Posted by SJSdude on 3/14/2009, 8:16 am
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Weekly Interview with San Jose State's Terry Malley: March 13
Q: You have been in the Arena Football League the last 15 years which is predominately a passing league. Once you get into the outdoor game there has to be a blend of both passing and running, do you think it will be tough for you to not want to call pass, pass, pass on every down?
Malley: "I think that you need to be able to do both of those. Of course my background is more of a passing type, but in order to get the passing lanes you want to get you've got to be able to run the ball. I think the better we can run the ball the better off our passing attack is going to be, and probably the higher percentage of big plays you are going to get.
"One of the goals of the program this spring was to become a more physical team and be able to handle certain situations with more physicality than we did a year ago, and that usually means we have to run the ball better."
Q: You mentioned in our last interview that a new offense had been installed into the program, can you elaborate a little more on the schemes, formations, etc. of the new offense?
Malley: "A year ago they became more of a spread team than they had been in the past. They didn't play with an attached tight end very often and ran somewhat of a no-huddle offense. There were a higher percentage of snaps in the shotgun than before.
"I think what we are in the process of doing right now is saying, 'Hey, we like these parts of the new offense and would like to keep them. Do we have players that can execute those roles? Do we have some people at tight end so we can become more efficient in our short yardage packages? Big guys that can go over the middle and do some dirty work and that type of thing.' And there are other parts like the option where we see a lot of potential. So a little bit of combining what was already in place and working with some new concepts."
Q: Do you think we can expect to see a greater passing to running ratio than in year's past?
Malley: "I still think you have to be fairly balanced. One of the things about the spread offense is that is also spreads the opposing defense. I think we really want to establish our running game and we have a good, mature offensive line so we would like to see how that happens.
"It's interesting, Oregon is a spread team but Oregon spreads you to run the ball. When we were watching spread teams during the offseason Oregon was one of the teams that we studied and they run the ball very well. Our idea is to spread the offense to be balanced, but we want to be a good running team and we're aware that this program was in 2006 when they won the bowl game and had great success."
Q: The NCAA adopted new timing rules last season where the play clock would be set to 40 seconds upon a dead ball play or an out of bounds play instead of 25 seconds after spotting the ball, as an offensive coordinator are there any advantages/disadvantages to this rule?
Malley: "To me it's a little bit different because we were able to have coach to player communication through a headset in the AFL so that is going to be a change. I think the other thing is the ability on long plays to get your team in and out of the huddle. That is something you have to address. Even in the AFL with a short field we had to prepare our team to get in and out of the huddle quickly on long plays."
Q: Does a no-huddle offense help you do that?
Malley: "One of the things Coach Tomey is a big believer in is changing the tempo of the offense. We'll play with different offensive tempos throughout the game. We'll take advantage of the no-huddle sometimes to try and catch the defense off-guard, and other times we will take our time to make sure we have the right personnel on the field."
(Each week leading up to and during the 2009 NCAA football season, Examiner.com will be interviewing the San Jose State Quartberacks Coach, Terry Malley. The interview with Coach Malley will be presented in a Q & A format and will delve into his extensive football knowledge, discussing anything from players, teams, injuries, formations and more. If you would like to submit a question to ask Coach Malley please send it to scottwcooley@gmail.com.)
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