Clarifying What a "Spread Offense" Entails
by Year2 on Apr 14, 2009 11:00 AM EDT
in SEC Football
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PrintWhile reading the excellent interview Bruins Nation had with Rick Neuheisel, I came upon the final question of part one. It basically was, "Hey Rick, what do you think of the spread offense?"
Neuheisel ends up giving a fairly long and winding explanation of why he chooses a pro style offense rather than a spread scheme. I'm going to chop it up into mincemeat for a second to illustrate a point:
"The key to the spread offense, and the reason why its successful, is that it adds an extra player. It diminishes the need for great offensive linemen, because you’ve got a little longer because you are always in the gun...
"The problem at UCLA is that you have to beat the Trojans. And it’s also the benefit at UCLA, because when you beat them, you’re going to be among the nation’s elite. So you have to be a physical offense...
"I was the benefactor of a type of spread offense, even though it was an option offense, it’s the same math in terms of the quarterback’s [being] a runner...
"There were some components of the spread offense in what we did last year. We got into the old wildcat stuff..."
The picture of the spread offense that Neuheisel paints is one that involves a running quarterback, the shotgun as the exclusive setup, an offense that isn't physical, and the wildcat formation.
Basically what he described is the Rich Rodriguez/Urban Meyer style offense (except for the part about the spread not being physical). However, that's not necessarily what a spread offense is.
I know Neuheisel is a bright guy, and I wasn't there when the interview was conducted. Maybe something about the session led him to think of the spread in those terms. However, that's an awfully narrow definition of a very broad concept.
The term "spread" dates back at least to 1952, and I'm sure it's been around longer than that. The spread isn't an offense; it's a formation and a philosophy.
For the record, this is a spread formation:
This is not:
That's all there is to it. There is no other distinction between spread and non-spread. A spread formation uses most of the horizontal space on the field and a non-spread formation does not. Nearly every offense uses some spread formations, and many spread-based offenses use some non-spread formations.
The idea behind a spread-based offense is to make the defense cover the entire field. Contrary to what Neuheisel may have made it sound like, a spread formation is an excellent choice for physical running up the middle. That's because with the defense spread out, there are fewer guys in the middle of the field to try to stop the ball carrier.
That fact is also why many spread teams prefer to have a mobile quarterback. Fewer guys near the line of scrimmage makes for fewer people hanging around to stop a runner behind center. Having a running triggerman is not a requirement though.
For instance, the first neo-spread team in the SEC was Hal Mumme's Kentucky, and we never saw Tim Couch take off and run much. That branch of spread offense is continued today by Mumme's former assistant Mike Leach at Texas Tech. You also have teams like Ohio State's 2006 team which ran a fair bit of spread with Troy Smith rarely participating in designed runs.
The shotgun isn't even a requirement as Neuheisel made it sound like. Sam Bradford operated from under center a fair bit in Oklahoma's spread last season. In addition, Paul Johnson's offense keeps the quarterback under center almost exclusively even though his base flexbone set is is a spread formation.
Finally, the wildcat is a formation and offensive package but it doesn't have to be run from a spread set or spread offense. Not all spread teams use it either.
No two teams run the exact same spread offense, as every coach has his own take on it. It also must be tailored to personnel. If you want details, there's a wealth of information on many spread topics at the blog Smart Football (start here, here, and here).
If I wasn't clear before, let me be so now: I don't think Rick Neuheisel is unaware of all this. He knows far more about offensive football than I do and he could probably explain it a lot better than I can.
It just disappointed me about the way he used "spread" to mean a lot fo specific things when it doesn't necessarily. It's like saying that having a quarterback under center in the I-formation means you're in a pro style offense, except that the heyday of the Nebraska option was largely done from the I.
In short, just remember that there is no one "spread offense." There are as many spread offenses as there are teams that run them, and every one has something that makes it unique.
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The inability (or unwillingness) to distinguish between different versions of the spread is one of the most annoying quirks of pro-focused folks (both fans and media) – it’s particularly widespread this time of year, when the two worlds have their annual collision. The most common form of the quirk is some variation of the statement “oh, they’ll never make it in the NFL – they played in a spread offence in college.” When the pronoun refers to, let’s say, Graham Harrell and Pat White (I’ve seen it, man, and I was like “whoa!”), the descriptive limits of the term ‘spread’ are apparent.
The pros
I tried to avoid the topic of the spread and the NFL because that’s a whole other can of worms entirely. A spread offense obviously can work there because New England racked up an 18-1 record running one. The Jets and Super Bowl champion Steelers, for instance, ran quite a bit of shotgun spread last season.
It’s unlikely the spread option will ever be attempted, but passing spread can and does work in the NFL. Why there’s such an unwillingness to accept that is beyond me.
I agree that a passing spread could work perfectly well in the pros (as you say, it already has) – my particular peeve is people who follow the NFL but not college, and call everything that isn’t ‘pro-style’ or traditional ‘option’ simply ‘spread’, without realising (or perhaps caring) just how much variation that term encompasses. (Or realising how much variation many individual spread systems actually include. I get the sense that many NFL-centred fans and pundits still think of it as a gimmick for underdogs; to apply the term is to imply a lack of offensive sophistication.) I mean, I guess technically Harrell and White are both ‘spread quarterbacks’… but you hardly ask for a greater difference between two skillsets and systems.
This is why I'm amused
When people say something like, “Would Steve Spurrier run the spread?”
Um, yeah. He has spread formations. He just doesn’t run a Meyer or Rodriguez style offense out of it — it’s a more traditional passing game.
That said, I do think we need a more specific term for these kinds of offenses — something more precise than “spread” or “spread option.” Don’t have any ideas, but it would help.
Team Speed Kills. All SEC, all the time.
Spurrier
The biggest difference between Spurrier’s offense at Florida and the spread attacks nowadays isn’t so much the passing game but the running game. If you watch some highlights of, say, the national title game win over FSU, you see Fred Taylor and Eli Williams doing the same exact run plays that Knowshon Moreno was doing all year in Georgia’s “pro style” offense. He also exclusively used a “real” tight end (as opposed to H-back), something most spread teams don’t do.
In many ways Spurrier’s Fun ‘n Gun was a hybrid between pass-first spread and pro style offenses. I still believe in the right situation he could have lit up the NFL, but Washington didn’t have the offensive line or receivers to pull it off and Steve quickly found out the atmosphere there wasn’t for him.
I agree that a more precise taxonomy needs to be set up for all the varieties of spread, but I fear that ship has already sailed. It’s probably too late.
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