Post by rainman on Sept 15, 2007 6:06:30 GMT -5
You just can’t copyright offense
By Bob Hertzel
For the Times West Virginian
COLLEGE PARK, Md.— For much of this season — and last — West Virginia’s offense was the talk of football because of what it could do.
By the same token, for much of this season — and last — West Virginia’s defense was anything but the talk of football because of what it couldn’t do.
And what couldn’t it?
For the most part, it couldn’t stop offenses that sure looked an awful lot like West Virginia’s offense, which was the brainchild of Rich Rodriguez.
And so it was during a slow moment last week — as if there is such a thing when a football coach has but five days to ready his team for an important road game against as solid a team as Maryland — Rodriguez took a moment out to answer a most interesting question.
Would he, knowing how his offense tended to revolutionize football and turned it into a wide-open affair where quarterbacks pass for five touchdowns on a weekly basis and running backs run for three or four touchdowns almost as regularly, like to try his hand at defensive back in this era.
It was a question that had been thrown at South Florida Coach Jim Leavitt, fresh off an upset of Auburn, earlier in that day.
“It’s a challenge going against those spreads,” said Leavitt, a one-time free safety at Missouri. “I remember breaking my nose trying to tackle ol’ (Pete) Johnson of Ohio State. That was tough, but I think it is tougher going against the spread.”
Like Leavitt, Rodriguez would far rather be designing offenses today than trying to stop them, many of them based upon the theories that he developed first at Glenville State and then honed at Tulane and Clemson before bringing them to WVU, where he has turned them into one of the nation’s most feared offenses.
“What you are seeing nowadays is a lot more varied,” Rodriguez said.
“You have the spread and a lot of versions of the spread. There’s a lot more creativity nowadays than there’s ever been. I’m talking about more than five years ago, more than 25 years ago.
“It’s more challenging, I think, not only for the defensive staff but for the defensive players because of the uniqueness. We’re all copycats. We see someone do something pretty neat, we’re going to put it into our offense.”
At that point Rodriguez said something that lit one of those comic book light bulbs in the head.
“There’s no patent on schemes,” Rodriguez said.
Let us, for a moment, dissect what Rodriguez said.
First, he noted, that football coaches are “all copycats.”
One team starts throwing the forward pass, pretty soon every team is throwing it — and that was in the leather helmet days.
Don Faurot invents the split-T at Missouri and before you know it Bud Wilkerson has built a dynasty around it at Oklahoma.
Davey Nelson invents the wing-T at Delaware and before you know it half the country is running it.
Tom Landry runs the shotgun on third down in Dallas, pretty soon everyone is running the shotgun on third down.
Darrell Royal devises the wishbone at Texas and next thing you know everyone’s running it like they have Earl Campbell.
Copycat football, that’s what it is.
Why?
Because of the other thing Rodriguez said.
“There’s no patent on schemes.”
Imagine if there were. What if a football coach tried to patent — or more to the point — copyright his offense. What if he could get exclusive rights to his unique formation or blocking patterns or the plays that he has designed, putting almost as much work and thought into it as they did to come up with the secret formula for Coca-Cola.
“I wish I’d done it 15 or 16 years ago with the shotgun zone read,” said Rodriguez, giving the scientific name for his “Spot the Ball” offense.
Strange, isn’t it, that Florida can win a national championship with an offense Rodriguez originated but can’t use the WVU flying WV insignia.
That’s copyrighted, the offense isn’t.
You think Rodriguez is “Richie rich” now with his new contract that pays him about $1.7 million a year, how much would he make if other schools had to pay him for the rights to his offense?
It isn’t insane to think that devising a football offense is an “intellectual property” and such property can be patented.
“Fascinating,” said one attorney when contacted with the idea.
While not versed enough in patent law to come up with a “sound clip” as to why it can’t be done, the attorney said he felt it wasn’t unique enough and that there were too many options that could be put into an offensive scheme to patent it.
To go with the Coca-Cola analogy, the attorney said that “Coca-Cola is always Coca-Cola.”
Or is it? Did you ever have a Tab? A cherry Coke? They are the spread offense with a twist, so to speak. Yet Coke is protected while the only protection an offense gets is from its offensive line.
“Let’s put it this way,” the attorney said. “If it could have been done, it would have been done. If you could have done that, you’d have a lot of coaches running around as multimillionaires.”
