Some Insight on the New Penn State Playbook

in “time off.” If so, and I were playing, I’d have the damn thing memorized ASAP. I would assume a coach would expect the same.

Which is to say, they might forgive some minor mistakes, but my coaches (speaking as someone whose playing stopped in HS) would not tolerate people who had no clue when they called out a play. That would get you benched quick. No matter your physical prowess you cannot execute your assignments if you can’t remember them.

As hbeach08 said, there are not that many base plays and even the “base plays” will use codewords/modifiers to make positional adjustments and many more combinations of plays from a relative few. Once you learn the “code” to interpreting each part of what the hell something like “62 Thunder Cutback Z Flash” means, you can pick out the parts that are applicable to your assignment and just focus on what you have to do on that play (and maybe adjust that based on what a couple of other people are doing). Offenses can be immensely complicated as long as the playbook uses inherent similarities in plays to structure communicating assignments. In fact, I’m quite certain they can be more complicated than is actually useful.

How many different ways can you put together a play and how many of those combinations will be more useful than just tweaking assignments based on the looks the defense is giving (e.g., “run that route 3 yards shorter and you’ll be right in the seam in their zone”)?