by GRIDIRON GURU » Thu Sep 04, 2008 7:57 am
Few coaches are true innovators, most coahces, especially the good ones, copy things that work from other good coaches, and those coaches don't mind because they copied their scheme from another coach, it's simply a circle of life in the football coaching world.
Richland, was probably the first to make a splash running the spread in 9-man. I am sure that Sheehan saw the spread watching Utah or something like that and said dang, that would really work well in 9-man, he had gobs of speed and talent and really did a nice job of running it, It was a contrarian approach and it was different and new and somthing that other teams were not used to defending. They won a state championship with it.
Magner being a forward thinking coach who knew his talent pool well, saw the spread offense and the success that Richland had, implemented it to his team, did a nice job of getting his kids to execute the offense, and they made a run at another championship with gobs of speed and talent.
I would say however that Coach Sheehan should be given the title of... "the father of the 9-man spread offense."
"One thing you have to remember Bobby, soccer was invented in europe by women, so they would have something to do while the men stayed home and did the dishes"
Hank Hill