We owe Mike Leach

[Milehigh_Vol]

We owe Coach Leach a lot the more I research about him on my day off.

The offensive ideas that our coaches use started with him.

The calm actions of our head coach is from him.

The more I look at it the more of a mirror image of his ideas about football.

I could go into great detail, but just watch this 60 minutes interview and it will show you everything.

 

[Gandalf]

We owe Coach Leach a lot the more I research about him on my day off.

The offensive ideas that our coaches use started with him.

The calm actions of our head coach is from him.

The more I look at it the more of a mirror image of his ideas about football.

I could go into great detail, but just watch this 60 minutes interview and it will show you everything.

Its certainly the unexpected passing of a coach that had a significant impact on how football is played today. The Pirate will be missed.

Thanks for posting this.

 

[VolBricks]

I wish he had been hired instead of Pruitt.......

 

[stevenrich2003]

I am just sad that he is gone.

 

[BACKDOC]

Just think if we had hired him; we would be in the middle of another coaching search about now.

 

[madbamahater]

He also wanted the job at UT when the world told us NOBODY wanted the UT job, which was a big lie

 

[VFL-82-JP]

We owe Coach Leach a lot the more I research about him on my day off.

The offensive ideas that our coaches use started with him.

The calm actions of our head coach is from him.

The more I look at it the more of a mirror image of his ideas about football.

Didn't start with Mike Leach, friend.

The spread offense started with a high school coach named Glenn Ellison in Ohio in the 1960s. A coupla-few versions of it became big in college ball, with June Jones taking Ellison's Run & Shoot to Hawaii (as well as into the pros), Hal Mumme developing what he called the Air Raid at a few colleges most famously Kentucky, and Art Briles devising his own version called the Veer (or Veer Triple Option) in the Texas high schools and colleges. This was all happening while Mike Leach was still in college and law school.

Mike learned it from Hal Mumme while working as one of his assistant coaches at three different schools, Kentucky being the last. Then, Leach joined Bob Stoops at Oklahoma.

Leach was only Josh Heupel's coach for a single season at Oklahoma. He clearly had a big influence on Josh's thinking about ways to play the game of football. On the other hand, I doubt Josh's calm personality comes from Leach at all. I think that comes more from Josh's parents and his own unique being.

Love Mike Leach, love all he gave to the sport, he was a gift to us. No need to overstate his contributions, they stand on their own.

Go Vols!

 

[Born a VOL]

I wish he had been hired instead of Pruitt.......

But look where we are now !!! GBO

 

[LadyVolette]

‘There’s blood, there’s boogers, it’s the whole thing’

 

[DaddyChad]

Didn't start with Mike Leach, friend.

The spread offense started with a high school coach named Glenn Ellison in Ohio in the 1960s. A coupla-few versions of it became big in college ball, with June Jones taking Ellison's Run & Shoot to Hawaii (as well as into the pros), Hal Mumme developing what he called the Air Raid at a few colleges most famously Kentucky, and Art Briles devising his own version called the Veer (or Veer Triple Option) in the Texas high schools and colleges. This was all happening while Mike Leach was still in college and law school.

Mike learned it from Hal Mumme while working as one of his assistant coaches at three different schools, Kentucky being the last. Then, Leach joined Bob Stoops at Oklahoma.

Leach was only Josh Heupel's coach for a single season at Oklahoma. He clearly had a big influence on Josh's thinking about ways to play the game of football. On the other hand, I doubt Josh's calm personality comes from Leach at all. I think that comes more from Josh's parents and his own unique being.

Love Mike Leach, love all he gave to the sport, he was a gift to us. No need to overstate his contributions, they stand on their own.

Go Vols!

Does anyone know where the wide Oline splits Leach used at Texas Tech came from? Was that something from Mumme’s system or was that Leach’s original idea?

 

[Otis1105]

Does anyone know where the wide Oline splits Leach used at Texas Tech came from? Was that something from Mumme’s system or was that Leach’s original idea?

Leach has said that they looked at the 70’s and 80’s BYU offense when they popularized the air raid. And Briles was running the veer until the 90’s when he incorporated spread concepts into it. He then coached under leach at Texas tech. And it’s the briles offense that has many of the leach principles that UT runs now.
I guess to answer your question I DK where the splits came from, I would imagine that like all innovation, you start with V 1.0 and keep refining, maybe the splits weren’t day 1.

