In passing for 290 yards against Idaho State last week, Montana Western quarterback Travis Kirby explained that "on every play there's a different weakness on a defense."

Which got me thinking: How much of a team's success is owed to game planning?

Idaho State's imaginative offensive coordinator Bruce Barnum seemed the perfect person to ask.

So, for 20 minutes after practice last week, Barnum took me under wing for a crash course in game planning.

He opened with an observation as simple and poignant as Kirby's: "The defense," said Barnum, "wants to take away what you do best."

In order to counteract the defense's aim, offenses have adapted, a process that manifests itself in the New York City Yellow Pages-thickness of an offensive playbook. There are plays upon plays and different formations for each play, which essentially multiplies the number of plays - for Idaho State there's six formations for every play.

Barnum explained formations simply by reciting which ones are available - pro set (a two-back backfield), two-tight end set with one back, five wideouts, four wide and a tight end, etc.

Beyond that, each play has multiple personnel groups that can run it. Running back Isaac Mitchell, for instance, can line up as a receiver in a five wideout set, or the team can deploy five actual wide receivers.

Then, for every play there is the option of adding motions and shifts.

Finally, there's the most basic question: What does the quarterback like?

"Doug Baughman's favorite throw was a deep out," said Barnum of last season's starting quarterback.

With that in mind, Barnum and Company made sure to call plays that featured the deep-out pattern, insuring Baughman was always left with a comfortable outlet in most every pass play.

With so many plays swirling, the game plan is always in danger of becoming too convoluted.

So, "we keep it as simple as we can," Barnum said.

The team's offensive coaches - Barnum, Joe Borich, Jeff Banks and Bryant Thomas - pare and refine the game plan beginning Sunday night in nightly meetings that can resemble mad scientists at work.

"From my position it's fun to listen to them going through ideas," Barnum said. "I try not to micromanage them at all."

He calls Thomas the "gadget guy," Borich "Mr. Conservative," and of Banks, Barnum said, "he knows every possible way to run a screen [an Idaho State staple]."

By Tuesday's practice the game plan is set in stone. After three years together, the coaches have learned - through trial and (sometimes costly) error - never to add anything to the game plan after Tuesday.

"They're adamant about it now," Barnum said. "If I wanted to try and put in a play today [Wednesday], they'd be on me like a pack of wolves."

With the game plan in place, the offensive coaches set out to craft their "Dirty Dozen," a set of scripted plays to run at the start of the game. The Dirty Dozen is a calculated hodge podge of plays designed to reveal everything the defense has planned against.

"We see how they're going to line up and if they've changed anything, and we find out how well we've studied them," Barnum said.

The Bengals only diverge from their 12 scripted plays on third downs and in the red zone.

The Bengals have gotten so good at their scripting, Barnum said he wonders "how many touchdowns we're going to score" in the first 12 plays.

After the chess match of scripted plays is over, it's all adjustments.

In the Bengals' case, teams will immediately try to take away their vaunted wide receiver screens, thus "opening up the run, and passes to the inside of the field," Barnum said.

One aspect of game planning that can't be understated is patience.

"You have to adjust some, but you don't want to be ridiculous," Barnum said.

In the end, a game plan so meticulously crafted and so labored over by coaches can become essentially moot once it's employed by the players.

Idaho State wide receiver Shedrack Okoebor put it best when he said, "Execution is the biggest factor. You can have the best game plan, but if you don't execute then it's all for nothing.

"The players decide what happens on the field."