The Perfect Pass (#88)
The first forward pass in college football was thrown by St. Louis University’s Bradbury Robinson during a game on September 5, 1906 against Carroll College. Although Robinson’s first pass was an incompletion, he also threw a 20-yard touchdown strike. Yet, for most of the 20th-century, college offenses relied on running based offenses, like the single-wing, the T, and the wishbone. For example, three decades ago in the January 1, 1991 Orange Bowl, #5 Notre Dame faced #1 Colorado. In the game, the Fighting Irish had 141 yards of passing and 123 yards of rushing, while the Buffalos had 109 yards through the air and 186 on the ground. Colorado won the game 10-9 and secured the National Championship.
Tonight, at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami many Americans will watch the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Alabama Crimson Tide battle for the 2021 College Football National Championship. I know I will be. In the game against the Clemson Tigers, Ohio State’s Justin Field threw 28 times for 385 yards and 6 touchdowns. In the game against Notre Dame, Alabama’s Mac Jones threw for 297 yards and 4 touchdowns. One thing is certain tonight — we will see a lot of offense generated in the air. What has changed in college football in the last 30 years?
Ohio State’s Quarterback Justin Fields
S.C. Gwynne is a former journalist, editor, and noted author. His book, The Perfect Pass: American Genius and the Reinvention of Football is an interesting study in innovation and leadership. He does a fantastic job telling the story of how the passing offense came to dominate American football, especially the college game.
One of the central characters in the evolution of American football from the ground and pound offenses of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s to the air offenses of 2000 and beyond is Coach Hal Mumme. Hal coached at Iowa Wesleyan, Valdosta State, and Kentucky. Hal is credited with creating the Air Raid offense, which drew heavily on concepts developed by Coach Lavelle Edwards at Brigham Young University. The Air Raid offense focuses on passing — as many as 65-75% of all plays are passes. The system is uptempo, typically run out of a shotgun formation with four wide receivers and one running back, and tries to spread the offense across the field’s full 53 yards of width and 100 yards of length. There was opportunities for improvisation as well — the quarterback has the freedom to audible to any play based on what the defense shows him at the line of scrimmage. In addition, the wide receivers can adjust and change their routes based on what the defense gave them.
One thing Coach Mumme did well was reframe the problem. The whole point of reframing is not to find the correct problem but, instead, to examine if there is a better issue to solve. Problems are typically multifaceted and can be tackled in many ways; there is rarely one way to solve a problem. What Coach Mumme asked was not “how can I improve my running offense?” Instead he decided to see “how could I design an offense that was pass-first, stretched the field horizontally and vertically, maximized the number of plays, and enabled improvisation based on the defense?”
Three ways to get you and your team to reframe your problem:
Brainstorm ideas on how to ask the question. The answer to your question typically revolves around what question is posed. The answer you get when you ask “How do we give Bob a bonus for his outstanding performance?” is different then when you ask “How do we recognize Bob in a meaningful way for his outstanding performance?”
Brainstorm bad ideas. Develop a list of bad solutions to your question, the more ridiculous the better. The ridiculous solutions help you see how to push the boundaries on the solutions that you have subconsciously imposed. For instance, back on how to recognize Bob, a ridiculous solution could be “To throw a party for Bob with ponies and a petting zoo.” But that answer leads to a better solution which is “Give Bob a day off in recognition of his outstanding performance, so he can spend time on his family farm.”
List all the assumptions around the question. Then list all the opposites to the assumptions. Apple is great at this. The iPod was created because Apple relooked the assumption that people were content lugging around CDs. Instead they asked wouldn’t people want to be able to carry “1,000 songs in your pocket?” Lots of assumptions were challenged and broken to develop the iPod.
Go on the offense in 2021 and look for opportunities to reframe the problem, like Hal Mumme, and discover new ways of doing business. And Go Buckeyes!