Why every team should install its offense in three days (and other political theories on coaching offense)

Dana Holgorsen, West Virginia’s new offensive coordinator and head coach in waiting, has frequently said that his entire record breaking offense can be installed “in three days.” And, now that his three days of spring practice are up, he said on day four his team will simply “start over,” and will run through this install period three or four times during the spring. Wait, what? Hasn’t Holgorsen been a part of record breaking offenses for more than a decade, including the last three (at Houston and then Oklahoma State) as head orchestrator? Doesn’t saying you can install your entire top tier Division-I men’s college football offense in three lousy days seem a little bit like, I don’t know, bullshit?

Entire offense, three days -- power through

It does, but only because “complexity” is too often accepted as an end in and of itself and because we undervalue gains from specialization. As Holgorsen says, “no one” in his offense will play more than one position; he doesn’t even want someone to play both “inside and outside receiver.” The idea is a simple one: with limited practice time and, to be honest, limited skills, kids need to focus on a few things and to get better at them — the jack of all trades is incredibly overrated. While Urban Meyer’s Florida offense thrived for a time with Tebow and his omnipositional teammate, Percy Harvin, I’d argue that this reliance on a “Percy Position” — a guy that can play most every skill position on offense — eventually does more harm than good. I’m all for getting the ball to playmakers in different ways, but I am not — and neither is Holgorsen — a fan of doing it to the detriment of repetitions and becoming a master at your given position. It’s nature versus nurture on the football practice field, and I side with nurture.

Put another way, if your offense is well designed you don’t need to move a guy around to get him the ball. As one of Holgorsen’s assistants at West Virginia explains:

“Wes Welker at Texas Tech caught over 100 balls two years in a row and he played ‘H,” Dawson said. Michael Crabtree caught over 100 (at Texas Tech) and he play ‘Z.’ I had two receivers back to back that caught over 100 and that played ‘X.’ Then I had a guy catch 119 that played ‘Y.’

“It just depends on where that guy lines up,” Dawson continued. “The ball finds the play makers. Regardless of where you line them up. The ball finds the play makers. That is just the way it works out.”

If you’re looking for the guiding principle here, it is not one specific to football. Instead, it is (at least) as old as the opening of the Wealth of Nations:

The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is any where directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.

. . . To take an example, therefore, from a very trifling manufacture; but one in which the division of labour has been very often taken notice of, the trade of the pin-maker; a workman not educated to this business (which the division of labour has rendered a distinct trade), nor acquainted with the use of the machinery employed in it (to the invention of which the same division of labour has probably given occasion), could scarce, perhaps, with his utmost industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty. But in the way in which this business is now carried on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is divided into a number of branches, of which the greater part are likewise peculiar trades. One man draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on, is a peculiar business, to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper; and the important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided into about eighteen distinct operations, which, in some manufactories, are all performed by distinct hands, though in others the same man will sometimes perform two or three of them. I have seen a small manufactory of this kind where ten men only were employed, and where some of them consequently performed two or three distinct operations. But though they were very poor, and therefore but indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins in a day. There are in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of a middling size. Those ten persons, therefore, could make among them upwards of forty-eight thousand pins in a day. Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of forty-eight thousand pins, might be considered as making four thousand eight hundred pins in a day. But if they had all wrought separately and independently, and without any of them having been educated to this peculiar business, they certainly could not each of them have made twenty, perhaps not one pin in a day; that is, certainly, not the two hundred and fortieth, perhaps not the four thousand eight hundredth part of what they are at present capable of performing, in consequence of a proper division and combination of their different operations.

Smith is making a number of points about the advantages of a division of labor (not all of them relevant to this discussion), but one of them is that you can simply be better at your job if all you focus on is drawing out the wire over and over again than if your job is to make the entire pin, start to finish, every day.

The application to installing a football offense is this: focus on a few things, specialize players, and repeat the process over and over again. The first step is, whatever your offense is, to assign players to roles that fit them and have them develop those skills from one practice to the next, over the course of many months and years. The second step is to not make their job more difficult by changing their roles by moving them around or by installing too much offense — hence the three day rule.

