The Colorado Buffaloes have a brand-new offensive identity, all thanks to Brennan Marion’s go-go offense. The early word out of fall camp is that this system is a total nightmare to game-plan against. Longtime football analyst William Gardner calls it the first truly coordinated offense he has seen at CU in ages. In this new setup, the coaches aren’t just picking random plays out of a hat. Every single look is intentionally designed to set up the next one, keeping the defense in a blender the entire game.
“So, when we watch these plays here, it’s very clear for me from watching every play,” William Gardner explained the concept behind Marion’s offense onBrian Howell’s namesake podcast. “Every play has at least four viable options. Either the running back can carry the ball, the quarterback can carry the ball, or there’s a pass option on every single play. And I can show it on video, and its plays follow off of other plays.”
The real secret to this offense is how it freezes defenders by giving them way too much to think about. And because there are so many layers to guard at once, a defense can never just sell out to stop one guy.
Gardner pointed to a specific touchdown from a recent scrimmage to show just how sneaky this playbook gets. The offense lined up looking exactly like they were running a standard inside zone play to the right.
Instead, Juju Lewis read the defense perfectly, spun around, and threw it the opposite way to tight end crossing underneath for an easy score. It looked like a run the entire way, and it only became a pass play because the quarterback made a live read.
In most complex college or NFL systems, a quarterback has to drop back and read five or six moving parts in the secondary, which takes years to learn. Colorado’s new style completely strips away that overthinking.
The quarterback only has to make one clear read right before the snap, and one more quick read right as the play starts. This easy-to-learn style is also a win for the big guys up front on the offensive line.
Instead of making them hold passive pass-blocks for four exhausting seconds while the defense charges hard, the line gets to go on the attack. Their job is beautifully simple: get the hell off the ball, take an aggressive zone step, and go beat up the guy in front of them. The players even admitted that half the time, they don’t even care if it’s a run or a pass play behind them. They simply just block.
All of this unpredictability is giving Colorado’s own defensive unit a headache during camp practices. According to Howell, linebacker Liona Lefau, a transfer from Texas who started 21 games in the brutal SEC, admitted that this “Go-Go” offense is entirely different from anything he has ever faced.
“He goes, ‘There’re some formations that Marion will run that maybe I saw once or twice in a game,” Howell said. “He goes, ‘But, you know, they’ll run it just play after play after play!” And Liona was telling me, he said, ‘Look, we have certain ways you’re taught defense, but then within that, you’re given-there’s some rule breakers! And he goes, ‘You might have to-you do your rule breakers every now and then!”
So, by leaving the play-side edge defender totally unblocked, the offense gains an extra blocker and forces that lone defender into a guessing game where he is wrong no matter what he chooses. Once the run gets rolling, the secondary is forced to creep up in a panic, allowing the offense to just toss the ball right over their heads.
However, the most difficult thing is the execution on Saturday nights. While it may seem pretty feasible in theory and in Colorado’s preseason practice, the season opener against Georgia Tech will be the true test.
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