Here’s a little-known fact: When my mother was a high school English teacher in Fairmont, West Virginia, back in 1981, she had this loudmouth, wise-cracking jock in the back of her class who wasn’t a particularly great student but still managed to get a passing grade when pushed a little.
His name? Rich Rodriguez. He turned out okay.
While he might have written some grammatically FUBAR book reports in his youth, Coach Rod is clearly not without a brain. The spread offense he developed at WVU won the Sugar Bowl last year and is starting to become very popular in many football circles — including circles in Atlanta. Yes, it appears that the Atlanta Falcons may have found an offensive scheme that works for their personnel.
WVU’s offense works because of speed burners like Pat White and Steve Slaton. You need pure speed at those positions for Rodriguez’ spread offense to work. Guess what? The Falcons have that, and they showed it in spades last Sunday against Tampa Bay. Michael Vick, Warrick Dunn and Jerious Norwood lit up the Buccaneers for 306 rushing yards and 15 first downs. They operated out of the shotgun most of the time and ran the same kind of plays that make White and Slaton so dominant on a regular basis.
Is it possible that this offense could work at the NFL level? Could the Falcons ride Coach Rod’s playbook to the playoffs? Or is this just the next run-and-shoot, an NFL fad destined to get a talented team into January but no further, thus relegated to go no further than the college game?
Time will tell, but if the spread offense works, Vince Young is going to be a big damn superstar in the NFL — and this Panthers fan is going to have to deal with the fact that my team could get run over by an offense designed by some wiseass sitting in the back of my mom’s classroom 25 years ago…
