The spread offense is an offensive scheme in American and Canadian football that is used at every level of the game including professional (NFL, CFL), college (NCAA, NAIA, CIS), and high school programs across America and Canada. The spread offense begins with the quarterback in the shotgun formation most of the time, and often employs a no-huddle approach. The fundamental nature of the spread offense involves spreading the field horizontally using 3, 4, and even 5-receiver sets. Some implementations of the spread also feature wide splits between the offensive linemen. The object of the spread offense is to open up multiple vertical seams for both the running and passing game to exploit, as the defense is forced to spread itself thin across the field (a "horizontal stretch") to cover everyone.
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The father of the spread offense is Rusty Russell, a graduate of Howard Payne University, in Brownwood, Texas, and coach of Fort Worth's Masonic Home and School for orphaned boys. Russell began coaching Masonic Home in 1927, and due to the fact that his teams were often over matched physically by other schools, they were called the "Mighty Mites". While there, he deployed the earliest form of a spread offense to great success.[1] Russell's team is the subject of a book by author Jim Dent entitled, Twelve Mighty Orphans: The Inspiring True Story of the Mighty Mites Who Ruled Texas Football.[2]
In 1952 TCU coaching legend Leo "Dutch" Meyer wrote a book entitled Spread Formation Football, detailing his ideas about football formations, in which the first sentence was, "Spread formations are not new to football."[3]
Former Middletown (Ohio) High School football coach Glenn "Tiger" Ellison is hailed by some as the real father.[4] His version is known as the Run & Shoot offense; however, the scheme (which was originally started as a run-first offense in 1958) has evolved over the past 45 years into a much more complex scheme. Its first evolution came about in 1962 when former Portland State coach and later Hawaii receivers coach Darell "Mouse" Davis adapted Ellison's philosophy to create a more pass-oriented version. The "Spread Offense" emerged in the US in the mid to late 80's with coaches trying to get the benefits of the Run & Shoot (spreading out defenses and dictating defensive personnel with a 4 receiver set) without having to rely as much on QBs, receivers, and running backs making the correct reads on every play. The Spread allows coaches to be more involved in each play rather than the Run & Shoot which helps protect teams from bad decision making.
While early versions of the spread were sometimes quite limited, modern coaches like Joe Tiller (Purdue), Jerry Moore (Appalachian State), Mike Leach (Texas Tech), and Chip Kelly (Oregon) and most recently Urban Meyer (Ohio State) have taken this run and shoot variant to a new level. High school coaches across the nation have adapted some version of this scheme with great success, notably Todd Dodge at Southlake Carroll High School in the Dallas-Fort Worth area (now at University of Pittsburgh), Art Briles at Stephenville High School in Central Texas (now at Baylor), Gus Malzahn at Springdale High School in Arkansas (later offensive coordinator at the nearby University of Arkansas and now in the same position at Auburn), and Phil Mauro at Edgewood High school in Ohio. Rush Propst using it won 5 state titles at Hoover High School in Alabama. Due to Propst's success many teams in Alabama run the spread. However, Propst's offense was created by consultant (now offensive coodinator at Louisiana Tech) Tony Franklin. Legendary coach Dale Mueller, Highlands High School in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, has pioneered new aspects of the spread offense since 1995. In his 16 seasons as head coach, he has lead Highlands to a record of 214 wins and 30 losses, and won 10 of their record 21 State Championships.
There are many forms of the spread system. One of the extreme versions is the pass-oriented "Air Raid" typified by Kevin Sumlin's Houston Cougars, Mike Gundy's Oklahoma State Cowboys, Gary Pinkel's Missouri Tigers, Ruffin McNeill's East Carolina Pirates, Dana Holgorsen's West Virginia Mountaineers, Mike Leach's Washington State Cougars, Tommy Tuberville's Texas Tech Red Raiders and Todd Graham's Arizona State Sun Devils. This version employs multiple spread sets and is heavily reliant on the quarterback and coaches being able to call the appropriate play at the line of scrimmage based on how the defense sets up. Louisiana Tech head coach Sonny Dykes, who coached under Mike Leach at Texas Tech, uses a variant of the pass-oriented spread system that makes more use of the tight end and running backs.
The other extreme is the spread option - consisting of a slot receiver, the tailback, and an agile quarterback - used by Gene Chizik at Auburn, Rich Rodriguez at Arizona, Urban Meyer at Ohio State, Dan Mullen at Mississippi State, Chip Kelly at Oregon, Hugh Freeze at Ole Miss, and Jerry Moore at Appalachian State. Despite the multi-receiver sets, the spread option is a run-first scheme that requires a quarterback that is comfortable carrying the ball, a mobile offensive line that can effectively pull and trap, and receivers that can hold their blocks. Its essence is misdirection, making it effectively the old triple option, except that it utilizes spread sets. The quarterback must be able to read the defensive end and determine whether he is collapsing down the line or playing up-field containment in order to determine the proper play to make with the ball.
