History/Overview of the Air-Raid Offense

[FirstTimer]

Long read but tremendous.

http://smartfootball.com/offense/the-air-raid-offense-history-evolution-weirdness-from-mumme-to-leach-to-franklin-to-holgorsen-and-beyond

[Golden Taters]

Read this article the other day, it has a lot of interesting info. Makes me really exciting for the Leach-era at Wazzu.

Right now I have been reading Swing Your Sword by Mike Leach, it goes in depth about his early years and coming up with the Air Raid (along with all the controversy that happened at Texas Tech). Here's a link to the book if anyone is interested... http://www.amazon.com/Swing-Your-Swo...ing+your+sword

[Senser81]

Whew! Just read through the Hal Mumme section. Tough read. Too much time spent on talking about specific plays and individual route concepts...not enough time spent talking about what makes the Air Raid different from other offenses. Half the plays were flood routes...yeah, you have 3 receivers on one side, short, medium, and deep. Got it. The plays aren't really that different than plays run by Don Coryell in the 1960's. Doug Scovil was a QB under Coryell at San Diego State, so many of those BYU plays were Coryell plays, except that BYU ran a lot of 2 RB shotgun sets (contrary to the article's implication). What Mumme did was allow more options for the WRs based on the coverage, a la the old Run and Shoot. But the concepts are the same. And Mumme also threw short way more than Coryell...I think one of the points of the article is that Mumme wanted an offense an average QB could operate. At BYU, they threw deep a lot more but they also had great QBs like Jim McMahon and Steve Young.

The article also briefly mentioned this, but I think its a big point about the Air Raid. The offense is like the passing equivalent to Vince Lombardi's "Run to Daylight" running offense...a very small number of plays, but options given to players within those plays, and the same plays being run over and over again to maximum effectiveness.

[Golden Taters]

I think one of the points of the article is that Mumme wanted an offense an average QB could operate. At BYU, they threw deep a lot more but they also had great QBs like Jim McMahon and Steve Young.

Maybe average in another offense, but the QBs certainly don't play like it in the Air Raid. The main things a coach, Leach specifically, looks for in the offense is accuracy. Followed by that is decision making, leadership, toughness....all these traits are valued over arm strength. Which is why if you see the top QBs for passing yards in NCAA history (most played under Leach), none of them had success in the NFL. Arm strength isn't valued in this offense like it is in the NFL because it isn't need to be successful. Same thing with QB height, the quarterback does not have any trouble seeing receivers (even with 6'6-6'8 lineman) because of the very wide splits that are used on the o-line, which the lineman are spaced 3+ feet between each other.

The article also briefly mentioned this, but I think its a big point about the Air Raid. The offense is like the passing equivalent to Vince Lombardi's "Run to Daylight" running offense...a very small number of plays, but options given to players within those plays, and the same plays being run over and over again to maximum effectiveness.

Right, the Air Raid doesn't need a lot of plays to work, Leach doesn't even give his kids playbooks to learn because they are not needed. Here are a couple quotes on Leach about his playcalling...

Instead of saying something like 962 like you would in a passing tree, we would say something like “63.” The first number would be the number of the protection and the second number would be the route combination. It would mean these receivers have these combinations of routes. One may have the slant, one may have the post, one may have the swing, etc. So, if you wanted to change the route, you just change a number. In our system, you might say “63 F Post” or “63 F Wheel.” It’s not as wordy as a passing tree. One thing I think we did well was reduce the verbiage of the play to make the call as short and as quick as possible. For example everyone runs the “stick” concept, with a vertical outside, an option route by the inside receiver and flat route by the running back. I’ve been at places where there are a ton of verbiage and an episode of charades to signal in the stick route.

Basically, on the script we would have 60 plays going into a game, but there would be some repetition to it. It may be a similar play out of a different formation. The hardest thing is to limit your package because there are a ton of good ideas out there. If you like what someone is doing and you want to implement it, you have to replace one of your plays with it. I’ve never felt like you need like ten plays to attack the flat or something like that or ten ways to go off tackle. You need two or three really good ones. Sometimes you only need one. The biggest thing is to control your package.

I wanted to do two things; I wanted the package to attack the whole field and I wanted the package to utilize all of the offensive positions. I never wanted to have an offensive position that wasn’t going to touch the ball. Your package has to create a level of distribution by attacking all the space available. The hardest thing to do as a coordinator is to select the plays you’re going to be good at. If you’re going to be good at them, you have to rep them over and over again. The one advantage you have over a defense is an offense can rep their offense every day. A defense has to work on a variety of offenses because it changes from week to week. You work one portion of your offense against different defenses. If you do something new all the time you relinquish that advantage. Let’s say worst case scenario is you have a really talented corner and I have a young and inexperienced receiver. Well the thing I can ensure is that he’s run more corner routes and caught more corner routes than that DB has defended. Or he’s caught more curl routes than that DB has defended. So if you keep changing and fiddling with stuff you relinquish advantage.

The plays are easy to remember the way Leach set the offense up. The team might only use 20-40 plays a game, but a lot of the plays are similar to each other. For example, Leach might call the play "Six" (4 Verticals) and then audible the next play to Blue Right Six Y Shallow (Blue Right meaning split-back with TE formation), which would be the 4 Verticals play they just called, but instead the "Y" receiver is now running a shallow cross. Doing this really keeps the tempo up for the no-huddle he uses and they get on to the next play in no time, while confusing the hell out of the defense.

[NAHSTE]

Swing Your Sword is going to be my next sports book read, looking forward to reading it right before the season starts.

[Nash]

i read it a while back, its pretty good

[JimLeavy59]

I really have tp pick that book up myself.

[Senser81]

Maybe average in another offense, but the QBs certainly don't play like it in the Air Raid. The main things a coach, Leach specifically, looks for in the offense is accuracy. Followed by that is decision making, leadership, toughness....all these traits are valued over arm strength. Which is why if you see the top QBs for passing yards in NCAA history (most played under Leach), none of them had success in the NFL. Arm strength isn't valued in this offense like it is in the NFL because it isn't need to be successful.

I meant average in terms of physical ability/NFL ability. Steve Young was one of the greatest QBs ever. Jim McMahon was arguably even better than Young in college. My point is that BYU could attract better QBs and had better QBs than Kentucky or Texas Tech, so their system had more downfield strikes to WRs because guys like Young and McMahon could routinely make those throws. The Air Raid system has more short throws to the slot guys and more crossing route action, so a QB who is accurate but not an "NFL type QB" can excel. But I think we are kind of saying the same thing.