In football doesn’t the best offense score the most points?

Only Maybe

“Complimentary football” is a phrase that is becoming more and more celebrated.

The idea being Scoring matters but so does stopping your opponent. It is generally believed that a defense on snap 45 will be much better than the same defense on snap 88. There is a real value in controlling the ball, moving the chains, controlling the clock and running up plays on an opposing defense while your own defense rests. An offense that can do that and score 27 points might be better than a Dirk Koetter offense that scores 34 points but hangs their defense out to dry.

You may be saying “even if that is true, there is no field position or time of possession in baseball so how does a team play complimentary baseball?”

Pitch counts. Starting pitchers are better on pitch 65 than they are pitch 96. They are also better on pitch 5 of an inning than on pitch 22. UCLA’s coach calls 5+ pitch ABs for his pitchers “destructive”. His hitters look for them. His pitchers avoid them. He embraces complimentary baseball and his teams often somehow win. Willie is the exact opposite and his teams often somehow lose.

Analytics will tell you that the best pitching outcome is a strikeout. Runners don’t advance and there are no errors*. Willie’s pitching philosophy is to chase these optimal outs. Great? No!

If Willie’s pitchers get ahead 0-2 they often spend the next 2-3 pitches out of the zone trying to get a hitter to chase. Or they will be out of the zone changing eye level up with high pitches to set up a strikeout down in the zone, inside/outside etc. This leads to high strikeouts and strikeouts are good. However, when Ks come at the expense of turning a 3 pitch at-bat into a 6 pitch at-bat it is bad complimentary baseball. This approach is exactly why Jacobs and Martinez would find themselves at 100 pitches in just the 4th inning basically every game. It’s not because they have command issues. It’s Bloomquist misunderstanding analytics chasing a strikeout instead of embracing complimentary baseball.

On the offensive side we would do the exact opposite.

Example against Irvine, Vu works a 7 pitch walk (Great), Jackson gets beaned after 4 pitches (Great)! 2 on with nobody out, 6th inning, trailing 7-2 Irvine pitcher can’t find the zone and we are playing complimentary baseball. We are 11 pitches into an inning with 2 on and we haven’t even put the ball in play. Willie then asks the next hitter to crowd the plate, take pitches and pressure a struggling pitcher right? Wrong! We sac bunt and give away a 1 pitch out. Horrible.

Compare that to Irvine. In the 4th inning their hitter leading off the inning takes 2 balls and is hit on the 3rd pitch. When they see the ASU pitcher struggling do they give up a 1 pitch out? No!. Their DH is the next hitter and looks at 5 straight pitches getting a full count before he hits a HR. To be clear, the HR for Irvine is irrelevant. I'm more interested in the approach. Willie says your pitcher is struggling, let me give him a quick out. Irvine says your pitcher is struggling let me crowd the plate and see how long we can ride this gravy train.

This is why ASU fans think we have a pitching depth problem. We don’t. We have a pitching philosophy problem. A partial understanding of analytics (strikeouts are good) has us intentionally chasing “destructive” scenarios for our pitchers. Conversely we have an offensive approach that bails out opposing pitchers from destructive scenarios. It's the baseball version of doubling down on a 10 (good analytics) when the dealer also shows a 10 (it just became destructive).

How many times during the Dirk Koetter era (who couldn’t have cared less about complimentary football) did we leave Sun Devil Stadium saying “ahhhh we had them. We just ran out of gas. We let that one slip away. We need depth”. Similarly, how many times last year with Skat controlling the ball in Q1-Q3 did the 4th quarter go our way? It's not luck.

With Willie, he has these hitters that hit .360 swinging at first pitch after first pitch and we have pitchers that strike out 10 guys while running up pitch counts. .360 hitters and 10k pitchers sound fantastic. But, it’s like a Dirk Koetter QB who looks amazing on paper but goes 7-5 because his offensive philosophy causes his defense to play 95 snaps per game.

Ask yourself, do you watch Irvine, UofA, Cinci, BYU, and even UCLA and think “we are just out classed by talent” or do you think “we got out executed and I can’t put my finger on why”? We aren’t out executed; we just don’t play complimentary baseball.

Ask Willie what the program needs and he will tell you resources. Dust correctly asks “but what resource does UofA have that we don’t”. The answer is a couple of assistant coaches who have been to Omaha and understand complimentary baseball.

Graham Rossini will likely sit down with Bloomquist this week and review his performance. If he is retained I hope Rossini focuses on 3 things with Bloomquist and his program

1. Manipulating a schedule that maximizes RPI
2. Complimentary Baseball
3. A plan for NIL

These are things how I see them. What did I get wrong? What would you discuss with Bloomquist? If you made it this far it must be the off season

Yes, ASU is one of them

Did confirm the report that Willie Bloomquist will remain as ASU's coach. Extension is TBD so he has one year left at $400K.

ASU's decision is a prudent one, in my opinion. Yes, he has one year left on his contract, and a potential extension is TBD. But with the expansion of the scholarship number to 34 next year, which should increase NIL, too, this program can take the next step and show marked improvement.

Since Graham Rossini is out of town and didn't have a chance to meet in person at length with Bloomquist who got back last night, and a quick decision had to be made in terms of retaining him. Again, time will tell if this comes with an extension.

What do you think?

Agree or disagree?

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On this episode, Zac Swanson discusses how coming back home and the program culture helped reignite his love of football, his year back in the Valley, how he made the switch from futbol to football, his growth in the trenches, the power of a pita, and much more.

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