Re: IMO, it's gonna be P. Johnson
FreeBro:
Thanks for the info. As you can see, my knowlege of this stuff pales by comparison. My understanding is that these spread option offenses all came from effort to combine traditional QB option attacks with the run & shoot, while operating out of the shotgun formation.
The ultimate goal was to create a hybrid offense that made defenses not know what to defend...there were just too many options and variables.
While the run & shoot basically involved keeping LBs honest with play action so you could throw deep down field, later proponents started employing more west coast (Bill Walsh)offense passing attack with short slants, curls and run after catch strategy.
This evolution produced an offense that could aptly be named "west coast, spread option" with the "spread" part being 2 wideout, 2 slotback shotgun formation. Is this not somewhat accurate?
You are really talking about several different offenses above.
What Paul Johnson runs is based on what Erk Russell did at GS in the early to mid 80s. He wanted to run an UGa-Dooley type offense, but realized he did not have the players. They combined the Wishbone with the Run & Shoot and invented what they called the Ham Bone. They wound not throwing much after Tracy Ham moved on to the CFL and majored in the Option out of a double SE-double Slot formation. BTW, Mal Moore ran some double slot Bone versus PSU in the famous goal line stand Sugar Bowl game
A little earlier than this (late 70s, early 80s) Ken Hatfield was experimenting with breaking the Bone into what he called the Flex Bone at Air Force. His OC was Fisher DeBerry and they now call this offense the Fish Bone. The Fish Bone has evolved with some Wing-T principles mixed in with the old Wishbone stuff. Chan Gailey brought the Flex Bone to Troy from Air Force in '83 and won the NC with it in '84 (they won it again in '87 under Rick Rhodes, but same offense).
Hawaii also ran a version of the Flex Bone in the '80s and Oregon State did so in the '90s. The Army and Navy have run versions of the Bone off and on for over 20 years.
ALL of the offenses above are more like what CPJ runs now. When he was at Hawaii with a HC named Wagner he ran the Flex Bone and utilized the Run & Shoot principles that were originally used when he was an assistant at Ga Southern. It was the same offense, but he had the talent to use the passing portion as well.
The Spread Gun (like Texas Tech) was pretty much devised by Hal Mumme and Leach, but he borrowed almost ALL his ideas from BYU and the West Coast passing game. The double crossing hi-lo routes used today were pretty much popularized by people like Mike Shannahan (some still call this route Denver). They took their ideas and used them out of the Gun almost exclusively.
Coaches like Myer and Rodriguez took the Spread Gun and added a stronger running attack. Myer and his OC developed alot of the ideas they later implemented at Bowling Green while assistants for Holtz at Notre Dame. They did NOT use them at ND. You are right about them wanting to integrate more running and develope a read option game out of the Gun. Myer and Rodriguez developed their offenses at about the same time independently of each other, so these are two different offenses as well.
:BigA: :BigA: :BigA: :BigA:
I hope I did NOT bore anyone. I am NOT saying this is ALL exactly correct, but this is the way I've heard it from coaches over the years from books, at clinics and other gatherings.
