Spread offense
The spread offense is an offensive scheme in gridiron football that typically places the quarterback in the shotgun formation, and "spreads" the offense horizontally using three-, four-, and even five-receiver sets. Used at every level of the game including professional, college, and high school programs across the US and Canada, spread offenses often employ a no-huddle approach. Some implementations of the spread also feature wide splits between the offensive linemen.
Spread offenses can emphasize the pass or the run, with the common attribute that they force the defense to cover the entire field from sideline to sideline. Many spread teams use the read option running play to put pressure on both sides of the defense. Similar to the run and shoot offense, passing-oriented spread offenses often leverage vertical passing routes to spread the defense vertically, which opens up multiple vertical seams for both the running and passing game.
History
"Dutch" Meyer and early spread formations
The grandfather 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. 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.In 1952 Texas Christian University coach 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." But Meyer's book introduced the spread to the college game, inspiring Don Coryell among others. In his book, Meyer encapsulated some of the lessons learned during his almost two decades coaching legendary football players like Sammy Baugh and Davey O’Brien at TCU. By lining his receivers and occasionally his backs outside the “box” surrounding the quarterback and the center at the line of scrimmage in a formation that has come to be known as the “Meyer Spread,” also known as the double wing formation, Meyer discovered that it forced defenses to respond by spreading their players. That in turn created natural holes in the line and seams in the defensive secondary. Spreading out the defense reduced the need for power blocking by undersized linemen.
But, as Bart Wright notes in his 2013 book Football Revolution: The Rise of the Spread Offense and How It Transformed College Football, Meyer's spread “slowed the defensive rush to the ball....” While some later football historians and coaches have confused the Meyer Spread, which relied on great quarterbacks like Baugh and O’Brien to pass around 17 times a game on average, with more contemporary spread offenses, Wright concludes that it is “preposterous that Meyer’s offense was any sort of antecedent” to the modern spread offense invented by Jack Neumeier around 1970.
The spread's first evolution came about in 1956 when former NIU Huskies head coach Howard Fletcher adapted Meyer's spread with the shotgun formation to create what he termed the "Shotgun Spread" a more pass-oriented version. Under Fletcher's newly created offense, quarterback George Bork led the nation in total offense and passing in 1962 and 1963. Bork became the first man in college football history to pass for 3,000 yards in a season in 1963 while guiding the Huskies to a victory in the Mineral Water Bowl and the NCAA College Division National Championship.
However, few coaches around the country followed events in the NCAA College Division and, therefore, few coaches were aware of Fletcher's offense as run-oriented offenses continued to dominate football at every level of play throughout the 1960s. The football played at the dawn of the 1970s generally featured hard running, ball control football, accented occasionally on third and long by a pass out of a stationary pocket. Football coaches have always tended to be a relatively conservative group, and most of them subscribed in 1970 to the aphorism generally attributed to Darrell Royal, then head coach at the University of Texas: “… three things can happen to you whenever you throw the football, and two of ‘em are bad. You can catch the ball, you can throw it incomplete, or have it intercepted.” Consistent with that sentiment, the Green Bay Packers power sweep, the University of Southern California power I formation and Student Body Right, the Texas Wishbone, the Veer triple option and other variations of ball control, option-oriented rushing offenses that pounded the ball down the field dominated coaches’ playbooks at the end of the 1960s.
