Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss?

Last year after pitching a perfect game against Wisconsin and a damn fine game against Michigan in the absence of Mark Dantonio, Don Treadwell was offered and accepted a position at the University of Miami(Not Lil' Luke Incorporated). Dantonio continued his family approach and bumped Roushar up to Offensive Coordinator. This isn't Roushar's first rodeo in the OC role, nor his second or third, in fact it's his fifth turn in the role.

The History:

2004 - Illinois
1998-2002 - Northern Illinois
1994 - Ball State
1989-1992 - Butler

Luckily, the power of the internets reaches securely back to 2004. Let's take a look at that 2004 Illinois Offense and see how they did.

Scoring Offense 9th of 11.
Passing Offense 7th of 11.
Rushing Offense 6th of 11.
Total Offense 6th of 11.

Percentage of Plays Passing: 46.6%
Percentage of Plays Rushing: 53.4%


2010 MSU Percentages

Percentage of Plays Passing: 45.7%
Percentage of Plays Rushing: 54.3%

Our hero Kirk Cousins said it best:

"I’m not sure me or anybody else on our offense will be able to tell a big difference," Cousins said. "The system, the philosophy, really comes from (head) coach (Mark) Dantonio, and while there are some subtle changes, a few different formations and plays, we’re still going to try and run the ball first and be able to throw when we want -- or have to throw."

If you wanted to be completely overwrought about the whole thing, you could say the subtle change is that out of 800 plays we'll end up throwing the ball one more time per game if we used Roushar's 2004 percentages.

Outside of run/pass percentage balance an article from Joe Rexrode of the Lansing State Journal indicates the difference might not be in the plays but the sequencing:

"I think what you try and do is get a high completion percentage," said Roushar, who previously served as offensive coordinator at Illinois, Butler, Ball State and Northern Illinois. "You know, move the football on early downs and keep the chains short. You get into third-and-2s, third-and-3s, very manageable, stay out of the third-and-longs. So we're putting a high premium on completions on early downs when we do throw it, whether it be play-action or three-step (drops) or whatever we're doing. And then at the same time, trying to find those places we can take shots down the field."

Honestly, the offense's play on Friday night would seem to support this. We looked to establish the run, kill them in playaction and run the occasional 5 WR set just to keep people off-balance. I liked in 2007 and 2008 that we ran lots of end arounds and I'm hoping that after the Keshawn Martin end-around on Friday that we see lots of that this year.

While I'm sure you wouldn't find an OC alive who says that his focus is to get us into 2nd and 7, it's interesting to hear him put a premium on getting us into 3rd and 2 by using more passing on first down. Is the new boss the same as the old boss? It's certainly too early to tell empirically. I think a more apt comparison is Coke and Pepsi, they are essentially the same thing, but with just tiny little differences. I think we'll see as the season progresses.