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Ok, been a few days so I dont think Mike would mind sharing a little of his "VIP" pre season stuff over at EERSPORTS since he joined so here goes:
The mythology of Dana Holgorsen’s offense took a detour in 2016. For the first time in his six seasons as West Virginia's head coach, Holgorsen didn’t run the ball more often than he did the year before.
The again, he did throw it fewer times than ever before.
Somewhere in between those two extremes is the truth about Holgorsen as he readies for his seventh season in charge, one that begins when players report for their first team meeting Saturday and practice for the first time Sunday.
Holgorsen isn’t one or the other. He’s both because he’s the sum of his experiences, from his playing days at Iowa Wesleyan and his infant days as an assistant at Valdosta State to his time with Mike Leach at Texas Tech and his current role as the black sheep of the fraternal order of Air Raid coaches.
“He’s one of the initial members,” said Texas Tech coach and play card-carrying member Kliff Kingsbury. “He’s always going to be in it. He put up some big numbers early on.”
Holgorsen did that at Texas Tech with Leach, at Houston for Kevin Sumlin, at Oklahoma State for Mike Gundy and then at WVU, where the Mountaineers won the Orange Bowl in his first season. That was a 10-win season. So, too, was 2016. Holgorsen went about it in different ways.
(Photo: Mike Casazza)
The 2011 Mountaineers ran the ball just 43.5 percent of the time. The 2016 Mountaineers ran on 58.4 percent of their snaps. The former averaged 3.8 yards per carry. The latter averaged 5.2 yards per carry. Holgorsen ran the ball more often in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015, and though he stepped back last season from 59.2 percent in 2015, he also had more yards, yards per carry and yards per game last season than ever before.
“I learned some good stuff at Oklahoma State and Houston, too, with Sumlin,” Holgorsen said. “One thing we didn’t do at Tech, we didn’t run the ball at all. But at Houston, a lot of the stuff we did was up-tempo with motion and stuff like that. Then we kind of got that stuff going at Oklahoma State a little bit more, and I give Gundy a lot of credit for that.”
Holgorsen was paired there with offensive line coach Joe Wickline, who is entering his second season with the Mountaineers. Together, they created the three-back diamond formation, and that took Kendall Hunter to 1,548 yards and 16 touchdowns. Holgorsen was then off to WVU.
“We took some from that, and then Ron Crook, give him a lot of credit four years ago coming in here and developing a mentality with our offensive line, a lot of gap schemes and Stanford type stuff,” Holgorsen said. “It doesn’t happen overnight. You can’t just make a decision that you want to run the ball overnight. It’s going to take some time. It took us a couple of years before we got good at it, and I think we continue to improve that.”
It’s a departure from his beginnings, when he learned the Air Raid offense as a receiver at Iowa Wesleyan under Hal Mumme.
“He’s the godfather,” Holgorsen said. “Leach was the catalyst.”
Consider the company Holgorsen kept when he was at Texas Tech from 2000-07. Leach, Holgorsen, Art Briles, Sonny Dykes and Seth Littrell coached. Kingsbury, Sonny Cumbie and Lincoln Riley played.
“That tree is pretty big from the early 2000s,” Holgorsen said. “Nobody was doing that, so there’s a pretty strong fraternity there, and everyone’s branching out and doing it on his own.”
Holgorsen is the outlier, though, and Mumme has let him know about it.
“Hal did come to the Baylor game (last season), which was Game 12, and we couldn’t throw the ball at all in that game,” Holgorsen said. “He goes, “I really don’t want to kick you out, but I’m going to have to kick you out.’”
Holgorsen reminded his mentor that WVU won despite completing 10 of 26 passes for 111 yards.
“He goes, ‘That’s why we’re here right now,’” Holgorsen said. “Even though he’d like to kick me out of the Air Raid, he’s still at my house, still watching the game, still having a cold one, because we ran the ball.”
Author
Mike Casazza
The mythology of Dana Holgorsen’s offense took a detour in 2016. For the first time in his six seasons as West Virginia's head coach, Holgorsen didn’t run the ball more often than he did the year before.
The again, he did throw it fewer times than ever before.
Somewhere in between those two extremes is the truth about Holgorsen as he readies for his seventh season in charge, one that begins when players report for their first team meeting Saturday and practice for the first time Sunday.
Holgorsen isn’t one or the other. He’s both because he’s the sum of his experiences, from his playing days at Iowa Wesleyan and his infant days as an assistant at Valdosta State to his time with Mike Leach at Texas Tech and his current role as the black sheep of the fraternal order of Air Raid coaches.
“He’s one of the initial members,” said Texas Tech coach and play card-carrying member Kliff Kingsbury. “He’s always going to be in it. He put up some big numbers early on.”
Holgorsen did that at Texas Tech with Leach, at Houston for Kevin Sumlin, at Oklahoma State for Mike Gundy and then at WVU, where the Mountaineers won the Orange Bowl in his first season. That was a 10-win season. So, too, was 2016. Holgorsen went about it in different ways.
(Photo: Mike Casazza)
The 2011 Mountaineers ran the ball just 43.5 percent of the time. The 2016 Mountaineers ran on 58.4 percent of their snaps. The former averaged 3.8 yards per carry. The latter averaged 5.2 yards per carry. Holgorsen ran the ball more often in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015, and though he stepped back last season from 59.2 percent in 2015, he also had more yards, yards per carry and yards per game last season than ever before.
“I learned some good stuff at Oklahoma State and Houston, too, with Sumlin,” Holgorsen said. “One thing we didn’t do at Tech, we didn’t run the ball at all. But at Houston, a lot of the stuff we did was up-tempo with motion and stuff like that. Then we kind of got that stuff going at Oklahoma State a little bit more, and I give Gundy a lot of credit for that.”
Holgorsen was paired there with offensive line coach Joe Wickline, who is entering his second season with the Mountaineers. Together, they created the three-back diamond formation, and that took Kendall Hunter to 1,548 yards and 16 touchdowns. Holgorsen was then off to WVU.
“We took some from that, and then Ron Crook, give him a lot of credit four years ago coming in here and developing a mentality with our offensive line, a lot of gap schemes and Stanford type stuff,” Holgorsen said. “It doesn’t happen overnight. You can’t just make a decision that you want to run the ball overnight. It’s going to take some time. It took us a couple of years before we got good at it, and I think we continue to improve that.”
It’s a departure from his beginnings, when he learned the Air Raid offense as a receiver at Iowa Wesleyan under Hal Mumme.
“He’s the godfather,” Holgorsen said. “Leach was the catalyst.”
Consider the company Holgorsen kept when he was at Texas Tech from 2000-07. Leach, Holgorsen, Art Briles, Sonny Dykes and Seth Littrell coached. Kingsbury, Sonny Cumbie and Lincoln Riley played.
“That tree is pretty big from the early 2000s,” Holgorsen said. “Nobody was doing that, so there’s a pretty strong fraternity there, and everyone’s branching out and doing it on his own.”
Holgorsen is the outlier, though, and Mumme has let him know about it.
“Hal did come to the Baylor game (last season), which was Game 12, and we couldn’t throw the ball at all in that game,” Holgorsen said. “He goes, “I really don’t want to kick you out, but I’m going to have to kick you out.’”
Holgorsen reminded his mentor that WVU won despite completing 10 of 26 passes for 111 yards.
“He goes, ‘That’s why we’re here right now,’” Holgorsen said. “Even though he’d like to kick me out of the Air Raid, he’s still at my house, still watching the game, still having a cold one, because we ran the ball.”
Author
Mike Casazza
