Australia's Mouth Full After Eating So Much... Words, That Is...

Poor Australia. They just couldn't help themselves. Hey. They only lost the previous match against the US by 11, so why not believe? Misguided by the thought of actually beating the US, Australia talked smack. Lots of smack.

Carmelo Anthony was quoted as saying about Australia, "They were doing a lot of talking, saying they were going to beat us and do this and that to us..." And that they were doing, bumping their gums that is. They talked trash from pregame interviews all the way through to the end. Someone should have shown them the scoreboard at some point during their 116-85 quarterfinal loss to the US.

The way that they tried to bait the US into fights with hard fouls and trash talk was completely ridiculous. It's actually sad that the refs allowed this to go on, but hey it's international rules. Isn't that the norm? Australia made it known crystal clear that the US did not scare them.

But being brave and being beat down sometimes go hand in hand. Don't believe me? Talk to Australia. All hope was lost within 4 minutes of the thrid quarter starting as Kobe scored 9. Next thing you know the US is up by 26 points. Game set, match. And if you listen hard enough you can still hear them talking... Oh wait. I'm sorry. That's sniffling. Could someone please get them some milk for that bowl of fowl-mouth they're eating? Thanks.

So who's the next opponent for the US? Probably Argentina. Kobe certainly hopes so. At a news conference, Kobe told reporters that he wanted to play the defending champs. Enter Argentina. No matter. We predicted this from the start. And if it does turn out to be an undefeated Argentina, you still get the sense that the gold medal is coming home to the US. If you want to shock me, show me a defeated US team. Not happening. No way, no how. Even if you lose three of your starters, the depth of the team is unheard of. What do you think it would cost to put together an NBA team with those guys?

See you later for the victory speech.

Havoc Sports,

Roman

Football Formations and U (As in lsU)

Now that we have that all taken care of, let’s get to some sports talk.

I’ve been looking at different formations that football offenses use to fit their talent level and there’s one that I keep going back to because I like it so much. That’s the pistol formation. Granted, there’s a time and place to use more different formations but I just like the options that you can run out of it. It starts with a front box of 5 with a WR on either side of the ball. You then have a TE lined up on the LOS. Between the TE and WR you put another WR off the LOS in the Slot back position. You then line your QB off the ball (but not as deep as in the shotgun hence the name pistol) with a RB behind him.

To be able to run this offense well however you need a few things. Good WR’s, Good RB’s, and a good RB that can catch the ball (Slot receiver).

All this got me thinking. What team would benefit from this formation. A team that wants to take the pressure off its QB. You’re not asking him to make a deep pass, only put the ball in the hands of someone that can make a play. That’s why I think this is one of the main formations that LSU will use in the coming year. Or, they should if they’re smart.

We already know that Crowton (the Offensive Coordinator for LSU) uses the pistol formation and it worked really well for him. I think the problem was however, that they didn’t use our TE enough, we had too many WR’s last year to use an as-of-then unproven TE. But with the loss of Early Doucet, and a true power back in Jacob Hester (that is needed in the original pistol formation for running) I think we’re going to see some adjustments in Crowton’s offensive use of the pistol.

The reason I like that formation so much is you can tweak it just a little and show completely different looks to the defense. You can either put the Slot WR or the RB in motion, or line up the TE off the line and use him as a receiver, you can swap out the Slot WR with a Full back and put either back in motion.

What becomes really interesting however is if you have a good pass catching TE. That’s what gives the defenses a ton of trouble. If you line your TE off the ball making him an eligible receiver then the defense has to account for him too. Put a TE in motion and that pulls a defender to your weak side. (Stick with me. I do have a point.) If you have another back that can catch the ball, that gives you the option to put him in motion to the weak side instead of the TE.

LSU has that tight end with Richard Dickson. He proved he was a good pass catching TE in the BCS NCG last January.

With him, LSU can now do all the above mentioned things.

Now, If you haven’t heard, LSU is stacked at RB. In fact, that’s one of the reasons that the pistol formation could be useful two fold for them. Gives the QB options without asking him to do too much and gets LSU’s most skilled players on the field. A variation of the pistol that I've been discussing with a few people that might work is take out the weak side WR and replace him with a FB.