I’ve used Holgorsen and his Airraid roots as the backdrop because these ideas were developed by Hal Mumme and Mike Leach, but they apply to every offense. After assigning players to their positions (RB, H-Back, Y, X, Z, etc) you install no more than a handful of plays each day, so that, for that day, the player’s job is obvious: learn your two or three assignments and do them over, and over, and over again. This is key for the receivers but even more for the offensive line — as you’ll see from the charts below the goal is to install only a couple of blocking schemes, both for runs and pass protection, each day, and then to repeat the process over and over again.

Below is an example of the installation process for someone using the Airraid offense. Note that this can differ but this will give the ballpark. (Since the Airraid guys use only one protection scheme and a couple of formations I haven’t included those here.)

Airraid Installation

Install Airraid in Three Days
Day 1
RunsBase
Quick PassesHitchSlantFade/out
Dropback PassesMeshFour VerticalsShallow
Screens/SpecialsQuick screens
Day 2
RunsZoneToss
Quick PassesHitchSlantFade/OutY-Stick
Dropback PassesMeshAll-CurlShakesCurl/Wheel
Screens/SpecialsWR/Jailbreak screen
Day 3
RunsPowerDraw
Quick PassesHitchY-CornerY-StickSlant
Dropback PassesMeshFour VerticalsY-Sail/FloodY-Cross
Screens/SpecialsRB ScreenBootlegs

A few themes should emerge. One, broken down this way, a player’s job should be much easier, thus maximizing the “indy” or individual time (let’s cover the two or three assignments) and then the rest of the day is spent doing this job over and over again, and the player can even benefit from watching your teammates do it too. Second, the you can drive home the “hang our hat on it” plays by carrying one or two things over for every day. For Mike Leach’s Airraid, that was the mesh play, but for Dana Holgorsen it might be four verticals or something else. This is the other great part about this framework: once you have it, it’s easy enough to move a few pieces around and get the plan in place for a given year if talent shifts your focus.

But let’s say you’re not a dyed-in-the-wool Airraider: how would you apply this framework to a pro-style offense? Note that I use “pro-style” instead of actual professional offense, as you’ll notice a lot of similarities to above given the limited number of plays and variations versus an enormous 800 play NFL playbook.

Pro-Style Offense Installation

Install Pro-Style Offense in Three Days
Day 1
FormationsAce (One-back, one TE, three WRs balanced set)Doubles (2x2 WRs)
ProtectionsFull-Slide Protection (six-man, seven man)
RunsInside ZoneOutside Zone
Quick PassesHitchSlantFade/Out
Dropback PassesFour VerticalsSmashSpeed OutSkinny post/flat
Screens/SpecialsWR quick screensBubble screens
Day 2
FormationsTrey (One-back, one TE, three WR with two WRs and the TE to one side)Trips (4 WR set, three to one side)Pro Set with splitbacks (with and without TE)I-Formation (with and without TE)
ProtectionsHalf-Slide (six-man and seven-man)
RunsPowerCounter-Trey
Quick PassesHitchSlantFade/OutStick
Dropback PassesFour VerticalsSnagShallowAll-Curl
Screens/SpecialsWR/Jailbreak screenRB/TE slow screens
Day 3
FormationsNo-backsPower (Two TEs)All others
ProtectionsBOB (Big-on-big, Back-on-backer, man-to-man), seven manHalf-slide (six-man, five-man)
RunsDrawTrap(Speed Option, if applicable)(Zone reads, if applicable)
Quick PassesHitch/SlantFade/OutStickSame with backside WR signaling "choice" route
Dropback Passes (Work off of play-action)Four VerticalsFloodY-CrossNCAA (Post/Dig/Underneath)
Screens/SpecialsDouble ScreenBootlegs(Additional "option" time, if applicable)

Note how the formations build up to match the other plays: Day 1 only involves “balanced” sets, while Day 2 includes “unbalanced” trips and trey formations, with Day 3 being more focused on play-action — concepts not really present in the Airraid. But the theory is the same: the entire offense goes in in three days, and you could theoretically scrimmage on Day 4. You wouldn’t of course, you’d go right back to teaching and maximizing the repetitions.

