Lou Burruss
I wasn’t there, but as I was watching the live feed of Fury dismantling Brute
Squad I was struck by a sense of déjà vu; I felt like I was watching Godiva.
I’m not talking about Fury and Godiva’s dominance, I’m talking about a single
little cut that is the backbone of both team’s offenses. It’s a cut I haven’t
seen other teams (men’s or women’s) use. I remember watching Teens (Christine
Dunlap) wreck people with this cut, getting wide open again and again and
again, so it was a little weird to watch Fury doing the same thing.
The cut begins as a short in-cut from the middle of the field. (The set up
differs a bit in Godiva’s vert and Fury’s ho.) The in-cut is angled just
slightly to the inside-out lane. Then, at a point maybe eight yards off the
disc, the cutter plants and goes almost horizontally to the open side. Wide
open. Pretty typically, this cut is coming around 4-6 in the stall count,
providing a nice secondary option up field before looking at the dump.
This cut raises so many questions for me. I used to think it was effective
only because of the physical differences between the men’s and women’s game. I
can’t imagine trying to make that cut on a Furious or Ring defender — they’d
flatten you as you tried to come back across to the open side. The Condors ran
a J-cut for years, but theirs was much longer and was designed to test the
defenders determination. If you just gutted it out, you could shut it down.
But if the effectiveness is because of the differences between men’s and
women’s why aren’t more teams using this cut? Is it athleticism? Then why
hasn’t Riot used it? Is it system? Why hasn’t anyone copied it? Is it talent?
Everyone has players talented enough to make the cut and the throw is easy,
it’s a 10 yard open side swing pass.
After talking to Tully Beatty, Matty Tsang, and watching the video I think I
have the answers I need about Fury, but not about Godiva.
Lou Burruss
Catching the pull requires four players: a 1, a 2, a Short Fill, and a Deep
Fill. Everyone else can have their heads up their asses and it’ll be okay.
The 1’s job is to catch the pull and make the first pass.
The 2’s job is to set themselves up to catch the first pass, catch the first
pass and then deliver the big throw to the 3.
The Short Fill’s job is to read the pull and the defense. If the first pass
isn’t going to be contested they say, “You’re okay.” If the defense is going
to cover the first pass, the SF says, “The D is on.”
The Deep Fill’s job is to read the pull and set the stack in the correct
place. It doesn’t have to be the Deep Fill, it could be the 4 or the 7. It
should be someone who knows what they are doing and can read the field.
A note on the terminology: it’s NYNY’s. The play goes 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 with
Short Fill, Deep Fill, and 7 stepping in as necessary should the play break
down. You will find that this terminology is good and will hold regardless of
what kind of offense you are running. Basically, your 1 is your set up man,
your 2 is your hucker, your 3 is your best player and in-out threat, and your
4 is your deep threat.
Lou Burruss
1. Face the mark. This classic piece of throwing technology dates back to
the dawn of modern Ultimate when Windy City and NYNY ruled. The uneducated
thrower looks upfield at the stack and they position their body to reflect
this. When they want to throw a dump they have to turn 270 degrees, which is
incredibly slow. (Or turn their back to the field, which is incredibly dumb.)
By facing the mark, you shorten the turn to 180 degrees. If you want to throw
open side, you merely step out and away from the mark for an easy release.
2. Play off rhythm. All good defenders depend on the rhythm of the game
and the offense to anticipate the action and the deny-dump mark is no
exception. The marker is relying on you turning to the dump at a predictible
point in the stall count (usually 5 to 7.) If you throw the dump on stalling 3
sometimes, they aren’t ready.
3. Play fast. This is similar to playing off rhythm, but is a team
strategy rather than an individual one. The deny-dump mark is dependent on the
mark establishing. If you are releasing on stalling 1 or 2, they can’t ever
set up. It’s only if you hold the disc up around 6, 7 or 8 that you’ll get in
trouble.
4. Develop arounds. Get your around throws quick and confident. The
better they are, the better the marker has to be to take them away. Typically,
the deny-dump mark relies on catching you by surprise and if you are quick and
confident, you have beaten them before they realize they have to take you
seriously.
Lou Burruss
Once you’ve mastered the basics (like the two-spot mark) and the not-so-basic-
but-standard (like denying the dump on stalling 8), it’s time to move on to
learning individual players.
Of course you know all the moves of your nemesis; you play him five times a
season and cover him every point you’re in. Of course you adjust your game to
meet the challenge. Your match-ups become games within games within games
where the slightest mistake yields victory. But I’m not talking about him. I’m
talking about the guy you’ve never seen. The guy on that team from somewhere
who is suddenly lighting you up. How do you stop him? You’ve got to know him
and the faster you can know him, the faster you can deal with him.