The modern spread: Jack Neumeier and "basketball on grass"
A more enduring iteration of the spread offense originated with legendary high school coach Jack Neumeier and his 1970 Granada Hills High School Highlanders Los Angeles City Championship football team. Few examples of coaches with successful, innovative passing offenses existed at any level of competition in late 1969. In his 2010 history, Blood, Sweat and Chalk: The Ultimate Football Playbook: How The Great Coaches Built Today’s Game, documenting the development of the game of football dating back to Pop Warner's invention of the single wing in the early 1900s, Tim Layden of Sports Illustrated credits Neumeier with the invention in 1970 of the modern spread offense, also frequently referred to as the one-back spread or by the phrase "basketball on grass" first utilized by Neumeier in late 1969, which dominates football at every level of play today.While there is no evidence to suggest Neumeier had heard of Rusty Russell or Howard Fletcher in 1970, Jack Neumeier evidently built his offensive theories upon a foundation established by other coaches, including Glenn “Tiger” Ellison, a high school coach from Ohio and a college teammate and friend of legendary Ohio State coach Woody Hayes. Ellison published a book, Run and Shoot Football: Offense of the Future, in 1965 that found its way into Neumeier's library. In his book, Ellison describes his desperate experiments with the "departure into insanity" Lonesome Polecat sandlot-style formation in a successful attempt to avoid a losing season in 1958.
As described by Tim Layden, "the center lined up alone on the ball and the rest of the offensive line was split out far to his left, two receivers far to his right and the quarterback alone in a shotgun formation. The quarterback was encouraged to scramble and to find open receivers." The initial success of the Lonesome Polecat led Ellison to several years of even more successful tinkering with what came to be known as the "Run and Shoot offense." Ellison's “Run and Shoot” experiment evolved into a double-slot formation with "split ends uniformly 17 yards from the ball, but no closer than six yards from the sideline. Blocking schemes were identical for runs and passes, so as not to tip off the defense, and Ellison’s players made a sincere effort to make ‘every pass look like a run and every run look like a pass,'" according to Layden. The offense used motion and receivers changing pass routes based on the reactions of defenders.
Neumeier then took Ellison's ideas and synthesized something even more innovative than the “Run and Shoot.” Combining motion, four wide receivers, an occasional no-huddle series and a power running game, along with blocking innovations designed for an undersized line added to the mix by his offensive line coach Jack Mathias, Neumeier's great experiment in 1970 and his tinkering during subsequent seasons took football offenses in a new direction.
Another piece of the puzzle Neumeier assembled preparing for the 1970 season came from Red Hickey during Hickey's stint coaching the San Francisco 49ers. Hickey first utilized the shotgun formation in a 1960 NFL game against the Baltimore Colts. The shotgun, based on an old short punt formation that dated back to the World War I era, which Pop Warner then updated as a double wing formation in the 1930s at Stanford, featured the quarterback setting up for a long snap seven yards behind the center. Hickey thought it might help to slow the Colt pass rush and give the 49ers quarterback another second or two to spot his receivers.
A brief sensation for the 49ers, Hickey's shotgun formation only lasted for the final few games of the 1960 season and a few games into 1961. Opponents soon neutralized the formation when they realized that their defenses could take advantage of the need for the center to focus on the long snap before making his block. Linebackers blitzing up the middle collapsed the pocket protecting 49er quarterbacks. By the end of the 1961 NFL season, football coaches universally agreed that the shotgun formation was dead and buried, until Jack Neumeier resurrected it as part of the new spread passing offense he synthesized.
Variations
Sid Gillman and Don Coryell
, after a long career, coached the San Diego Chargers throughout the 1960s. Before his lengthy stint with the Chargers, he coached the Los Angeles Rams. An innovator with the use of motion and passing in football offenses, Gillman also revolutionized the use of game films to study opposing teams. As a trademark of his offenses, Gillman utilized the forward passing of his talented quarterback John Hadl to Hall of Fame split end Lance Alworth and flanker Gary Garrison to open up defenses for the Chargers’ rushing game and to move the ball down the field.Gillman continued coaching off and on into the 1980s. During a stint working with the Los Angeles Express of the short-lived United States Football League during the early ‘80s, Gillman became a leading advocate for what some sportswriters referred to as the “ace” formation, a variation of the one-back spread offense that evolved after Jack Neumeier's retirement from coaching.
In an article written by Bob Oates of the Los Angeles Times in 1984, Gillman talked about evolving trends and the future of football. “’The thing that makes the ace formation so effective’ Gillman said, ‘is that it enables you to do so many more things. Its offensive potential – with four guys up there in receiving positions – is mathematically almost limitless. It causes the defense more trouble than any two-back formation.’”
