Spread Offense - History

History

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. 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 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."

Former Middletown (Ohio) High School football coach Glenn "Tiger" Ellison is hailed by some as the real father. 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 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 Howard'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 National Championship.

The "Spread Offense" emerged in the US in the mid to late 80s 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 (Washington State), 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 Marble Falls High School in Marble Falls, TX), Art Briles at Stephenville High School in Central Texas and the Houston Cougars (now at Baylor), Gus Malzahn at Springdale High School in Arkansas (later the offensive coordinator for the Arkansas Razorbacks and Auburn Tigers. He is now the head coach of Auburn Tigers). 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.