 

[tennrich1]

Thanks for posting this piece. It was well done. Although I've done interviews on CBS in the past etc... I NEVER watch 60 Minutes, CBS News or ANY asinine "entertainment" programs on the network (save SEC Football and PGA tour events) I thought this piece was well directed, edited, and entertainingly presented. Man...I already miss Mike Leach and feel bad for the Miss St. program.

 

[Zues1]

Didn't start with Mike Leach, friend.

The spread offense started with a high school coach named Glenn Ellison in Ohio in the 1960s. A coupla-few versions of it became big in college ball, with June Jones taking Ellison's Run & Shoot to Hawaii (as well as into the pros), Hal Mumme developing what he called the Air Raid at a few colleges most famously Kentucky, and Art Briles devising his own version called the Veer (or Veer Triple Option) in the Texas high schools and colleges. This was all happening while Mike Leach was still in college and law school.

Mike learned it from Hal Mumme while working as one of his assistant coaches at three different schools, Kentucky being the last. Then, Leach joined Bob Stoops at Oklahoma.

Leach was only Josh Heupel's coach for a single season at Oklahoma. He clearly had a big influence on Josh's thinking about ways to play the game of football. On the other hand, I doubt Josh's calm personality comes from Leach at all. I think that comes more from Josh's parents and his own unique being.

Love Mike Leach, love all he gave to the sport, he was a gift to us. No need to overstate his contributions, they stand on their own.

Go Vols!

June Jones lit up the scoreboards

 

[Ratvol]

‘There’s blood, there’s boogers, it’s the whole thing’

I thought for a minute he was talking about my snot rag. Honestly, I liked his style of offense.
His playbook was his own.

Go VOLS

 

[feathersax]

‘There’s blood, there’s boogers, it’s the whole thing’

Pure poetry, folks.

 

[stolitonic]

Didn't start with Mike Leach, friend.

The spread offense started with a high school coach named Glenn Ellison in Ohio in the 1960s. A coupla-few versions of it became big in college ball, with June Jones taking Ellison's Run & Shoot to Hawaii (as well as into the pros), Hal Mumme developing what he called the Air Raid at a few colleges most famously Kentucky, and Art Briles devising his own version called the Veer (or Veer Triple Option) in the Texas high schools and colleges. This was all happening while Mike Leach was still in college and law school.

Mike learned it from Hal Mumme while working as one of his assistant coaches at three different schools, Kentucky being the last. Then, Leach joined Bob Stoops at Oklahoma.

Leach was only Josh Heupel's coach for a single season at Oklahoma. He clearly had a big influence on Josh's thinking about ways to play the game of football. On the other hand, I doubt Josh's calm personality comes from Leach at all. I think that comes more from Josh's parents and his own unique being.

Love Mike Leach, love all he gave to the sport, he was a gift to us. No need to overstate his contributions, they stand on their own.

Go Vols!

Umm, Leach was the one who came up with the "air raid" term man.

Read something about it the other night. Leach and Mumme ware at Iowa Wesleyan (I think?) together. Leach started publicizing the offense as the air raid and it kinda stuck. They then went to Valdosta State where Holgerson joined in. By the time they got to Kentucky, it had pretty much been refined


Fascinating history that I had never really thought about before.

 

[Toucan Sam]

June Jones lit up the scoreboards

I remember when June Jones accepted the job at Hawaii. Timmy Chang put up some insane numbers when he was the quarterback there. Chang amassed over 17,000 passing yards while at Hawaii. That is insane. He is now the head coach at Hawaii.

 

[amaralfan1]

Didn't start with Mike Leach, friend.

The spread offense started with a high school coach named Glenn Ellison in Ohio in the 1960s. A coupla-few versions of it became big in college ball, with June Jones taking Ellison's Run & Shoot to Hawaii (as well as into the pros), Hal Mumme developing what he called the Air Raid at a few colleges most famously Kentucky, and Art Briles devising his own version called the Veer (or Veer Triple Option) in the Texas high schools and colleges. This was all happening while Mike Leach was still in college and law school.

Mike learned it from Hal Mumme while working as one of his assistant coaches at three different schools, Kentucky being the last. Then, Leach joined Bob Stoops at Oklahoma.