The trick is to pay attention. The first time you see someone make a throw
they’ve told you something. What you are looking for is that special throw,
that game changer. The first time you see someone make this kind of throw,
take note. The second time you see the throw, you know they’ve got it. Now go
take it away. Do they have a forehand huck? Play flat and tight and get a hand
out there early. Do they have a step-around backhand? Be ready to take that
big hop back and away, then close back in. The particulars don’t matter. What
matters is that you take away something they’ve proven they can do.
Twice, no more.
As always, you can contact me at louburruss@gmail.com.
Lou Burruss
I love the Huddle. I think the work they do is a great contribution to
Ultimate, I love reading the other contributors’ work and I am honored that
they would include me as an author. That said, I can’t believe they are making
such a colossal mistake in having ONE Spirit of the Game issue.
Spirit of the Game is essential to Ultimate. Every time we step on the field
to play, we are participating in what makes Ultimate unique and special. If
you know me, you know I’m not a hand-holding, let’s-all-love-each-other
player. But you are an idiot if you think that Spirit doesn’t matter, however
you choose interpret it. To dedicate a single issue to Spirit of the Game is
like having an issue entitled “Offense: Discuss” or “Defense: How do you do
it?”
Rather than answer their question about Spirit, I’m going to lay out the
issues Ben and Andy should have arranged.
1. Does Spirit of the Game work? Lots of people think it doesn’t and they
have their reasons. Lots of people think it does and they have their reasons.
This is the fundamental question and a natural beginning.
2. How will Spirit of the Game affect the future of Ultimate?
rec.sport.disc has a lot of opinions about this one, but it’d be nice to hear
from someone with a brain.
3. What is the call game? The concept of a call game (and gamesmanship in
general) is an essential one to understanding Ultimate, but too many players
don’t even have the words in their vocabulary. A primer on fundamental aspects
of Ultimate is something The Huddle does well, so it’s shocking they haven’t
included this one.
4. What’s your best call game move? We all know about stepping into the
mark on stalling 8 to draw the foul, but what about all those subtle sneaky
moves club players use? Wouldn’t you like them to share those little tricks
(and how to stop them?) This issue should probably be anonymous.
5. Should you use the call game? Beyond what it is (Spirit Issue 3) and
how to do it (Spirit Issue 4) stands the ethical question: should you use it?
I had a couple older guys take me aside and give me some advice I should have
headed (thank you Will Healey and Gary Brady) but that I ignored. All the
young players out there should have an equal opportunity to ignore good
advice.
6. Great mistakes you’ve made. Everyone has calls they wish they could
have back. This is the chance to put them down on paper and get some much
needed expiation. I have a hard time imagining anyone stepping up to write
this one, but if they did, it’d be great reading.
7. How would you ‘fix’ Spirit of the Game? We all have our little pet
projects and ideas on how to improve Ultimate. I’d be interested in hearing
how people want to adjust the core principle of our little game.
8. Refs or observers or nothing? Give everyone a chance to weigh in on
this rec.sport.disc classic.
9. Which article would you recommend and why? I always want a chance to
rebut or amend or just comment on what the other authors have written. Given
the importance of Spirit, a rare The Huddle opportunity to reflect on the
other contributors’ writing would be a pleasant way to wrap things up.
There you go. Nine issues and probably not enough.
As always, you can contact me at louburruss@gmail.com.
Lou Burruss
The trick to a good set play package is selecting the right plays for your
team. Here are some basic guidelines:
1. Make it worth your time. There is only so much your team can learn, so
you want to make sure you are getting the most out of what you are practicing.
If you are playing elite club ultimate, over half of your possessions are
going to be off of the pull, so learn more pull plays. If you are playing
college ultimate, only a third of your possessions are coming off the pull, so
put more energy into transition plays (dead disc plays and fast breaks.) For
example, Sockeye typically runs about 15 pull plays (40 in the play book) and
2 or 3 dead disc plays. This year, Oregon ran 3 pull plays and 2 dead disc
plays.
2. Keep it simple. The-best-play-of-all-time is also the simplest. Stand
five guys on one side of the field and let your best player get open on the
other. Who runs this play? Jam? Ironside? Sockeye? Carleton? Burning Skirts?
Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. I’m not a big believer in trickery. Learn a few
simple plays, get really damn good at them and shove them down the other
team’s throat.
