Introducing The Outside Zone Newsletter
Welcome to The Outside Zone, a thrice-weekly newsletter about the plays and schemes that define college football, viewed through a “film study” lens to learn exactly why those plays and schemes succeed (or, why they don’t).
In those three weekly dispatches, I’m hoping to put out one current game review (on Monday afternoon), one throwback game or play review (on Wednesday afternoon) and one current game preview (on Friday afternoon). That changes, obviously, if there’s no college football season, but tentatively, that’s my schedule.
In those dispatches, we’re going to take a deep dive on how some of college football’s best and worst (my favorite) offenses and defenses work, and what you should be watching if you want to find interesting football in places that you usually wouldn’t look.
That means that for the most part, I’m going to try to stay away from teams that I would consider traditional contenders, partially because I already cover one of them on a full-time basis, as do a whole bunch of other people. That doesn’t mean that a suddenly awesome Georgia offense or a suddenly awful Alabama defense wouldn’t get a look, just that writing about an undefeated team routing Rutgers for the 18th time in a season isn’t particularly interesting, even if the scheme is solid.
Now, that doesn’t necessarily apply to game previews, which will be centered around whatever game I’m most excited to watch in any given week. Sometimes, that might be the primetime ESPN game. Other times, it’ll be a Sun Belt rivalry that you have to watch on a Twitch stream of someone’s television. My hope with previews is to give you some context to a game that I think is going to be good, and quality of team doesn’t really matter to much to me in that regard. If there’s an interesting match-up, I’ll write about it, essentially.
But, for current reviews, unless there are extreme circumstances that absolutely force my attention to the blue bloods of the world, I would much rather share cool and interesting things that are happening with teams that you may not have known anything about before. I think that college football is best consumed when you consume all of it, and if that means banging out 2,000 words on Arkansas State, I’m more than happy to take that on.
Lastly, on the throwback studies, this is going to be a mixed bag. Old games are my treadmill entertainment, and if I happen to stumble upon something that I’d like to know more about, it’ll be featured here. If a subscriber has a team or game they’d like to know more about, they should contact me, because I’ll absolutely take requests. The throwback games are going to be where I get loose and wild.
If all of that, or any of that sounds like your sort of thing, I would love to have you aboard. Subscriptions are $5 a month (or a discounted $50 a year, saving you $10), which will get you all three articles a week on a strict schedule, and depending on how many Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays we have in a month, as many as 14 significant and quality pieces of content a week.
If you can’t swing that, I completely understand. While I would love to have your support, I know as well as anyone just how tight money is, especially right now. If you’re interested but can’t justify a purchase without first seeing the product, I’ll be sharing those Wednesday throwback film studies for free, both on my Twitter account and, if you sign up for a free membership, in your email inbox. If you like what you see, I’d love to upgrade you to the $5 a month club so that you can get all of the content I’m putting out.
Oh, and before I go, I have a quick content note on what this newsletter will look like up until the season starts (or indefinitely, if there is no season). Essentially, it’ll be that Wednesday throwback three times a week. There may be the occasional play breakdown or interview with a coach, player or analyst of interest (very excited about what I have lined up here), but for the most part, we’re going to dive into some of college football’s best and worst schemes of all time.
Because of that, those requests are especially important right now. If you have a favorite game, a favorite team, or anything else that you just want to know more about in college football’s illustrious scheme history, do not hesitate to shoot me a message on Twitter.
I’m so excited to hear from you all, and I can’t wait to get started. The first true dispatch of The Outside Zone newsletter will be in your inboxes this Wednesday, July 22. Our topic: Dick Tomey’s legendary “Desert Swarm” defense, and the 1992 Arizona Wildcats.