Spread Offense

The spread offense is an offensive scheme in American and Canadian football that is used at every level of the game including professional (NFL, CFL), college (NCAA, NAIA, CIS), and high school programs across the US and Canada. Spread offenses typically place the quarterback in the shotgun formation, and "spread" the defense horizontally using three-, four-, and even five-receiver sets. Many spread offenses also employ a no-huddle approach. Some implementations of the spread also feature wide splits between the offensive linemen. Many spread offenses use the read option running play to put pressure on both sides of the defense. Spread offenses also leverage vertical (down field) passing routes to spread the defense vertically, to open up multiple vertical seams for both the running and passing game.

The grandfather of the spread offense is Rusty Russell, a graduate of Howard Payne University, in Brownwood, Texas, and coach of Fort Worth's Masonic Home and School for orphaned boys. Russell began coaching Masonic Home in 1927, and due to the fact that his teams were often over-matched physically by other schools, they were called the "Mighty Mites". While there, he deployed the earliest form of a spread offense to great success. Russell's team is the subject of a book by author Jim Dent entitled, Twelve Mighty Orphans: The Inspiring True Story of the Mighty Mites Who Ruled Texas Football.

In 1952 TCU coaching legend Leo "Dutch" Meyer wrote a book entitled Spread Formation Football, detailing his ideas about football formations, in which the first sentence was, "Spread formations are not new to football." Meyer's book introduced the spread to the college game. Leo “Dutch” Meyer, who inspired Don Coryell among others, wrote about his theories for football offenses. In his seminal 1952 work entitled Spread Formation Football, Meyer encapsulated some of the lessons learned during his almost two decades coaching legendary football players like Sammy Baugh and Davey O’Brien at Texas Christian University. By lining his receivers and occasionally his backs outside the “box” surrounding the quarterback and the center at the line of scrimmage in a formation that has come to be known as the “Meyer Spread,” also known as the double wing formation, Meyer discovered that it forced defenses to respond by spreading their players. That in turn created natural holes in the line and seams in the defensive secondary. Spreading out the defense reduced the need for power blocking by undersized linemen.

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