Why does this work? One of LSU's Running backs Charles Scott has bulked up to a nice 230~ lbs. But while he's gained size, he's still clocking in at a 4.5 40-yard time. That's more than enough speed to go with his power to play the full back position. As a matter-o-fact Les Miles was noted as saying recently that one of the reasons for Charles Scott bulking up was because he wanted his best players and leaders on the field all the time.

Keiland Williams has shown flashes of being a big player maker and as such his speed to the outside and size makes his ability to fill the traditional RB position quite well. One of the few things to watch with KW however, is how well he holds onto the ball (reports are saying he's better at it than last year). Also, according to Fall Camp reports, he's still having trouble hitting the inside hole well, for two-fold reasons. 1) He seems to not have very good vision of where holes are opening up and 2) He hits full speed as soon as he touches the ball and runs up the back of his blockers instead of waiting for a hole to open up.

Richard Murphy is the Barry Sanders style running back. He's the lightest of the crew but with that comes the best quickness and cutting ability. He's super dangerous and can catch the ball quite well making him the perfect slot WR for the pistol formation.

This makes LSU's backfield absolutely dangerous when in this pistol formation. Put Byrd and Murphy on the line and let Dickson line-up right off the LOS and put him, Scott, or Williams in motion to the weak side and you'll have a very confused defense.

Is there some worry at the QB position? You bet. But here's one formation that Crowton can use to counter a lack of experience at QB.

Want to learn more about football formations?

Football Formations

Open Havoc Begins

Today I thought I’d start off by outlining the basic ideas behind Open Havoc and what future plans are in store. Open Havoc has been a running project of mine for many years now. It’s kind of always been how thoughts have come out of my head – in a very chaotic and non defined way. Open Havoc was my way of attempting to take those chaotic / non defined thoughts and focus them in on important subjects.

What I got was many of my friends telling me that I needed to get into broadcasting. I’d meet people on the street and their first response to me would be, “Do you work in television / radio?” after my response they’d always reply, “You seem like a person that would be good at that.” Well, here I am years later still deciding how I would use this open havoc approach to not only get my thoughts out there, but get them out there in a way that would be interesting, informative, and entertaining.

I tried many different avenues of this. Through art / comics, photo blogs, etc. etc. etc. The problem was I always came back to the same point. I’d get tired of these other things, and in my free time what was I doing? I was calling into Sports Radio talk shows doing just what I loved to do. Talk Sports.

Finally after enough prodding (mainly by my brother) I decided to take my open havoc idea and use it on sports. And here’s where we are now.

Am I a professional journalist? No. Hell I sucked at Spelling and English in high school. But what I do have is a passion to entertain and talk sports.

Instead of trying to cover all sports and cater to everyone – I know that’s not possible and I don’t plan on doing it. I’m going to focus in on the Southern region of sports. CFB, NFL, NBA, and yeah whatever else I find interesting too mostly with a southern region slant. Let’s face it, if you’re looking for up to the minute late breaking news, that’s not me. But if you’re looking for fun and informative sports, you’ve come to the right place. Whatever comes out of my head is what you see. Very opinionated, very informative, very chaotic. Very. Open Havoc.

In the future as the blog develops I’m going to add a few more aspects to it. There’s going to be more official site posters, more people giving you Open Havoc worthy opinions. I’m also going to be starting a podcast in the future where once a week either I on my own or with a few other people talk about current sports topics. We don’t have a big network behind us, so we can say or do whatever we want. Plus there’s many more ideas coming around and as they come to fruition you’ll hear more about them.

Oh and let me say this, my idea is not to be like some shock jock who just says controversial stuff to bum up listeners/visitors/viewers. I could care less about that type of person everyone knows Tom Brady is a good QB, some man getting people fired up by saying otherwise is full of crap and not worth people’s time.

Also let me put this up front too. I’m a fan just like anyone. A homer. A ever hopeful that my team can come back with 3 seconds in the 4th quarter down 7 to win the game. So if you detect any homerish comments in my posts, just roll with it. I’m under no obligation to present “just the facts” to you and while I will try to keep it from getting out of hand, I don’t have to. You want reports, go get them somewhere else. You want something entertaining, come here. Odds are the reason you’d be upset with what I have to say is because you’re a homer too.

