Last year when the Wildfire was consistently losing to the Radicals I
wondered how Machine would fare against Madison Club. The argument in favor of Machine was that
when you take Wildfire, cut the fat and add in a few better players they would bring
the heat against Madison Club. Others
argued that with a smaller field the game would change and then Machine would
be fine. The argument for Madison Club
was simple, Radicals consistently beat Wildfire.
CHC brought the game, and Madison Club brought the heat. Why? Because
at a certain level ultimate is a function of how well you can throw a Frisbee and
how well you can move your body.
Throwing
+ Movement = Ability
I believe that regardless of the rules and weather conditions, ultimate
will boil down to which team can throw a Frisbee better and which team moves
around better.
The Iowa v. Illinois games of 2012 are fantastic examples. Illinois lost every game 15-9. My teammates would complain and point to Iowa’s
use of zones against us as the reason we would lose. They would totally gloss over the part where
Iowa would routinely dunk on us in the endzone on fast breaks, and for some reason
we were unable to admit to ourselves that the reason they could complete passes
in the wind when we couldn’t was because they were better throwers than
us. We had one great thrower; they had
three great throwers. They could stop
our uplines and get lay out D’s on us, we could barely find space against
people who weren’t even moving.
I have to also consider the game to go with NUT against EMU from last
year. It’s easy, tempting, and
comforting to tell myself the wind was the reason we missed Nationals. But how come EMU was better at dealing with
it? Maybe it is because they had the best thrower and the best athlete in the
game. They had the throws that could get
off the trapside and downfield, they had the athletes that could dunk on us.
I fear that some will interpret what I’m saying to mean strategy and
adjustments aren’t important. Strategy
and adjustments can and do help teams win.
You can have all the athletic talent in the world, but if people are
just running in circles you’re never going to get anywhere. Every team has a level of ability, based on
the formula above, and strategy and adjustments are nothing more than making
sure that ability is maximized efficiently.
Let’s say you have a freak athlete defending an upline, but he starts
in the backfield and gets beat up the line.
No he didn’t lose because he was the worse athlete; he lost because he
was a nincompoop. You need to put the
right strategies and structures in place in order to position that athlete in a
way that best exploits his abilities.
However, take that same athlete and put him in perfect upline defense
position, and say he still gets beat, at this point you have to question
whether or not he is as good of a mover as you originally thought.
This percolates into my least favorite part of coaching. “Hey Bruns, I thought I was in really good
position on defense there. I was three
yards deep of my guy, but he still beat me deep, why?”
Well you were in good position but you still got beat, so you’ll need
to start deeper of your guy and totally give up the under, and now this guy is
going to wreak havoc on us because this is a match up where he is a much better
mover than us and there is very little we can do, we’re going to get beat
throughout the game. There is no “lifehack”
for getting roasted, you’re going to have to gut this out and try to keep the
margin as small as possible.
How do I become a better
mover?:
How do I become a better
thrower?:
Throw every day. TED.
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