Orange Is The No-Gimmick Offense

Dino Babers didn't waste any time promising Syracuse fans something different at his introductory press conference in 2015. He wove a vision of the Carrier Dome and told a story of the Orange's ability to move the football. He painted a picture resembling nothing of the rugged, hard football of the past.

The reimagined Orange, he said, would not huddle and would be faster than any other team in college football. It was something nobody ever brought to the Northeast, and it was designed to rock the ACC's establishment.

"Orange Is The New Fast" was born, and on Saturday, that offense will once again make its appearance against Boston College at the Carrier Dome.

"It can be challenging, especially if you're a pretty complicated defense that relies on making a lot of checks and adjustments," BC head coach Jeff Hafley said. "We pride ourselves on getting lined up and playing with fundamentals and technique. We have a bunch of calls where we can do that quickly (against a fast offense)."

The "go fast" offense requires a deeper look at the difference between an unorthodox scheme and a gimmick. Both have long been a way for football coaches to game systems, especially in college, but the difference is in their success. Both deployed strange, different ways of knocking opponents out of sync, but staying power turned a gimmick into a more palatable, consistent blend for variations throughout football.

The West Coast offense, for example, revolutionized the way teams throw the football. It drew inspiration from the San Diego Chargers' Air Coryell offense and evolved into the modern pro style after the 46 defense terrorized two-back lineups. It used short quick passes in place of running formations and eventually inspired teams to experiment with new ways of throwing the football. It eventually paved the road for the run-and-shoot's receiver motions and eventually inspired teams to find new ways to revolutionize the pass.

Those variations blurred the lines between different offenses and further introduced concepts from different mindsets. The option previously hammered the ground game in the flexbone but converted into the Run-Pass Option in the spread pass formation. The air raid went the other way and simplified all of it while retaining the no-huddle, quick-hit mentality that boiled the game into 60 minutes of two-minute drill.

"It can be very effective based on who you have," Hafley said. "I think you have to look at both sides of the ball when you do that. Looking at possessions and looking at the clock, if you can run a team out of the stadium and go really fast, it's scary. It all depends on the coach's philosophy. Certain Coach Babers has had a lot of success with it, so we'll have to prepare for it."

Syracuse's offense is somewhere in the middle of that amalgam with a balance of run and pass play calls against a warp speed, no-huddle mentality. The Orange average 235 yards passing against 156 yards per game on the ground, but they nearly evenly balance play calling with 234 pass attempts against 253 carries.

The strategy gained over 6,000 yards in 2018, but a changeover at quarterback this year caused that sync to hiccup over the past two seasons. Tommy DeVito shifted into the starter's role last year after an apprenticeship under Eric Dungey, but he went down injured earlier this season.

His replacement, Rex Culpepper, has a big arm but battled consistency issues in his prior starts this season. The son of NFL defensive lineman Brad Culpepper, he completed 19-of-40 attempts against Liberty but threw for 211 yards and three touchdowns. The next week against Clemson, he went 10-for-26 but threw for 175 yards and a touchdown, though he added three interceptions. Last week, he went over 55 percent passing with a 15-for-27 day against Wake Forest, but he committed three turnovers and only threw for 85 yards.

The inconsistencies dropped Syracuse into a low percentile in offensive production this year, but it's hard to judge yardage through sapped time of possession. Half of the Orange's offensive scoring drives lasted five plays or longer, but barely a third of that subset went for longer than five minutes. More likely are the drives that use quick hit plays to set up long bombs like the 69-yard touchdown pass to Taj Morris against Pittsburgh or the three explosive pass plays against Liberty. Even against Clemson, three plays set up an 83-yard rainbow to a nitro-powered Nykiem Johnson.

"You have to get your cleats in the ground and settle down to stick into the game plan," linebacker Isaiah McDuffie said. "You have to make your reads and not get caught up in the tempo or (speed) of the offense. They can go really fast, but you have to line up and make your reads. It's difficult sometimes, and Syracuse is going to make it difficult with (their) reads and passing concepts. We just have to stay in there and make the right decisions."

High speed offenses likely aren't going anywhere, especially in college. The Big 12 burst high flying offenses onto the national scene, and the national emergence of players like Patrick Mahomes and Kyler Murray, along with the air raid's matriculation to the NFL under Kliff Kingsbury, all but guarantee that no-huddle, fast teams are going to have a place for years to come. How effective they become, though, is dependent on the personnel the teams recruit and how much those teams are able to change the mixed dynamics surrounding football's next evolution.

"(Go fast) is something I thought about last year when I came back to college football," Hafley said. "On the call sheet, you have your first and second down calls, your red zone calls, and then you have your tempo calls. There are calls that you feel really good about on tempo, and you think they can work. There's times they'll go fast and times they won't. Coach Babers, everywhere he's been, he's done a really good job.

"He and (offensive coordinator) Sterlin Gilbert on offense, they have a really good system," Hafley said. "They can get up and crank it out as fast as anyone in the country. We need to be prepared for that, and we need to practice that. We need to make sure we sub guys and make sure we're fresh for four quarters if they want to go as fast as they can."

Boston College and Syracuse will kick off at 2 p.m. on Saturday from the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, New York. The game can be seen on the ACC's Regional Sports Network coverage, locally in Boston on NESN and locally in New York on YES Network. Radio broadcast is also available via the BC Learfield IMG Sports Network, locally in Boston on WEEI 93.7 FM.

Players Mentioned

Isaiah McDuffie

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