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SALT LAKE CITY — ESPN's Sports Science breaks down why BYU offensive coordinator Robert Anae's "Go Fast, Go Hard" works — scientifically.
Sabermetrics has long been the talk of the baseball town — where conventional baseball wisdom has been replaced by the empirical data of numbers.
It appears that football is following suit at the collegiate and professional levels.
John Brenkus, host of Sports Science, focuses on the ultimate "Go Fast, Go Hard" disciple, Chip Kelly — who coached the Oregon Ducks last year and is now the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles.
Kelly ran the second fastest offense in major college football. His Ducks ran nearly three plays-per-minute of possession.
The Cougars run a similar read-option style offense that has been gaining traction in the college ranks, but has not caught on in the NFL, until the Eagles lured Kelly away from Oregon to install his electric offense in Philadelphia.
Brenkus explains why the offense gains the advantage at this manic pace. Oregon ran nearly 80 offensive plays a game in 2012 — Anae is shooting for at least that number.
Brenkus focus was how it would affect the NFL players, but the numbers work for the college game as well.
The average NFL play lasts about five seconds and each team team averages about 64 plays-per-game. Offensive and defensive linemen generate about 820 watts of power per-play and over 260-thousand joules per game — with the "Go Fast, Go Hard" tempo, defensive linemen will generate nearly 325-thousand joules. That's 25 percent more than normal.
The idea is that the more tired you are, the more mistakes you will make.
Brenkus concludes that this leaves a defense vulnerable to big plays on offense. During Chip Kelly's tenure at Oregon, the Ducks led the nation in passing and rushing plays of 25 yards or more.
The key is to condition your offense to prevent fatigue — that's the "Go Hard" part of the equation — otherwise, the offense will be susceptible to the same big play vulnerability.
