Football Players Compare Playbook, Classes

If you're a Princeton coach or player looking for a tip for this weekend's game, you're out of luck.

We don't have the plays, and we wouldn't given them to you anyways.

A minor controversy broke out two weeks ago, of course, after it was revealed that the Green Bay Packers had the San Francisco 49ers' script for the first 16 offensive plays. Apparently, a copy belonging to Bill Walsh fell into the opposition's hands.

That broaches an interesting subject, one which every armchair quarterback has asked at one time or another. Just how do football players learn all those offensive plays?

One newcomer to the offense is senior Mike Kent. He played defensive end for two years then switched to tight end this season. Tight ends draw double duty as blockers and receivers, which made the transition that much tougher. So if anyone knows anything about learning the Harvard football system, it's Kent.

"Learning a playbook is not the easiest thing to do," Kent said. "We have 10 or 12 running plays that you have to know the blocking schemes for. I don't even know how many pass plays we have; you have to learn to recognize defensive fronts and secondaries."

Kent said the playbooks for the two sides of the ball are very different. "On defense, you react as a play comes toward you. You have a few stunts, but it is overall easier to learn."

Let's make one thing clear before any large, angry men come knocking at The Harvard Crimson's door: defensive players are just as intelligent as anyone else around. Admittedly, however, that side of the ball centers around quick reactions and instincts, inborn qualities which are only partially refinable,

So while a defensive playbook involves a few blitzes and coverages, Harvard's offensive plays go in a three-inch thick binder.

Most players will tell you that mastering this binder is tough. That's not enough for this paper. This paper is not afraid to ask the hard questions and to take in-depth reporting to a new level.

Does a Harvard education help at all?

"I think all players find it difficult," Harvard coach Tim Murphy said. "But I think the players at Harvard find it easier."

That's an encouraging sign, coach. But the people who can best answer how the complicated multiple pro-set offense compares to classwork are probably the players themselves.

"There is no parallel at all," junior flanker Jared Chupaila said.

"It's kind of related but not really," junior quarterback Jay Snowden said.

"It's a lot more fun to learn plays for football," senior tailback Eion Hu said.

So maybe a strong connection does not exist. But we might as well clear up a few misperceptions while we're on the subject.

"My assignment's easy," Hu said. "I'm a running back, so I just have to know where to run. Pass plays and blocking assignments are a little more complicated, but football's not mentally tough for me. It's the offensive line and quarterbacks who have the hard job."

Hu's probably being modest as usual, but he also has a point about how complicated the offensive line is. Someone who does not realize the details of the position might insult linemen's intelligence, but the position involves as much thinking and awareness as any other on the field, both in terms of run blocking and pass blocking schemes.

"Each play is blocked differently against different defenses," captain Sean Riley said. "We go up against three or four different base defenses in a season, so we have to know how to block each of those."

By now, offensive linemen probably have come to grips with the fact that they will never receive the credit they deserve; only the blame when they blow an assignment. The people who do get the glory are the "skill-position" players, headlined, of course, by the quarterbacks.

"You have to sit down and read the book like a homework assignment," Snowden said. "But when the play's going 80 miles an hour, it's different from a lot of X's and O's on a sheet of paper."

"It's a lot more complicated than a high school offense," freshman quarterback Rich Linden said. "Early on during camp, I put in an hour a night studying the part of the playbook we'd practiced that day."

Whether players read the playbook like a textbook or not, everyone has at least one hour of meetings per day listening to coaches analyze tape and watching them diagram plays on the board.

So the next time someone calls a football player a dumb jock, ask him what a 35 Veer Right is. Then tell an offensive lineman what he just said.