3. Space. The-best-play-of-all-time is also a classic example of managing
space. Using the set circumstance of a pull, the offensive team can open up an
entire sideline and the deep space for a single cutter, making it very
difficult for the defender to cover all the options. It is also possible to
organize the players on the field to take advantage of other kinds of space.
The two commonly used formations are the German and the flat stack. I like the
German because I think it gives the main cutter some nice side-to-side space
that leads to some great downfield options. I don’t like flat stack plays very
much because the lanes are too crowded and you have to move several cutters
out of the way in order to make space for the intended target. Why not just
start with them moved out of the way? Admittedly, things are a little
different at the elite level because of the sophistication of the defenders,
but the basic plan is the still to make space for a single cutter. An elite
pull play might put three guys in motion, two of whom are making space and one
of whom is the cutter using that space. I don’t think this is necessary at the
college level; I have yet to see a college team consistently pull off the
three-way switch necessary to shut down a pull play.
4. Practice. And more practice.
Good luck.
Lou Burruss
Up through the 90s, teams played a mix of two- and three-handler sets, but all
zone offenses emphasized swinging the disc and attacking the far side of the
field against a zone on the run. Then, the Condors, led by handlers James
Studarus, Steve Dugan and Taro Ramberg began to run something fundamentally
different. This was a two-handler set that didn’t swing and attacked a
stagnant zone. Their philosophy was that no matter how many defenders you
pulled in, you weren’t going to be able to stop two of them from throwing it
back and forth to each other on little two to five yard passes. Then sooner or
later, you’d make a mistake and they’d go through or over your cup and have a
five-on-four fast break. That’s when they’d chew you for big yards.
Look around ultimate today and you can see the signs of this offense
everywhere. Handlers who crash the cup? Yep. Teams throwing through and over
the cup consistently? Yep. Teams breaking the cup and then stringing four or
five passes together rapidly? Yep. Not having to listen to teams exhort each
other to “Swing the disc” and “Tire them out?” Yep.
What are the requirements for running this offense? You need are two savvy,
creative handlers who can respond to a variety of situations and have the
skills to break a cup down. These skills don’t (and won’t) look the same for
any two players. Some players might throw lots of little cute throws like
lefties or scoobers (they do work in the wind), while other players might
wield a big hammer or a nasty set of inside outs. It doesn’t matter so much
what it is as long as they have something. You also need a team that can play
quick once the zone has been broken. They physical skill of quick catch and
release is a must and there are lots of fun drills for this. The mental skill
of reading the defense is also a requirement. I like a four-on-three or three-
on-two fast break drill to develop this vision and reinforce the physical
skills. Good luck!
Lou Burruss
Think of the opposing team’s offense as a three-legged stool. You want to
knock it over. Do you kick the sturdiest leg? No, that’d be silly. Kick the
weak leg.
Look, marquee players are going to get theirs. You can put your best defender
on them, rotate defenders, do what you want; they are still going to get open,
still get the disc and still make throws. But we all know Ultimate isn’t a one
person game. That marquee player cannot function without the other six players
on the field.
Analyze your opponent’s overall strategy and look for a piece of it that you
can shut down. Look for people who are doing the little things. An offense
cannot run without the little things and often the people who are delivering
them aren’t used to dealing with the best defenders. Who is throwing the swing
to the hucker? Who is consistently catching comebacks on stalling seven? Who
is getting open for a reset dump? Find that player, shut that player down and
your opponent’s offense will suffer.
Lou Burruss
The most important piece to an effective initiation cut is the thrower. To get
open, you need to be able to challenge the defender into at least two
different places. In the typical flat-stack set, there are three spaces open
to the interior cutters: open-side, break-side, and deep. If the thrower can
hit all of those spots, getting open is no problem. Fake to one of them, cut
to another. Throw, catch.
The biggest mistake I see young teams and players make is settling for the
open side, come-back cut. This cut is worthless. It gets five yards and a mark
on. Why not just leave it in the hands of the initial thrower? Yes, this cut
works great against bad teams. It even works great against the freshmen at
practice. So what? You need something that works against good defenders.
How do you get there? Begin by throwing. Move to drills. Finally, challenge
your thrower to break the mark in a scrimmage. Challenge them to huck. They
will be terrible at it at first. But through demanding they do it, they will
learn. When they have these tools, you have the tools you need to challenge a
defender.
Lou Burruss
You need Chris Page. Chris who? Remember back when Sockeye was good the first
time? Back in the 90s and you watched those epic battles on NBC? Dreaming of
how it was gonna be you? Sockeye-Double Happiness? Sockeye-Rhino? All those
heart-breakers against DoG? Remember that shaggy headed blonde kid ripping it
forehand, backhand, marked, didn’t matter? That was Chris Page.
