The Oregon Ducks are the story of this college football season. Oregon has had sporadic moments of greatness in its football history, but the Ducks are now currently ranked #1 in the college football polls and revolutionizing how football is played.
The Ducks are a great example of why execution of a differentiated plan is so critical to success. As Gregg Easterbrook of the popular ESPN column “Tuesday Morning Quarterback” wrote on October 12, Oregon’s offensive playbook consists of approximately 20 plays. My high school playbook had about 40 plays, and the typical college gameplan (the number of plays they actually can call for a game) has about 50 plays. The Ducks do not let simplicity stop them, as they average over 50 points a game this season.
Oregon only plays slightly slower than this - photo from ZacyTGrey via Flickr
Oregon’s great success this year provides a number of great tips for businesses seeking to execute better.
- Learn how you can be unique in your market – The Ducks run a similar offense to a lot of teams. The popular “spread option” offense is now run in some variation by many college and high school teams. Oregon’s unique differentiation is how fast they run their plays. Where most teams run a play every 25-30 seconds, Oregon runs a play every 15 seconds. Oregon’s opponents simply cannot imitate that type of pace in their practices.
- Executing a simple plan flawlessly is better than poorly executing a complicated plan – The Ducks run their smaller playbook in an incredibly precise way. Oregon’s players are always faking at full speed. They are able to practice those 20 plays to perfection instead of working on 50 plays.
- Adapt your preparation to fit how you run your business – Football practices can be long and tiring. It is common to see practices run nearly three hours. Oregon’s practices are as short as 90 minutes because they operate so quickly in their sessions. Your business needs to prepare and plan to maximize how it’s unique in the marketplace. If your company emphasizes premium prices and quality, then you cannot always focus on reducing prices or features. You have to work on engineering and product features to be successful.
- Work on your communication – Many teams either send a substitute to tell the quarterback a new play or have people use hand signals to communicate the play. The Ducks signal their plays with boards of photos. This allows players to process information visually and watch static images instead of flailing hands and arms.
I have had a hard time thinking of a single word to describe Oregon’s offense. They are definitely fun to watch and are creating a new breed of offensive football. If we remember the lessons of execution and communication from Oregon’s amazing offense, we can simplify our planning and focus on great execution.