The truth is, we already have that, thank you.
By Bob Hertzel
For the Times West Virginian
COLLEGE PARK, Md.— For much of this season — and last — West Virginia’s offense was the talk of football because of what it could do.
By the same token, for much of this season — and last — West Virginia’s defense was anything but the talk of football because of what it couldn’t do.
And what couldn’t it?
For the most part, it couldn’t stop offenses that sure looked an awful lot like West Virginia’s offense, which was the brainchild of Rich Rodriguez.
And so it was during a slow moment last week — as if there is such a thing when a football coach has but five days to ready his team for an important road game against as solid a team as Maryland — Rodriguez took a moment out to answer a most interesting question.
Would he, knowing how his offense tended to revolutionize football and turned it into a wide-open affair where quarterbacks pass for five touchdowns on a weekly basis and running backs run for three or four touchdowns almost as regularly, like to try his hand at defensive back in this era.
It was a question that had been thrown at South Florida Coach Jim Leavitt, fresh off an upset of Auburn, earlier in that day.
“It’s a challenge going against those spreads,” said Leavitt, a one-time free safety at Missouri. “I remember breaking my nose trying to tackle ol’ (Pete) Johnson of Ohio State. That was tough, but I think it is tougher going against the spread.”
Like Leavitt, Rodriguez would far rather be designing offenses today than trying to stop them, many of them based upon the theories that he developed first at Glenville State and then honed at Tulane and Clemson before bringing them to WVU, where he has turned them into one of the nation’s most feared offenses.
“What you are seeing nowadays is a lot more varied,” Rodriguez said.
“You have the spread and a lot of versions of the spread. There’s a lot more creativity nowadays than there’s ever been. I’m talking about more than five years ago, more than 25 years ago.
“It’s more challenging, I think, not only for the defensive staff but for the defensive players because of the uniqueness. We’re all copycats. We see someone do something pretty neat, we’re going to put it into our offense.”
At that point Rodriguez said something that lit one of those comic book light bulbs in the head.
“There’s no patent on schemes,” Rodriguez said.
Let us, for a moment, dissect what Rodriguez said.
First, he noted, that football coaches are “all copycats.”
One team starts throwing the forward pass, pretty soon every team is throwing it — and that was in the leather helmet days.
Don Faurot invents the split-T at Missouri and before you know it Bud Wilkerson has built a dynasty around it at Oklahoma.
Davey Nelson invents the wing-T at Delaware and before you know it half the country is running it.
Tom Landry runs the shotgun on third down in Dallas, pretty soon everyone is running the shotgun on third down.
Darrell Royal devises the wishbone at Texas and next thing you know everyone’s running it like they have Earl Campbell.
Copycat football, that’s what it is.
Why?
Because of the other thing Rodriguez said.
“There’s no patent on schemes.”
Imagine if there were. What if a football coach tried to patent — or more to the point — copyright his offense. What if he could get exclusive rights to his unique formation or blocking patterns or the plays that he has designed, putting almost as much work and thought into it as they did to come up with the secret formula for Coca-Cola.
“I wish I’d done it 15 or 16 years ago with the shotgun zone read,” said Rodriguez, giving the scientific name for his “Spot the Ball” offense.
Strange, isn’t it, that Florida can win a national championship with an offense Rodriguez originated but can’t use the WVU flying WV insignia.
That’s copyrighted, the offense isn’t.
You think Rodriguez is “Richie rich” now with his new contract that pays him about $1.7 million a year, how much would he make if other schools had to pay him for the rights to his offense?
It isn’t insane to think that devising a football offense is an “intellectual property” and such property can be patented.
“Fascinating,” said one attorney when contacted with the idea.
While not versed enough in patent law to come up with a “sound clip” as to why it can’t be done, the attorney said he felt it wasn’t unique enough and that there were too many options that could be put into an offensive scheme to patent it.
To go with the Coca-Cola analogy, the attorney said that “Coca-Cola is always Coca-Cola.”
Or is it? Did you ever have a Tab? A cherry Coke? They are the spread offense with a twist, so to speak. Yet Coke is protected while the only protection an offense gets is from its offensive line.
“Let’s put it this way,” the attorney said. “If it could have been done, it would have been done. If you could have done that, you’d have a lot of coaches running around as multimillionaires.”
The truth is, we already have that, thank you.
, except for you MJ 
, I like you. 