I remember being in high
school, watching the Oregon Ducks football team starting to win some games,
watching Coach Urban Meyer with Chris Leak and Tim Tebow win the national Championship
against Ohio State, watching Oklahoma score a ton of points, and of course watching
Texas Tech with Mike Leach score a ton of points and beat number 1 Texas.
Watching these spread offenses throw the ball around, run the ball with the
option and power, moving fast and scoring points was a thing of beauty.
Watching that Texas Tech vs. Texas game in 2008 convinced me that sometime in my
life if I was able to coach, to coach in that or at least learn it.
I have always been around
a run first offense, played in one and coached in the same system, then coached
in a pro style offense that was also a run first offense. The pro style still
had passes and would line up in shot gun to pass it, but it wasn’t quite like
what Mike Leach would do. During 9 years of coaching football, I have talked to
different coaches that run a spread offense, not exactly an air raid offense,
but ran a spread offense none the less. I would ask how they structured their
practices, how to install their offense, and how to teach it.
I had to be carful when
going out and learning about the spread or air raid offense, because I didn’t want
it to affect me learning and mix anything up with the pro style offense we were
running at the time. But, I couldn’t help myself my watching those college
teams or coaches every Saturday just to see their offenses work. I wanted to
make sure I studied the offense first for a while before jumping straight into
it if I had the chance to run a team, or to try and convince the head coach to
pass it more or run more rpo’s. I didn’t want to just have that little fling
with something or just start doing it while it’s the new fad then have it fade
away. We see those things with technology, clothes, even things on T.V.
The past couple of years,
my love for the air raid grew, and now I am not afraid to let it out for
everyone. Most of my friends love the ground and bound football game, due to
use playing in it for years, but I am in love with the air raid and spread.
Now, I am not here to say
that the air raid or spread is the offense you need to run in football. I believe
if you are passionate about an offense, and you are bought into it, then you
need to run that. I don’t care if it is the wing t, pro-style, veer, power
option, air raid, doesn’t matter. If you are passionate about an offense and
bought it, then every day at practice you are going to be so excited to run that
offense that those kids are going to have fun and be bought into it. I am just
letting you know why I love it and will try to run it in my next coaching job.
First thing that drew me
to the air raid, was that those teams STILL RUN THE BALL. If you watch Washington
State, Oklahoma, and other teams with an air raid concept offense, they still
run the ball. Now, I am not saying Mike Leach necessarily calls run plays, but
those coaches are not stupid. If there is a empty box, of course you are going
to hand the ball off. Or, you keep the defense guessing by adding an rpo play
to mix it up. I loved the physicality that
playing and coaching a run fist offense brought to the team and offensive lineman.
But if you listen to these coaches, or go watching practices of teams that run
this, they have physical lineman and the still can have that nasty play to them.
So, knowing I can still
run the ball, even if inside zone is the only run play, really had my attention
to this offense. The next thing, is just how simple the pass plays were. When you
hear the air raid offense, your first thought is well how many passing plays
does that mean, exactly how many routes do we have to know, this is going to be
confusing. I know that was my first thought when I heard that. But, when I found
the air raid plays, from Coach Mumme and coach Leach days, I realized how
simple they were. And when I saw the basic formations they installed first,
there wasn’t that many, and all these passing concepts could be run out of
every formation. So, my next thought was, well what does the quarterback read
for all these passing plays? In the option we ran, the quarterback would read
1-2 defenders at a time and that seemed easy for me to teach. But when I heard
air raid, I didn’t know how you could teach a quarterback to read everyone but the
defensive lineman. But once you look into it, the quarterback had check downs. So,
in one play he knows he is going to look at this receiver first, then the next,
then the next and look for which one has the most area or grass to throw them
the ball.
This showed me just why
college teams where running these kinds of offenses. Even if a team ran a
spread offense to run the ball first, or just ran the ball more than your traditional
air raid team, it was made easy for the players. This sold me that one day, I want
to run an offense with these passing concepts, the formations with just a
couple of run plays and be no huddle.
This love really took off
the past year and half with social media. With coaches now getting more connected
on Facebook and twitter, more information is getting out there on different
offenses and spread offenses as well. The more that coaches shared, or just
answered any questions that I would ask them, just gave me way more knowledge
than I thought I would get on this offense. I finally got to see how the passing
plays worked together. Just like running plays mirror or help out another run
play. If you run power over and over again, the defense will adjust with most
likely the defensive ends squeezing down more. Once you see that, you run a
play to the outside because it will be easier to hook the defensive end if he
is squeezing in more. In the air raid, if you run mesh over and over, the
defense will start to play man or just have the inside linebackers turn to cut
off the mesh part of the play and the corners will play bump coverage with the outside
receivers. If this happens, well then you run the shallow play, this will open
up the player running the shallow because it is not as deep as the mess, or you
can hit the post or dig with the corners playing that man/bump coverage.
(Any air raid coaches
that read that, please let me know if I am correct or wrong on those plays
working together)
With this air
raid/spread, you can add rpo plays to keep the defense guessing. Now in order
to do that in my opinion, you have to have some sort of decent run game. Now, I
know if I ever get to run the air raid offense, I have to sacrifice some run
plays. This is due to all the practice time you need to put in to make sure
your players know the passing plays and how to react to how defenses will play
them. You want it to become second nature to them. So, for run plays, you are
looking at inside zone and most likely power. This way you can get many repetitions
and not take away from the pass protection drills the offensive lineman need to
do. Once your players get the routes and concepts, and your lineman know the
blocking schemes in their sleep, you can start adding rpo plays to your
playbook. Not too many, maybe 3 just so that you don’t take time away from your
bread and butter which is the passing concepts. But, this will help you open up
the field because you will get those linebackers or corners guessing and once
they start doing that, they are finished.
There are many more
reasons why the air raid to me is awesome, but I would be writing more of a
book. This offense has always looked fun to coach in. It also looks like a
great way to get some points up on the board. For me as well, in this kind of
offense, you are never out of the game. Just some quick plays or deep plays you
can get back on the ball game. In a run mostly offense, its hard to come back
if you get down by 2 or 3 scores. I am not telling anyone to run this offense,
but this offense has taken my heart.
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