No, I have no idea what type of format I’m going to use yet. Will it be one topic and that’s it? Sometimes. Will it be multiple stories? My thoughts about recent developments? Give me ideas, I’ll listen. As of now, here’s how we’re going to do things:

I’m going to try to have some form of informative article that goes beyond just Player X did Y to Player Z. Lately I’ve been in a big kick about the strategies behind how an offense lines up on the line. So at some point I’m going to go into the technical aspects behind a plays. But along with that I’m going to try and see what news is out there and give a little bit about all that. Daily? Eh. . .I’ll try that, odds are however that we’re looking more at 3 – 5 times a week.

First Post, Saints WR Race

For the first post I make I thought I'd talk about a topic that has a lot of people talking lately. The Saints like most teams right now are battling it out in training camp to try and cut their roster down to 53 (from 85) and one of the most intriguing battles is taking place in the WR core.

Trying to pick the depth chart at any position right now is no easy task, much less the WR spot. There are so many things to take into consideration when anybody makes a comparison that it’s near futile. But that won't stop me from trying, here’s my WR depth chart / explanation break down:

Before I start my comparison, I was wondering if anyone knew of a website that listed a WR’s catchable passes. It’s easy to find how many catches a WR has, but 50 catches don’t mean much if he was thrown to 150 times. Ok, on with the breakdown.


* Who’s Making The Team *

Colston
Patten
Meachem
Arrington

The first two choices are easy. We all know that Colston and Patten are making the team.

Meachem and Arrington also though, will make the active roster list. Both for mainly the same reason. They have too high of a ceiling to just sit on the practice squad. They’re not going to last there. They’re our two best shots at having a break out player to support Colston. Meachem will end up getting the #3 spot. Arrington plays very similar to a Colston role, goes over the middle and has solid hands, he’s an interesting prospect. Either way, they’re on the team because we don’t want anyone else to have them.

It’s simply a matter of: Unknown potential > mediocre known potential. Yes, you run a risk but if at least one pans out to be good, then it was worth it.


* Who’s On The Bubble *

Henderson
Copper
Moore
Green

This is where it gets really interesting because the options are vast. Let’s basically look at what we have here player-wise.

Henderson – Stretches the field. Iffy hands.
Copper – Ok hands. Good ST’s guy.
Moore – Good hands. Doesn’t do much after the catch.
Green – Undersized WR. Decent return man.

Let’s compare that to who we already have making the team.

Colston – Dependable. Can go over the middle. Good hands.
Patten – Brings experience / leader to the WR core. Decent hands. *Don’t undervalue experience. It’s worth a lot*
Meachem – Good Speed. Decent hands. Good YAC.
Arrington – Good hands. Finds his spot well. Can go over the middle.

So to figure out who else is going to make the team we have to look at what those on the bubble bring that isn’t filled with the other WR’s.

From what I can tell, there’s a clear player that isn’t going to make it simply because we already have bigger / better with his talents. That’s Moore. While he has good hands, his play making ability just isn’t that big it seems. He’s good for the catch, but can’t break it for the big gain.

That leaves us with ST’s beast, Field stretcher, and return man.

Copper gives you good ST’s play but is basically another decent hand WR. Is his ST’s play enough for him to make the team? I think with Payton’s focus on trying to make ST’s better, he’s not going to sacrifice Copper for one of the other two WR’s. Coppers in.

Henderson brings an ability to stretch the field that none of the other WR’s possess (one day maybe Meachem will be able to do this, but he’s unproven as of right now – plus I see Meachem as a play maker with the ball in his hands more than a field stretching deep ball player). The problem with Henderson is he has trouble pulling the ball in for the catch. The way I see it however is, I’d rather a guy that can catch the ball 75% of the time for 60 yards, than a guy that can catch the ball 90% of the time for 6 yards (this is the reason I take Henderson over Moore). Is this a popular way of seeing things? I don’t know. But I just feel Henderson skill on the deep ball will keep defenses a little more true. Due to this, he makes the team.

Green is sadly just the odd man out. He looked to be having a good TC as far as returning goes, but his lack of WR abilities really hurt him. If we could somehow give Lance Moore Green’s return ability or give Green Moore’s catching ability, he’d be sure to make the team. The problem is we can’t. Green doesn’t offer enough WR ability to hold a spot just for a return man, especially when we have players at another position that can return the ball well. If Green was our only man back there, I’d say yes. But it’s simply too crowded for him. He’s not going to make the team.


* Final Group *

Colston
Patten
Meachem
Henderson
Copper
Arrington