Commentary By George Morse
After a weekend of high-scoring football games that have become the norm rather than the exception, it appears the spread offense is alive and well in Northern New Mexico.
Escalante racked up 54 points on Cuba, Pojoaque put up 36 points against Española Valley and McCurdy School scored 28 points on Santa Fe Indian School Sept. 13 — all utilizing the spread.
Española was the first high school in this area to use the spread offense, under former coach Manny Medina. Jesus Maes, who was offensive coordinator under Medina, introduced the spread to McCurdy when he began the summer as an assistant coach there. Maes was later hired as head coach at Escalante and he brought the spread offense northward. It stayed on at McCurdy, as another ex-Española coach, Lucas Gonzales, took over teaching it to the Bobcats.
Over at Pojoaque, another ex-Española coach, Quevin Redding, has installed the spread. It seems we can thank Española and Medina for the spread of the “spread.”
The spread offense, as I remember, first started showing itself in the 1960s under “Mouse” Davis, who was coach at Portland State University. He called it the “run and shoot” at the time.
For those of you who may be football illiterates — and that would include a lot of football fans — the spread offense is basically designed to do what its name implies. The offense spreads out and by doing so, spreads the defense across the field.
It typically consists of four wide receivers and a single running back. The quarterback lines up about five yards deep behind the center in what is called a shotgun formation; he takes a snap from center.
The spread offense is designed to create favorable match-ups between a receiver and a defender. As it has evolved, it has also been utilized as a running offense that tries to run in the defensive gaps created by the spread formation.
As a former defensive back, it is sometimes appalling to me to see the poor pass coverage that helps make the spread so effective. People still scream out, “Don’t let anyone behind you!” to defensive backs, who are so wary of deep passes that they back-pedal almost as soon as the ball is snapped.
From what I’ve seen, a lot of passes in the spread are completed in front of the defense. Moreover, back-pedaling too much opens up the outside running game. If you’re a defensive back focused on not letting anything behind you, the spread offense will do an awful lot of damage in front of you.
Unfortunately, too many passes completed in front of you can be a catch-22 — if you start covering short, that’s when you’ll get beat deep.
If you play strictly a numbers game, the defense should stop the offense from passing the ball. After all, the offense only has five players who can catch passes, while the defense has more players than that to cover them.
Football defenses have adjusted as well. There are now zone pass defenses, even in high school. There are Cover One, Cover Two and Cover Three defenses. Sometimes I wonder if this just confuses young players. I see a lot of big plays in high school, college and even in the pros made possible because of blown coverages. Sometimes I wonder if an old-fashioned man-to-man wouldn’t be simpler and just as effective.
Too many defensive backs watch the ball for too long. I see them looking into the backfield and then watching the flight of the ball, while the man they’re supposed to be covering runs away or gets open in front of them. Guess what — if you’re watching the quarterback and not reacting until he throws the ball, he throws it a lot faster than you can run.
Finally, players are way too focused on making interceptions. Young high school defensive backs seem to always be waiting, almost expecting, a short pass that they can pick off. They should realize that if the throw is over their heads, it’s going to be completed.
When I was playing football, it was pretty much man-to-man coverage. The best defensive backs didn’t make a lot of interceptions because quarterbacks gave up trying to challenge them. The best defensive back I ever saw was Jimmy Johnson of the San Francisco 49ers, who played in the 1960s. He got a couple of picks a year if he was lucky, because quarterbacks wouldn’t go to the man he was covering.
It wouldn’t show up in the statistics, but he effectively neutralized the men he covered.
Jimmy Johnson never became famous like other, flashier defensive backs who made a lot of interceptions, and sports writers never voted him into the Pro Football Hall of Fame — to their discredit. The Veterans Committee, comprised of players, corrected that oversight because they knew differently.