Arkansas High School -- "we go for it on EVERY 4th down"

[Guest KHS 89]

Watched a segment this morning on Real Sports w/ Bryant Gumbel regarding The Arkansas High School football coach Kevin Kelley. Very interesting perspective on kick off returns and punts. They go for it on every 4th down and kick onsides kicks after scoring. He's won three state championships in 9 years.

http://highschool.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=892888

Would be interesting to see someone in this area adopt this philosophy to see how teams would respond.

[Bigdog]

Just a little perspective on AR high school ball.  a 5A team in AR is probably equivilent to a 3A team here.  7A is thier biggest level,  and the majority of those schools are in the NW Arkansas area,  and most of those teams play each other at least a couple of times in district before meeting again in the playoffs.  Bentonville , Rodgers, Springdale, Fayetteville and Fort Smith are all within about 50 miles of each other and make up the majority of the teams, with the rest around Little Rock.  Bentonville and Rodgers are similar to Ned and PNG, right across the highway from each other.  Bentonville has one three state championships in the last few years.  The point being, I don't think this would fly in TX.  The football is much more competitive here.

[BellBiz30]

We were having that discussion here also and feel the same way

[dayton]

[quote name="bigdog" post="1168269" timestamp="1327957384"]
Just a little perspective on AR high school ball.  a 5A team in AR is probably equivilent to a 3A team here.  7A is thier biggest level,  and the majority of those schools are in the NW Arkansas area,  and most of those teams play each other at least a couple of times in district before meeting again in the playoffs.  [size=14pt][b]Bentonville[/b][/size] , Rodgers, Springdale, Fayetteville and Fort Smith are all within about 50 miles of each other and make up the majority of the teams, with the rest around Little Rock.  Bentonville and Rodgers are similar to Ned and PNG, right across the highway from each other.  Bentonville has one three state championships in the last few years.  The point being, I don't think this would fly in TX.  The football is much more competitive here.
[/quote]

that's where wal-mart headquarters is right? I think they've got quite the setup over there..... just a fun fact.

[img]http://bentonvillek12.org/bhs/images/stadium.jpg[/img]

[Bigdog]

Yep. thats an awsome stadium.The building at the end of the stadium is an indoor practice field. I didn't get to make a game though.    Wal-mart makes some pretty big contributions in the area.  At least the Tigers are Black and Gold, so I didn't feel too out of place.  Although Fayetteville's mascot is the purple dogs.  That was weird.

[rollinac]

[quote name="bigdog" post="1168269" timestamp="1327957384"]
Just a little perspective on AR high school ball.  a 5A team in AR is probably equivilent to a 3A team here.  7A is thier biggest level,  and the majority of those schools are in the NW Arkansas area,  and most of those teams play each other at least a couple of times in district before meeting again in the playoffs.  Bentonville , Rodgers, Springdale, Fayetteville and Fort Smith are all within about 50 miles of each other and make up the majority of the teams, with the rest around Little Rock.  Bentonville and Rodgers are similar to Ned and PNG, right across the highway from each other.  Bentonville has one three state championships in the last few years.  The point being, I don't think this would fly in TX.  The football is much more competitive here.
[/quote]

There's been stories on this guy out there for quite a while.  It's hard to say that it wouldn't fly because it's so much against the norm.  There's also the guy (don't know his name and not going to look it up) out there who did all the statistical analysis on football that recommended going for it 4th and 4 from your own 20 that wasn't received well either.  The real question is would anyone in TX even take a chance on someone with this aggresive of a philosophy....I somehow doubt it but who knows.  Of course there are still the guys out there that hate the spread offense even though it's pretty much a proven winner at this point.  If you ever read Mike Leach's book he ran into quite a bit of resistance through his early coaching career at places like Valdosta State where "they said you have to be able to run the ball up the middle to win."  I wouldn't dismiss this guys ideas until someone actually tries them.  It can't be comforting for a coach to be ahead 35-7 in the middle of the third quarter and know it's not nearly a big enough lead because the other team can score 4 TD's in a much shorter period of time then a regular team.  As I recall, the balls to the wall philosophy is pretty much how the Bills came back on the Oilers in that playoff game back in the early '90's.