When I hit the big time in 96, I had some power, but no control. None. Pager
and I would go out to Red Square and rip for hours, throwing everything.
Starting with regular forehands and backhands, but after a while, towering
blades, spot-benders around the sculptures, huge inside-outs kissing off the
buildings. I threw as hard as I could and he still had ten yards on me. And
touch.
Eventually, though, I got there. So the message to you is: go find someone who
loves to throw and who is much better than you. Go throw with them until you
are better than they are.
Lou Burruss
Here are a couple little tricks that can really help you out.
This first technique is something I’ve never done, but I’m still gonna name
it. Let’s call it Repeater. I saw it first at College Nationals this year,
where Syzygy was using it (they crushed us) and I later overheard teams using
it at Solstice (Eugene) and HoDown (Calgary). Basically, your sub caller yells
out the names just as usual and then everyone repeats them. “Beth.” “BETH!”
“Kate.““KATE!” And so forth. It’s really a wonderful piece of technology. It
focuses your team on the point ahead and helps avoid that dratted looking-for-
someone-on-the-sideline-and-yelling-their-name business. This technique does
require that your sub caller have a decision very quickly, but you can always
make on the line changes after the seven are out there.
This second technique is one that I’ve used twice and each time it was
incredibly effective. You almost always (particularly in women’s) have a
player with a season ending injury. Have them call subs. I had a sophomore
(Jinny Eun of Riot) do this for Syzygy the year we won. Did she know what she
was doing at the beginning of the season? Absolutely not. Did she know what
she was doing at the end of the season? Definitely. It takes a lot of work on
the part of a coach or a captain to teach someone to call subs, but it is
absolutely worth it. Obviously, this person doesn’t have to be a rookie. This
past year for Oregon, one of our captains (Gordy) blew her knee out and
immediately took over from me as main sub caller. As a coach or captain, you
are freed from the tyranny of the clipboard. Free to actually coach or play.
Then, subbing becomes one more area of oversight, like play-calling or defense
or analyzing the other team’s best player.
Remember, the best sub caller is Victory and the worst sub caller is Defeat.
Lou Burruss
It is a common misperception that catching cannot be taught. Learning how to
catch comes down to repetition and focus. Here are two quick drills for
teaching new players to catch and for honing experienced players’ skills.
The first drill (unnamed) involves two people and ten (or more) discs. The
players (thrower and catcher) stand about two yards apart. The thrower tosses
disc after disc to the catcher. The thrower should place the discs so that the
catcher is forced to catch high, low, left, right, one- and two-handed. Then
switch the thrower and catcher. Repeat.
The second drill, called Throwing 100s, is a small piece of Kung Fu Throwing.
Stand about two yards away from your partner and start throwing a disc back
and forth as fast as you can. Don’t change your grip and move the location of
your throws around, just as in the first drill. Complete 100 throws each. It’s
fun to run this as a race at practice. (Start over if you drop one).
Developing and maintaining focus is a huge topic and one that deserves its own
column, but I’ll leave you with a couple thoughts. Practice how you want to
play on game day. If you don’t extend to catch a disc in warm ups, you
probably won’t extend in a game either. And always remember what my dad, Bill
Burruss, taught me: “If you touch it, you should catch it.”
Lou Burruss
Three thoughts.
First, this is just the way high pressure games are. As the stakes increase,
the defense ratchets up and the offense needs to ratchet up accordingly. How
do you do this? Be mentally strong. The best path to this kind of mental
fortitude is playing in and winning these games. The second best path (and the
one reserved for those not on championship teams) is practicing all out. You
play how you practice, so if you challenge yourself and your teammates every
practice, you gameday performance will be correspondingly superior.
The first technical adjustment is to change rhythm. Are you a dump-on-6 team?
Start throwing some of your resets on 1, 2, 3 in the stall count. Good
defensive teams and players run a clock in their heads. If your team is
predictable about when it throws its resets, you are effectively telling the
defenders when you are gong to cut. You don’t have to throw but a few off-
rhythm passes to get an edge on the defense. Throw a couple swings on stalling
2 and then your fake on stalling 2 gets the defender biting and guessing.
The second adjustment is to bring your bigs into the handler set on stalling 7
or 8 for an emergency reset. Instead of throwing to a dancing and scrambling
handler, have your bigs continue their cuts down into the hole for a two or
three yard flip to reset the stall count. Then the big hits the handler with
the swing on stalling 1 or 2 (see above). Both Sockeye (CK and MC) and Furious
(Lugs and MG) use this technique consistently and effectively.
