Recently I talked about the two different timetables coaches can use when rebuilding a program; today I want to look at different ways of using schemes to rebuild the program. When Bob Stoops took over at Oklahoma in 1999, he inherited a team that had been recruiting players to run an option offense and Rex Ryan's 46 defense. Former coach John Blake had promised to bring back the Wishbone offense, but had run more of an I-veer option attack, similar to what Nebraska ran at the time (but without the devastating line play and defense to go with it). Stoops then inherited an offensive line built big for run-blocking, and a bunch of athletes recruited to play RB and WR. Stoops decided to bring in Mike Leach from Kentucky to install his Air Raid spread passing scheme, in part to take pressure off his offensive line. Stoops took the athletes he had at RB and DB, converted them to WR, and they had to players to make their offense go. The fact that the Big 12 had never seen anything like the Air Raid helped contribute to Oklahoma's success in 1999, but Stoops' decision to implement a scheme that would best take advantage of the personnel he had was the biggest key to their success.

Stoops' background was as a defensive coach, so it is worth noting that he didn't resort to an exotic defensive scheme to try to turn around OU. He implemented his own defensive scheme, a 4-2-5 scheme, which he let his brother Mike Stoops and co-coordinator Brent Venables run.

However, some programs use a change in both offensive and defensive scheme to rebuild the team quickly. When Steve Kragthorpe took over as the head coach at Tulsa University in 2003, he hired Todd Graham away from West Virginia to be his defensive coordinator. Graham implemented the 3-5-3 defense he had coordinated at West Virginia. Using the 33 Stack scheme on defense and a spread scheme on offense, Tulsa improved from a 1-11 record in 2002 to 8-5 in 2003, with an appearance in the Humanitarian Bowl. By implementing a defense scheme that no one else in Conference USA runs, Tulsa was able to give themselves a schematic advantage, in that teams only had one week to prepare to face their defense, so they essentially had three days to on the field to get ready for something they had never seen before. Tulsa was able to hold explosive, wide-open offenses at Hawai'i and Louisiana Tech to under twenty points each because of their defensive scheme. Using Kragthorpe's spread offense, Tulsa was able to average 31 points per game, a dramatic improvement over the 2002 team, which averaged 19 points per game.

It is worth noting that after winning the national title in 2000, and the uptick in recruiting and surge in talent after that win, Stoops moved to a more traditional pro-style offense. Oklahoma went away from their spread roots altogether when they brought in Adrian Peterson, a player more comfortable from the I-formation. To accomodate Peterson and his own wish for a shotgun run-game, offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson moved Peterson back 7 yds from the LOS, putting him the equidistant to an I-back in the I-formation, and giving him more time to read blocks as he made his way to the line of scrimmage.

Last season, with Sam Bradford, DeMarco Murray, Jermaine Gresham, Ryan Broyles, et al, OU incorporated more of a no-huddle spread attack, hoping to take advantage of personnel mismatches by splitting Gresham, Murray, and Chris Brown out at wide receiver. OU still used some traditional pro-set plays in their running game, but they liked to use the spread to give Bradford more options on the field.

At A&M, Joe Kines tried to implement a multiple odd-front scheme on defense last season, first starting with a 33 Stack scheme, then moving to an even-front 4-2-5. A&M's problem was a lack of speed in their linebacker corps, and an underachieving defensive line, so neither scheme was very successful. When the players in the secondary are always the ones making the plays, especially in the running game, your defense is going to have issues. Kines is attempting to adddress this issue through recruiting, by bringing in speed, speed, and more speed in the 2009 recruiting class. The ability of these freshmen to learn the system and get on the field will dictate how successful we'll be on defense this season and the ensuing years to come.

On offense, Mike Sherman wants to run a pro-set, West Coast Offense scheme. However, with the issues we have had with attrition and injuries on the offensive line, a move to a more wide-open spread attack will be more beneficial. With the talent we have at WR  (Ryan Tannehill, Jeff Fuller, Terrence McCoy) , at RB (Cyrus Gray, Bradley Stephens, Christine Michael), and at QB (Jerrod Johnson), such a move makes sense. Sherman's adaptability and willingness to adapt our schemes to the talent at hand will hopefully allow him to rebuild the Aggie football team quickly. As I have said before, though, our fanbase needs to be patient as we undergo this rebuilding process.