Abandoning the Air Raid
Why Neal Brown and many others are ditching the Air Raid in college football and seeing more success.
Coaches have always said football is a cyclical game. We are in the midst of another offensive transition, especially at the college football level. Teams that have struggled like Kansas, Missouri, and West Virginia are making comebacks and doing it through tough running games. We’ve looked extensively at Kansas and Missouri’s offenses here.
Missouri Offense Articles:
Kansas Offense Article:
Next, we will look at West Virginia, but before we do, let’s step back and look at the bigger picture of what’s going on with these team’s philosophy.
Air Raid History
There isn’t much you can do if your team is outmatched, but innovation in football often comes out of necessity. One thing that can give a team a chance is being different. The Military Academies have been doing it for decades. Knowing they’ll never get top recruits, and will never match up running a more traditional college offense, the academies employ triple option strategies that major college football teams refuse to employ. Even though Paul Johnson proved it could be successful at a Power 5 school.
This is how the Air Raid was born. Hal Mumme realized that to turn programs around he couldn’t run the typical offenses. Back in the late 80s and 90s, run-heavy offenses dominated both the high school and college landscapes. Knowing their teams didn’t stand a chance physically to match up with better teams, he decided to put more receivers on the field and pass the ball.
Most defenses played with 3 or 4 bigger type run-stopping linebackers. This meant that Mumme’s Air Raid teams had quick slot receivers matched up on bigger linebackers, which was a recipe for success.
Once Mumme had success in the SEC, teams started to copy. Mike Leach branched off and had success at Oklahoma and Texas Tech, and colleges began hiring their assistants.
2010s Big 12
The Air Raid philosophy spread throughout the entire country, but none bigger than the Big 12. With Kliff Kingsbury at Texas Tech, Sonnie Combie and Doug Meachum at TCU, Lincoln Riley at Oklahoma, and Dana Holgorsen at West Virginia, the Air Raid was everywhere.
In this era, it seemed as if there was no defense being played. Scores often pushed above the 50s for both teams, and no lead was ever safe. Look no further than the 2016 Texas Tech vs Oklahoma game where the two teams combined for 1708 yards and 125 points.
Up-Tempo Power Spread Offenses
Though we are focused specifically on the Air Raid, I can’t leave out what Chip Kelly, Art Briles, Urban Meyer, and Gus Malzahn were doing at the time either. Though a more balanced approach than the true Air Raid, these offenses used tempo and downhill runs paired with RPOs to great success.
These tactics slowly trickled upward. Though reluctant at first, teams like Alabama and Georgia at the top started to implement tempo and RPOs into their more traditional pro-style approaches.
Defensive Adaptation
Defensive coordinators aren’t dumb, so they needed a different strategy. 3 man fronts, 3 high safeties, and putting smaller but faster safety-type bodies all over the field has become the norm. Passing lanes shrink, and teams using two 4is can spill all the inside run game to the alley and safeties.
You can’t simply put undersized quicker slots on the field to exploit slow inside linebackers, because there were no slow inside linebackers on the field, at least not in coverage on a receiver.
So if the top teams in college football are running Air Raid or similar systems and their defense is being built to stop these systems, is the Air Raid still an advantage for the smaller schools?
My opinion is no. We have come to a time where these middle-of-the-pack teams need to adjust to something different.
College Football 2024 and forward
My point isn’t to attack the Air Raid or the up-tempo spread. It’s a sound system that many are still thriving in. It is more to point out that it isn’t an equalizer for smaller teams anymore. Going no huddle 4 wide doesn’t make teams uncomfortable.
Most kids live in the spread environment their whole high school careers. They see it all season long, and then go and play 7 on 7 all spring and summer.
It’s now the run-heavy approaches that are rare and causing issues. When you have 5 defensive backs on the field how do you adapt to 2 tight ends or a full back?
Look no further than Nick Saban’s interview on the Pat McAfee show following his loss to Michigan.
“They’re the only team that we played all season that got into a huddle. So, you know, it used to be every team was in a huddle. We play our first team of the season where we’re playing a team in a huddle, so you don’t have the advantage of seeing those formations until they come out of the huddle, so you got to make the calls.”
Defenses are so used to operating in the no-huddle environment now that the huddle is becoming more problematic. So will we see more pro-style huddle attacks in 2024 at the college level?
West Virginia and Neal Brown
The best coaches adapt or get left behind. Neal Brown was at this crossroads heading into the 2023 season. Brown was at the forefront of the Air Raid, playing for Hal Mumme and Mike Leach at Kentucky. Once he got into the coaching world, he employed the same tactics.
As the OC at Texas Tech and head coach at Troy, his offenses took on the same scheme. His offenses were consistently one of the top in the nation for passing and plays per game. This proved to be successful at Troy, landing him 3 straight double-digit win seasons.
His success at Troy got him the job at West Virginia where he continued to try and employ his brand of offense. This time, it was met with little success. This led to mediocre seasons in his first 4 years, and always finished in the middle to bottom of the Big 12 standings. He even brought in another Air Raid guru Graham Harrell to be the OC in 2022 but was met with the same lackluster offense.
Brown now found himself on the hot seat. He needed to adapt.
With a veteran offensive line, and a mobile quarterback Brown decided to lean on the running game, and they ditched the Air Raid for a run-first approach.
The result?
They finished the #1 Power 5 rushing attack (#4 in all of FBS) and a 9-win season. They ranked in the top 40 in college football in every statistical category but 1… passing yards, where they ranked near the bottom.
Being able to adapt to this saved Brown’s job for now, and has a lot of people intrigued on what this offense can do in 2024.
In the next few weeks, we will dive into West Virginia’s running game. They used an array of both gap and zone schemes and utilized their quarterback to create a numbers advantage.
The Mountaineers along with what we’ve already seen from Kansas and Missouri are great studies on how to adapt to today’s defenses. Football is a copycat game, and we will see more teams utilizing these run-first systems.
I’m sorry but I don’t think I can get behind this conclusion that running the ball a lot is more beneficial than the pass first nature of air raid offenses. Here is a pretty good article showing just how much more efficient passing is than rushing on early downs:
https://www.fromtherumbleseat.com/2024/7/5/24192558/analytics-week-the-nature-of-passing-college-football-study-hall-georgia-tech-statistics-cfbfastr?utm_source=chatgpt.com
If we’re going to compare WVU seasons from back to years, it also should be pointed out that JT Daniels was the primary QB the first year, and Greene the next, which is a huge variable.
The caveat is that it’s technically more efficient to run with a QB than a RB, which Greene did a lot of and Daniels didn’t. I have a hard time believing an increase in rushing success for a QB would be significantly more valuable in a power spread offense versus just designing QB runs from the Air Raid or just letting the QB scramble in the air raid. Either way they’re bound to be more efficient than normal run plays where you just hand the ball off to a RB. This reversion back to running the ball with RBs versus passing a lot just makes zero sense.