But both of these installation plans are for pass-first offenses built around dropback passes, and they don’t leave much time for other wrinkles. The below chart remedies that, as it is a rough sample of the same three-day installation for a run-first spread option team, a la Oregon or Auburn. The increased emphasis on option plays takes time away from the passing game, as quicks and dropback passes give way to a focus on option concepts and sprint out passes.

Spread to Run Installation

Three Day Installation for Run-First Spread
Day 1
FormationsDoubles (Four WR, 2x2)Ace (1 RB, 1 TE/H-Back, 3 WR, Balanced Set)
ProtectionsFull six-man slide
RunsInside ZoneOutside Zone
PassesHitchSlantFade/OutFour Verticals
Option PeriodZone ReadZone Read with BubbleSpeed Option (Zone Blocking)
Screens/SpecialsBubble ScreenWR Quick Screens
Day 2
FormationsTrey (1 RB, 1 TE/H-Back, 3 WR, three to a side)Trips (4 WR, three to a side)
ProtectionsHalf-slide (six-man)Half-slide (seven man)
RunsPowerCounter-Trey
PassesQuicks (Hitch, Slant, Fade)Four VerticalsCurl/FlatSmash
Option PeriodZone Read (Off "Power" blocking)Inverted Veer (With "Power" blocking)Shovel read (with "Power" or "Counter" blocking)
Screens/SpecialsWR/Jailbreak screenRB Slow Screen
Day 3
FormationsNo-backs2 RB splitbacksPistol
ProtectionsSprint outPlay-action (half-slide)Bootleg (Guard pull)
RunsDrawQuick Trap
Passes (Dropback and play-action)ShallowSnagFloodNCAA (Post/Dig)
Option PeriodVeer/diveMidline Zone Read
Screens/SpecialsSprintouts and bootlegs (same pass concepts as above)

The key to the option periods above is that, as noted in the chart, the blocking schemes all carry over from the base plays: zones, power, counter, and so on. The new teaching is primarily for the quarterbacks and runningbacks, not the offensive line. But, as with everything, the entire thing goes in within three days, with carryover from day to day for the most important concepts, and the focus is on teaching.

A final thought on motions, shifts and so forth: I don’t show them in the above as I don’t see them as properly part of the initial installation of an offense. I think the first three days and maybe even all of, say, a spring practice, can go without motion. Such motions and shifts come in later, to add the apparent complexity to an offense that isn’t actually there for the players. That stuff is easily taught once the players are taught their assignments. In Leach’s words, at that point you aren’t teaching him a new assignment, you’re just teaching him a new place to stand.

A word of caution to anyone who wants to adopt this approach, however, given the fraught nature of our political discourse: Underlying this approach is a kind of political value judgment — despite my quote of Adam Smith above, this framework for an offense assumes a belief that the best offenses are somewhat Marxist in their desire to “spread the wealth.” In lieu of deciding upon one or two guys who will roam the field like old school capitalist robber barrons, dominating the receiving and rushing industries equally, the attempt is to assign roles ahead of time and to let them flourish in, and only in, the one place we’ve told him to stand: production comes from each according to his ability; and the ball goes to each according to his need.

Yet, maybe that’s not true. Maybe Smith is the patron saint of this approach. Instead of tying your success solely to predetermined bureaucratic favorites — Percy Positions chosen by the Party — we have something more meritocratic, more capitalist: Wherever you line the guys up, the ball will find the playmakers.

Additional Reading:
Small school Airraid installation
Hal Mumme’s Airraid Practice Plan
Bill Walsh on Gameplanning
– Wild Bunch Installation and New Information. Read both.
Oklahoma State offensive and defensive spring practice schedules.
Observations from viewing Oklahoma State’s spring practice.