Published: August 29, 2006 12:10 pm            

Spread offense gives Springtown balance

The Springtown Porcupines are looking to spread people out and make them pay with both the passing and running game in Springtown head football coach Brad Turner’s new offense.

The Porcupines have only been in this offense since spring practice, and according to Turner, the team has picked it up rather quickly.

“They were some spread [last year], so they had a little bit of it,” Turner said. “I think they hung their hat on the power running game. It was a change for them. It is a little bit different. I think it is a little more exciting.”

“We are a shotgun, no huddle team,” Turner said. “We never huddle and never take a snap under center. We haven’t in the last four years. It is tempo-oriented where we can hurry up, we can slow down, we can do a lot of things with tempo to put pressure on the defense that way. We try to stretch the field. We don’t do a lot of formations. We are not a pass-oriented team. We do whatever personnel dictates.

“I have had a 2,000 yard passer for the last five years. I have also had a 1,000 yard rusher the last three years. I have had a 1,000 yard receiver the last four years. We do have balance. I have averaged 30-something points the last three or four years and close to 400 yards of offense.

“The thing I like the most is our personnel dictates what we do,” Turner said. “We can run the ball. We can get in two-back and have a power running game.

“All of my background is wing-T. So that wing-T running game is still in my blood and we can get into two-back shotgun and run all of our wing-T stuff or we can spread out and have no back and do a lot of things.”

Some big pieces necessary for Turner’s offense to run at peak efficiency are good offensive lineman, good wide receivers, and a running quarterback who is accurate passing the football. Turner believes he has all three of those.

“Having a running quarterback, to me, allows you to level the playing field,” Turner said. “Now you are playing 11 on 11. They have to account for him. You have to account for the quarterback. That is extremely beneficial to what we do. Are you going to stop the run or stop the pass? You have to decide. We have been very fortunate to have some good players.”

Senior Logan Turner, his son, who recently committed to play football at SMU, will be the starting quarterback, but the search for a back-up quarterback for not only this year, but for years to come, is a concern for Turner.

“Developing quarterbacks has been my job since I have been coaching,” Turner said. “It is fun to be a quarterback in this offense.”

Having a quarterback like his son who understands his offense as well as Turner, allows him to concentrate on the other half of the passing game, receivers.

“When I came in here, I knew they had thrown the ball and the good receivers they had were leaving because they were seniors,” Turner said. “There are very few guys that can just catch the football. You have to learn how to catch a football, run routes and we have spent lots of time teaching stances, starts, coming off the ball, releases, running routes and most importantly, catching footballs.

“The ones coming at them right now are coming pretty quick, so getting them use to that was another, but first and foremost, we had to identify some wide receivers. Right now, I feel like we have six that I would consider, real solid. We have eight of 10 that are usable, but I have six guys that I have pretty good confidence in making plays.”

Fun is a word Turner uses a lot to describe what his offense can be for his players. For example, his offensive linemen have a huge responsibility and could be the biggest reason Springtown enjoys success this season.

“Our offensive linemen probably have more thrown on them than any other position, offensively or defensively,” Turner said. “They are not in the huddle to talk about it or communicate with each other. They are on the line of scrimmage. The quarterback communicates with them in three different ways. They have to pay attention. Those O-linemen, they are in a world of their own. We have some young ones, but they are doing very good.

“There are multiple things on multiple plays. For example, on the GT play, where the guard and tackle pull, they can convert that to our tackle power, where the guard doesn’t pull, just the tackle pulls. They convert that and there are several things, play side and backside, and one has to know what the other is doing. The center is dictating the protection.

“It is pretty complex, but it is fun for them because they are not just the grunts and not just going up there and putting the hand in the dirt and firing off and hitting somebody every time,” Turner said. “They have to think and react and see. It has evolved into them being, in my mind, mentally, being the toughest place to play.”

The Springtown offensive line does not have a wealth of experience, with only one player returning in senior Douglas Mooneyham. But, Mooneyham will be at center, anchoring the line for the four other juniors who are expected to start come Week 0.

Turner has developed his offensive scheme from some of the best known offensive minds in the state.

“I have stolen as much as I could from just about everybody who is good,” Turner said. “We have got some Southlake Carroll, Denton Ryan, and Ennis. There are a lot of good teams out there that run the spread. Our format and how we organize things is very much like Southlake Carroll.

“The best thing about [the offense] is the decision-making is not in the hands of a 17-year-old. It is in the hands of the coaches. Every play we call has the ability to be checked at the line based on what my coaches see in the box, who communicate [what they see] to me. Every play, we will look and we will either run it or change it.”

That doesn’t mean the play cannot be messed up because of execution mistakes by the players. But if the question of why a certain play was or was not run ever comes up, the buck will stop with Turner and his coaching staff and not with the players on the field.

        

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