whenever you've got someone on who is in the midst of a turnaround like the one we're seeing in Denton, that's pretty exciting to just be part of, you know, in whatever small way we can be a part of that and bring that onto the show again. North Texas one and eleven in twenty fifteen, the first year there, they win five games. Last year he wins nine games. Excited to see where he goes

in twenty eighteen. He said it at the end there as you hear so many coaches say, we got to get better, got to keep churning this thing forward. But if two years is any indication, coach Latrell knows what he's doing, he knows how to build something, and it's great to have him on here as part of our first scheme theme episode of March twenty eighteen.

Speaker 2

As far as I can tell ty, I know the Chinese New Year has like a different animal you know, it's the year of the monkey, it's the year of the dog, whatever, year of the Rats.

Speaker 1

Right.

Speaker 2

It almost feels like between the huge year for North Texas between Mitch Trubisky who he worked with, he was Markis Williams backup at North Carolina, but I think they overlapped a couple of years for the tar Heels and then having not one but two Super Bowl rings go to past Seth Latrell quarterbacks and Nick Foles and Nate Sudfeld sort of feels like the year of Latrell. Yeah, we have the summer of George did the year of Latrell could be the year of Latrell.

Speaker 3

It's been a good year, Okay, I'm fine with that. Cool to have him on Friend of the Podcast. Yes, all right, Well, we appreciate everyone downloading, listening. Please do write in let us know your thoughts. Solid Verbal at gmail dot com. We're also on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. You could find us anywhere where fine podcasts are sold, whether

it's Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Google, you name it. We are there and we will be here all college football off season talking about hopefully things that you find interesting in the college football world. Dan, I'm excited, got a lot more, a lot more good stuff to come.

Speaker 2

It's called outside tie for heating up the pod.

Speaker 3

Boom. Okay for that guy over there, my good friend Dan Rubinstein, and big thanks to our new friend coach Seth Latrelle from the North Texas, Mean Green. This is a solid verbal. We'll catch you all in a week. In the meantime, stay solid, Hey, favverballers, one more time, don't forget. Today's show is brought to you by proper Cloth, the leader in men's custom shirts. You need new clothes for any of your festivities. Go to propercloth dot com

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