Lou Burruss
“You take away a team’s strength and make them beat you with their weakness.
If they do, you make them do it again, because it’s their f***ing weakness!”
— Jon Gewirtz
This situation is so similar to what Jam did with Damien Scott in the 04
finals that I almost think that “The Huddle” ripped it right off of the video.
All season long, Damien had handled. He wasn’t a great hucker, but he could
always get open for a reset and hand a very nice forehand inside out. (Want to
see it? Watch the ‘04 videos).
Until the finals, Alex Nord had been covering Damien and really destroying
him. Nord is big, quick and tenacious, but doesn’t have Damien’s out-and-out
foot speed in the open field. In the final, Damien ran deep, Idris Nolan
ripped it to him, and Jam got easy scores. We made an adjustment by putting
Blaine Robbins on Damien. Blaine was much less experienced, but fast enough to
keep pace with Damien and we got two blocks out of it. But mostly we followed
Jonny’s advice and worked to limit Damien’s reset and throwing opportunities
and shrugged our shoulders when he went deep.
Kirk Savage of Furious used deep cuts successfully throughout his entire
career. The best defense we used against him were flexible, experienced
defenders. Typically, if a handler runs downfield from the area right around
the disc, defenders will let them go. Why bother chasing them when you know
they’re coming back to the disc? But if you let Kirk go, he’d be gone and
you’d be postered. So the experienced defender would pursue immediately when
he made a move to go downfield.
Lou Burruss
You have to ask yourself, “What do I do that is great?” This is your ticket
onto a team. For most young players, this is blue-collar Ultimate: tough D,
swing passes and safe choices. If what you have to offer is something
different (big throws, great recievership), then showcase those skills.
The two quickest ways to get yourself cut are poor atheleticism (nothing much
to be done about that) and poor choices with the disc. A lot of tryouts get in
trouble by failing to recognize that the definition of a good choice has
changed. A good choice for Eastern Wyoming State (Go Fighting Pronghorns!) is
a piss-poor choice for Bravo. Aim for zero turns. I mean zero.
Lou Burruss
Without question, the horizontal offense is a better wind offense. That
doesn’t mean it’s the right choice for your team. The horizontal offense
offers a couple really nice advantages in a high wind situation, but if you
don’t have the personnel to run it, it’ll be worse than a vertical offense.
Ben wrote “equivalent talent,” but I ask what talent?
(Quick aside: Sockeye and Furious are the two most effective teams at running
the horizontal offense, but they are fundamentally different. Sockeye runs the
high-tempo, zig-zagging offense I describe here; Furious runs a muscular,
isolation, big cut, big throw offense that is a vertical offense in a
horizontal disguise.)
The horizontal offense opens up the area in front of the disc for aggressive
handler cutting. In a windy situation, a five yard leading pass to a handler
running across the front of the disc is safe and with the yards-after-catch,
an excellent way to advance the disc. The downfield cutting in a horizontal
offense is fundamentally different from vertical. Vertical offense relies on
long (6-12 yards) cuts to out-muscle and out-run the defenders. Horizontal
offense relies on the stop-cut; a quick change of direction cut that relies on
the cutter’s judgment (“which lane do I chose?”) and the thrower’s ability to
break the mark. When it is windy, the long comeback cuts necessary for a
vertical offense lead to some nasty and difficult catches. The stop-cut cutter
is just beginning to come back when the disc is released and they can adjust
and snap on the disc before the defender has time to react. Fronting defense
is also much more effective against vertical offense where there is only one
comeback cut lane. In the wind, it is easy to front and challenge the thrower
to huck it. In a horizontal offense, the cutter is choosing from multiple
comeback lanes and the defender can’t camp in all of them.
So why would you chose a vertical stack offense? A horizontal stack offense is
a seven-player offense. For it to really work, everyone has to have a clue. At
the high school and college (and some club teams) level, you don’t have the
luxury of seven people with a clue. Cutting in a horizontal offense really
relies on reading the field, finding lanes and knowing your thrower. It is
much easier to teach how to run a vertical offense and have it work.
Horizontal offense also depends on everyone being able to deliver the disc to
every kind of cut. You can play in a vertical offense if you can run and throw
a 2-yard dump.
In brief, tailor your offense to your talent and adjust to the wind. Don’t try
to learn two offenses. So, do you have a lot of experience and a lot of quick
handlers? Horizontal. Got a couple big throwers and a lot of tall, fast
people? Vertical.