Spread offenses making mark on Big 12

LINCOLN -- One day before NU’s 2007 season really began to fall apart, cornerbacks coach Phil Elmassian spoke at a breakfast in front of a still hopeful red-clad crowd.

By no means was Elmassian filling the masses with optimism as he talked about the challenge awaiting Nebraska the next day: Quarterback Chase Daniel and Missouri’s spread offense.

“This week will almost be to the point of ridiculous,” he said, seemingly giving the fans as much a warning as a scouting report. “They spread it out to run it and they’ll be in empty sets, no backs at least 30 times. They really make you spread the field laterally and put that pressure on you, more so even than Texas Tech. Because they want to run the ball, too.”He said that if Nebraska could just get the Tigers into third-and-long situations, they’ll start putting the ball down the field. “And then they become what I call a normal offense.”

Of course, such a statement begs the question: Isn’t Missouri’s spread attack already “a normal offense” by today’s college football standards?

It sure seems that way, especially in the Big 12 Conference, where about everybody now has at least some elements of the spread offense. Sending four receivers wide has become common operating procedure �” not just for a teenager’s Xbox anymore.

It’s crazy how things have changed since Mike Ekeler was playing linebacker at Kansas State in the early 1990s.

“It truly is incredible,” the Husker linebackers coach said. “You go back to when I was playing, it was a pro-style offense or the option. We didn’t face any spread or any of the zone read. It’s evolved and it’s continued to evolve.”

So you better be evolving with it, said Husker defensive coordinator Carl Pelini. That’s something the past Husker defensive staff was sometimes criticized for not doing.

“You’ve got to evolve and typically that’s hard for a (coach) who’s had a lot of success,” Pelini said. “But when the schemes he’s been using don’t apply anymore, the key is to evolve as it goes ... to make changes within scheme and philosophy.”

And once you settle on a fitting defensive philosophy, “In our minds, you can play with the same philosophy and defend any type of offense. Then it’s OK to change your schemes week to week and ask your kids to do a little more and different things, as long as you’re not changing your whole philosophy.”

As Big 12 Media Days get under way in Kansas City, Mo., on today (a welcome sign that our football drought is almost over), plenty of defensive coaches in the league are searching for the ingredients that might temper the high-powered offenses they’ll face.

Perhaps the most telling stat of how good the offenses are right now: Nebraska finished ninth in the country in total offense last year but fifth in the Big 12. Texas Tech, Missouri, Oklahoma State and Kansas were all ahead of NU. Seven of the top 20 offenses in the country were from the Big 12.

Husker head coach Bo Pelini said after spring practice that when he first came back into the league in December, “I was a little bit blown away about how skyrocketed the numbers were on the offensive side.”

And it’ not just because of a league loaded with top-flight quarterbacks: Daniel, Texas Tech’s Graham Harrell, Oklahoma’s Sam Bradford, Kansas’ Todd Reesing. Smart offensive minds have figured out ways to get the ball to playmakers in space.

Missouri, Tech and KU are leading examples of teams that have used the spread offense to elevate from middling status to forces in the league, each doing it in their own way.

“The beauty about the spread is it’s not like a wishbone or a Wing T or a West Coast, where you see one and you see it all,” spread guru Rich Rodriguez said when he was introduced as Michigan’s coach. “This is a little bit different. Not every spread is like another spread.”

Tech’s Mike Leach, for example, has used his spread attack mostly to pass. Harrell threw for more than 5,700 yards last year but rushed for just 58.

Then there’s a team like West Virginia, which would just as soon run out of the spread. Quarterback Pat White had almost as many rushing yards (1,423) last season as he did passing (1,724).

So how do the Blackshirts, who allowed more points (455), yards (5,722) and first downs (299) than any other team in school history, slow the kind of offense that so badly gouged them last year?

“There are plenty of good schemes you can defend the spread offense with,” Carl Pelini said. “The problem is, no matter what you do defensively, they’re going to find ways with the spread to isolate and they’re always going to end up with one-on-one matchups.

“The key to defending that type of offense is to eliminate as many of those one-on-one situations as you can and pick and choose where you allow it to happen.”

And one more thing: Your defensive line better be good, too.

Having coached at Ohio in the Mid-American Conference before coming to Nebraska, Carl Pelini believes that was the conference that was really the “trend-setter” with the spread. Before Urban Meyer was using it on the big stage at Florida, he was making it go at Bowling Green.

For a while, the spread was viewed as an equalizer of sorts in the college game. Coaches at less-established schools put their playmakers on offense and looked to create mismatches, getting them the ball with room to work. Some success was had and everyone with a coach’s whistle noticed. Soon, many were copying it.

“Look at the balance in the (Big 12) conference now, and I would attribute that to the spread,” Carl Pelini said. “If you’re looking to build a program, you’re asking, ‘What can I do to compete with these guys who have a little better players across the board?’

“Go to the spread. Create some excitement about the program. You’re throwing the ball around. Suddenly quarterbacks and receivers want to come play for you. You start winning some games, then you start landing some defensive guys on that side of the ball.”

Missouri coach Gary Pinkel, whose team switched from a pro-style offense to the spread prior to the 2005 season, would have never landed Daniel as a recruit if not for the change in offense. Daniel had 473 yards against NU last year in Mizzou’s 41-6 win.

Ekeler said it’s important for NU defensive coaches to be just as cutting-edge, just as unpredictable as the creative offensive minds they’re going against.

“Our core philosophy is just to be very, very multiple,” he said. “We don’t want to sit in one thing. If an offense is good and they know what you’re in, they’ll beat you. That’s why I’ve always been intrigued how Bo does it. He’s always trying to stay one step ahead of the offense.”

Ekeler knows all the playmakers in this league present serious challenges, but he also said he hasn’t been losing sleep over those guys yet.

Daniel will be here soon enough. In the meantime ...

“You think about how are we going to get better tomorrow,” Ekeler said. “You always hear Bo talking about the process. Those dates are on our schedule and they’re going to come.”