2011 -- Headed up?

I added the question mark because on the one hand, Hart should be headed up with a lot of returning starters, particularly on offense. But one also has to consider this group was disappointing in that they were 4-1 in the pre-league portion of the season when they were very inexperienced and then 1-4 in league. Just when they should have been hitting their stride, the Indians stumbled at the end of the last four games.

Offense: 9 of 11 starters return. My thought right now: probably 2 of those starters, maybe more, will be playing a different position, possibly on the other side of the ball next season. I would not be surprised to see one or more get benched. There was some serious talent on both the JV and Freshman teams last year and I would not be surprised to see several of those kids get into the mix from the gitgo.

Defense: several returners plus some potential coming up. I think a couple of next season's seniors may be hard-pressed to hold on to positions.

Question: will we see some new dynamics on offense or defensive schemes. Hart Dad remains very skeptical about the efficacy of Hart's base 4-3 defense against spread schemes. Take a look at the scores from 2003 (a championship year) forward. That's when we started to see just about everyone run a spread all or a portion of the time. Hart has been giving up a lot more points since that time. I'm thinking one almost has to have two defensive schemes, one to face a traditional running non-spread type offense (where Hart's 4-3 is usually very effective) and one to face a spread. Hart's conservative schemes allow the spread and/or mobile quarterbacks far too much freedom. When Hart started running a spread, run and gun offense back in 1989, a gambling mentality was pervasive on offense. Probably need the same aggressive gambling mentality on defense now.

Offense: It's gotta happen quicker. I was using the stopwatch function on my phone when I was watching Hart and Canyon, both spread offenses but with much different philosophies. On average, Canyon had the ball beyond the line of scrimmage -- running or passing -- substantially faster than Hart, typically 1.5 to 1.9 seconds faster. That's huge. And with a fairly immobile QB. Valencia's offense may have taken more time to develop a play but had an extraordinarily mobile QB and built that mobility into the play design. The point: either construct the offense around schemes that develop far more quickly (Canyon), or build around a very mobile QB. But slow-developing plays built around a fairly stationary QB (the Hart model not necessarily unique to last season) allows the defense to control, hence a far lower offensive output.