“’I think the ace formation will gradually take over as the best way to play football,’ said Gillman, regarded as one of the game's great offensive strategists of the last 100 years. ‘Years ago, the coaches spent the 1940s converting to the T-formation – which most of them didn’t like at first. So I won’t be surprised if it takes most of the 1980s to change over to another new formation. The ace is most important new strategic scheme since the T came in.’” Oates gave credit to Gillman protégés Joe Gibbs and Don Coryell with the Washington Redskins and San Diego Chargers, respectively, for developing the offense with only a single back remaining with the quarterback in the backfield. But none of them had developed these ideas when Jack Neumeier began testing his invention in 1970.
Sports historians have called Gillman the “father of the passing game,” and his focus on studying game films certainly influenced most football coaches by the early 1960s, including Jack Neumeier. While Gillman's innovations with the passing game inspired many followers, neither Gillman nor his protégés had utilized the ace formation or developed any other offense resembling the spread as the 1960s came to a close.
The head coach of the San Diego State Aztecs during the mid-‘60s, Don Coryell, found inspiration in Sid Gillman’s passing game. Coryell had developed a national reputation as one of the most prominent innovators of the I formation during the 1950s. Coryell brought the I formation with him when he joined John McKay’s coaching staff at USC for a short stay in 1961, and it became the signature power running formation at what came to be known as Tailback U under McKay and his successor John Robinson.
After his arrival at San Diego State, Coryell would periodically bring his Aztec players to watch Gillman’s Charger practices. They made an impression. Many of Gillman’s innovations with football offenses would appear in Coryell’s game plans, as Coryell gradually shifted from a power running offense to rely increasingly on the forward pass. But Coryell disavowed any direct inspiration from Gillman’s offense. It would take Coryell another decade before the ideas and concepts he tinkered with in the late ‘60s would evolve into what came to be known as Air Coryell. Building on his experiences in San Diego, Coryell took his offense to new heights while coaching the St. Louis Cardinals during the mid-‘70s. He made further strides with his offensive concepts after the Chargers hired him to return to San Diego in 1978. Relying upon quarterback Dan Fouts and a talented array of wide receivers, Coryell’s innovations included sending up to four receivers downfield, with backs in motion and instructions to his quarterbacks to read their receivers in the pattern from deep to short while concentrating on the importance of a quick release.
Football aficionados can trace Coryell’s focus on spacing and downfield movement and separation between receivers back to Dutch Meyer’s 1952 book, "Spread Formation Football." Coryell's emphasis on precisely timed and executed pass routes now seems like the norm at all levels of football. But Don Coryell had just begun experimenting with all of these elements in 1970.
While Tim Layden has referred to Neumeier in Sports Illustrated as “the godfather” of spread formation football, the title of grandfather of the spread offense probably belongs most appropriately to legendary Texas high school coach Rusty Russell. As noted above, Russell utilized a variation of the spread offense as the coach of the Fort Worth Masonic Home and School for orphans beginning during the 1920s. He thought the spread might help his players, who came to be known as the “Mighty Mites” because of their diminutive size, compete against taller, bigger, stronger and faster opponents, much like opposing teams that would dwarf Neumeier's Granada Hills High School team of 1970. Russell's story and the story of his players are encapsulated in the book, "Twelve Mighty Orphans: The Inspiring True Story of the Mighty Mites Who Ruled Texas Football", by sportswriter and author Jim Dent, so it is clear that variations of a spread offense existed for almost 50 years when Jack Neumeier experienced his epiphany in late 1969. In both cases, it is clear that the coaches came up with similar solutions when confronted with undersized teams that could not compete and win utilizing “conventional” offenses. However, it is unlikely that Jack Neumeier had ever even heard of Rusty Russell or his Mighty Mites as he began designing his new offense in 1969.