A third version of the spread offense is the Pistol offense which is used by Chris Ault's Nevada Wolf Pack and some high schools across the nation. The Pistol focuses on using the run with many offensive players, and it calls for the quarterback to line up about three yards behind the center and take a short shotgun snap at the start of each play. Instead of lining up next to the quarterback like in the normal shotgun, the tailback lines up behind the quarterback at normal depth. This enables him to take a handoff while running toward the line of scrimmage, rather than parallel to it from the standard shotgun. Since Ault installed the Pistol in 2004, his Wolf Pack has been among of the NCAA's most productive offenses. In 2009, they led the country in rushing and total offense, and were also the first team in college football history to have three players rush for 1,000 yards in the same season.
In addition, a new offense known as the "spread-flex" is emerging among many programs. This offense combines the flex-bone and the spread offense together in order to cause confusion for defenses and to take advantage of mismatches. This dynamic offense has worked its way up into the smaller colleges and universities such as Air Force who use it very effectively. It can be effective in many ways to spread the ball out to the wide receivers as well as using a lot of pre-snap shifting and motion to run the option zone read plays. Imagine combining the offenses of Navy (a heavily run-oriented triple option offense that has frequently led the NCAA in rushing in the 2000s) and Texas Tech (one of the most pass-oriented college offenses) and you have the "spread-flex".
Professional teams have also used various versions of this scheme beginning with the former Houston Oilers, the Atlanta Falcons, and Detroit Lions. The 2007 New England Patriots utilized the spread with quarterback Tom Brady and wide receivers Randy Moss, Wes Welker, Donte Stallworth, and Jabar Gaffney. In addition, the San Diego Chargers (1980s) and the various West Coast schemes developed by Bill Walsh and the San Francisco 49ers (1980s) built their offenses, in many ways, on Ellison's and Davis' designs.
The 2008 Miami Dolphins also implemented some form of the spread offense in their offensive schemes. Lining up in the "wildcat" formation, the Miami Dolphins, borrowing from Gus Malzahn's college spread offense, “direct snap” the ball to their running back, Ronnie Brown,[5] who was then able to read the defense, and either pass or keep the ball himself.
The spread offense is generally not used as a team's primary offense in the NFL. Defenders are usually faster than in college, which allows the vertical seams created by the formation to close up much quicker. In addition, the quarterback is more vulnerable to injury since he is the ball carrier more often than in a typical pro-style offense and the amount of protection is decreased with the backs and receivers being used to spread the defense instead of providing pass protection. [6] With that said, this has been changing in recent years with Chan Gailey in 2008 with the Kansas City Chiefs utilizing Tyler Thigpen at quarterback and now he has taken the offense to the Buffalo Bills and quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick. The Green Bay Packers have also been running a lot of the spread offense with quarterback Aaron Rodgers. The Denver Broncos have also been running this offense ever since Tim Tebow became their starting quarterback.
In recent years, the spread offense has become a very popular term used in context of the high school game[7]with the offense's innovative ways to make the game faster and higher scoring. While it has changed the game, and teams that successfully run it are scoring more points, there is debate whether the offensive system is as effective as it seems.[8]
Some coaches have taken to packaging their offensive system and marketing them to programs around the country, such as Tony Franklin, who served as an assistant coach at the University of Kentucky under Hal Mumme where he developed his offense based on Mumme's "Air Raid" system.[9] Manny Matsakis being another example as he is the inventor of the Triple Shoot Offense, which is a spread set with forms in the Shotgun, Pistol and under center. Matsakis was an assistant coach under both Mike Leech at Texas tech and Bill Snyder at Kansas State. He is currently the head coach of Enka High School in Asheville, North Carolina.
As a reaction to the success of the spread offense in high profile colleges, such as The University of Florida, innovative high school coaches began retooling the system to work on high school teams. Now the system has become quite widespread, with numerous schools achieving success. Defenses are left with the challenge of defending more of the field than ever before, and the offense was given the advantage of having numerous running and passing lanes created by the defense being so spread out.
Recently, use of the spread has led to new defenses, most noticeably the 3-3-5 Stack. Traditional defenses use 4 or 5 down linemen sets to stop an offense, but with the growing number of spread offenses, teams are looking to smaller, faster defensive players to cover more of the field. The strategy and philosophy behind this thinking has been widely debated and many coaches have found success using a 30 front, or using a 40 front against the spread. Gary Patterson at TCU has consistently produced one of college football's best defenses in the first part of the 21st century by using a nickel with a 40 front, or 4-2-5, as a base defense. Combined with his program's emphasis on defensive speed, TCU has proven capable of defending against many spread offenses.[10]