Leach was only Josh Heupel's coach for a single season at Oklahoma. He clearly had a big influence on Josh's thinking about ways to play the game of football. On the other hand, I doubt Josh's calm personality comes from Leach at all. I think that comes more from Josh's parents and his own unique being.

Love Mike Leach, love all he gave to the sport, he was a gift to us. No need to overstate his contributions, they stand on their own.

Go Vols!

What's crazy is Glenn Ellison was a college teammate of Woody Hayes at Dennison University (and later was a Hayes assistant at Ohio State). He came up with the Run-And-Shoot in 1958 while driving home from a practice. He noticed a bunch of children playing touch football in an open lot and was fascinated by how the kids lined up with spread receivers.

On a side note, Middleton High School (where Tiger Ellison coached) has produced a lot of noteworthy people. J.D. Vance, Kyle Schwarber, NFL HOF Cris Carter and NBA HOF Jerry Lucas.

 

[mudhen]

Mike Leach was Spurrier without being mean spirited, Lane Kiffin (if Lane would grow the fu## up) and with more than a touch of Pete Carroll's coolness. I for one, will miss him. He had spunk and soul and football is a little bit smaller without him.

 

[Zues1]

What's crazy is Glenn Ellison was a college teammate of Woody Hayes at Dennison University (and later was a Hayes assistant at Ohio State). He came up with the Run-And-Shoot in 1958 while driving home from a practice. He noticed a bunch of children playing touch football in an open lot and was fascinated by how the kids lined up with spread receivers.

On a side note, Middleton High School (where Tiger Ellison coached) has produced a lot of noteworthy people. J.D. Vance, Kyle Schwarber, NFL HOF Cris Carter and NBA HOF Jerry Lucas.

I remember defensive guru Buddy Ryan calling the Run-and-shoot The Chuck N Duck. This game has produced some funny characters.

 

[volsfan125]

I watched this YouTube video about the history of the Air Raid. Pretty interesting Air Raid coaching tree to go along with the history.

 

[peaygolf]

June Jones used Mouse Davis' offense from Portland St.

 

[JoAllan]

Tennessee has Heupel……….so we definitely owe the Old Pirate.

 

[AthensVol2007]

Didn't start with Mike Leach, friend.

The spread offense started with a high school coach named Glenn Ellison in Ohio in the 1960s. A coupla-few versions of it became big in college ball, with June Jones taking Ellison's Run & Shoot to Hawaii (as well as into the pros), Hal Mumme developing what he called the Air Raid at a few colleges most famously Kentucky, and Art Briles devising his own version called the Veer (or Veer Triple Option) in the Texas high schools and colleges. This was all happening while Mike Leach was still in college and law school.

Mike learned it from Hal Mumme while working as one of his assistant coaches at three different schools, Kentucky being the last. Then, Leach joined Bob Stoops at Oklahoma.

Leach was only Josh Heupel's coach for a single season at Oklahoma. He clearly had a big influence on Josh's thinking about ways to play the game of football. On the other hand, I doubt Josh's calm personality comes from Leach at all. I think that comes more from Josh's parents and his own unique being.

Love Mike Leach, love all he gave to the sport, he was a gift to us. No need to overstate his contributions, they stand on their own.

Go Vols!

Leach actually named it the Air-Raid not Mumme. He was constantly being asked what’s your offense called and he said it’s just offense, then one day when he was asked, he just blurted out Air-Raid and it stuck. Leach took a lot from LaVell Edwards BYU days when he was a student there and Edwards was a key influencer of Mumme so it was a melding of the two.

 

[Volosaurus rex]

Leach has said that they looked at the 70’s and 80’s BYU offense when they popularized the air raid. And Briles was running the veer until the 90’s when he incorporated spread concepts into it. He then coached under leach at Texas tech. And it’s the briles offense that has many of the leach principles that UT runs now.
I guess to answer your question I DK where the splits came from, I would imagine that like all innovation, you start with V 1.0 and keep refining, maybe the splits weren’t day 1.

If Leach drew heavily from BYU's offense for strategic inspiration, that means that our beloved "Swamp Rat," Dewey Warren, made a significant contribution to the foundation of Leach's approach to offensive football. As these articles (Dewey Warren and BYU - Knox TN Today and Edwards changed face of BYU football - The Daily Universe) indicate, one of the first things that LaVell Edwards did when he was hired as BYU's football coach in 1972 was to "hire 25-year old passing guru Dewey Warren to help design a passing offense."