Thomas Lott remembers the day Barry Switzer first shook the landscape.
"He was telling me he was gonna change the offense," the former wishbone quarterback says, reaching back into the early 1980s. "I was like, 'Are you kidding me, Coach? Really? You're gonna change the offense?'
" 'Thomas, I've got this quarterback named Troy Aikman. This guy is something special. He can really throw the football, and I want to put him in a position where he can throw a little more.'
"I said, 'I still don't think it's a good idea.' "
Lott had plenty of company there, but too bad. Change was coming. Oklahoma's revered Wishbone Era was ending.
Oh, it took another few years. Miami behemoth Jerome Brown saw to that by breaking Aikman's leg four games into the '85 season, prompting Jamelle Holieway's emergence and a last flash of triple-option magic.
But it was coming. A quarterback evolution was on across the state, reflective of the changing mood of offensive football nationwide. Mike Gundy was about to obliterate all of Oklahoma State's passing records. T.J. Rubley would do the same at Tulsa.
From the late '80s into the '90s and especially into the 2000s, after Mike Leach's arrival at OU signaled the Spread Era, footballs were as prominent in September Oklahoma skies as heat lightning.
Now, as we reach the cusp of the 2013 season, could another movement be literally afoot?
Tulsa quarterback Cody Green returns to both throw over and run through defenders. Gundy could opt for run-pass quarterback J.W. Walsh in relief of Clint Chelf at OSU.
In Norman the past two years, Blake Bell reached the end zone as often as Holieway, J.C. Watts and Steve Davis once did in short-yardage, ram-it-down-their-throat cameos. Now, provided he holds off Trevor Knight, the 6-foot-6, 252-pounder could be handed the keys to OU's entire offense, not just the Belldozer.
The landscape is rumbling again.
'As a defensive coach, you can't factor that in'
"We've seen the quarterback position ebb and flow," Tulsa coach Bill Blankenship says. "In the '70s there was a movement toward guys that could scramble around and do things that were a little more mobile. Then there was a swing back to the guys who could drop back and throw it.
"I think we're ebbing again toward that dual-threat guy, that Johnny Manziel type that's got everybody's attention. RG3. That's kind of what you see."
Green isn't Manziel or Robert Griffin. But with 78 rushes complementing his 2,592 passing yards last year, he certainly qualifies as Blankenship's second straight dual-threat quarterback. He's the throw-it-or-bowl-you-over successor to G.J. Kinne, who could sprint out and fire or tuck it in and just keep sprinting.
Asked if he'd rather throw a 50-yard bomb or drop off a 50-yard run, Green says: "I'd say run for 50."
Why is that?
"If a quarterback takes off running and there's a threat of him going 50 yards," he says, "it makes the defense shake in its boots."
That's what's at work here, across Oklahoma and all of college football. This is about striking more fear and doubt into defenses already prone to panic attacks.
"The quarterback has always been a dangerous position, as long as he has options," Lott says. "He's a guy defenses can't really account for if they don't know what he's going to do.
"Once the quarterback hands off, he's useless. He's not blocking anybody. He's not doing anything. But give him options, whether he keeps it, makes you think he's going to keep it and hands off, or throws it..."
Or even drops back and doesn't throw it.
"When they call a pass and everything's covered, these guys anymore break it off and run for 20, 25 yards," says Pat Jones, whose 11-year run as OSU coach included the high-wire act of Gundy, Barry Sanders and Hart Lee Dykes. "That's where they're really dangerous. As a defensive coach, you can't factor that in."
"It's really, really difficult for a defense to cover," says Dave Rader, the imaginative Tulsa coach from 1988-99 who was ideal for slingers like Rubley, Gus Frerotte and John Fitzgerald. "Now, what they're doing is taking one of the best offenses ever, the wishbone, the veer, whatever you want to call it, and running it with the quarterback off the line of scrimmage, in the shotgun, with the ability to also run a sprint pass game.
"It's why defensive coaches are calling for offenses to slow down."
If anything, expect them to speed up. Quarterbacks have become three-dimensional weapons, able to run, pass and process faster than ever before.
"I went to a lot of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State games when I was a kid, and the quarterbacks were a product of the system they ran," says Gundy, whose recent offenses as Cowboys coach eclipsed the ones he ran as quarterback. "They ran the plays and weren't decision-makers, in my opinion. As it got into the late '80s, a little bit during my time, decision-making became very popular with quarterbacks at the college level.
"Now the quarterbacks, in my opinion, control the game. I think the most popular thing is getting the play in as fast as you possibly can. And it's the quarterback's responsibility to make sure it's the right play. 'Let's run it and keep moving.'
"Guys who play quarterback have become much more intelligent."
Making plays with your feet
What coaches can't do is out-think themselves. Gundy had a classic dual-threat guy in Zac Robinson, but didn't shoot OSU into hyper space until Brandon Weeden came along.
"We made a lot of money with Zac," Gundy says, "but with Weeden, we quit running the quarterback. He was an NFL-type thrower, so why run him? Why take that chance?"
Bob Stoops, who began his remarkable run at OU after hiring Leach away from Kentucky, would agree.
"We've had a lot of success with the pro-style quarterbacks we've had through the years. We've won a national championship with that kind of guy. We've played for three others with that kind of guy," Stoops says. "There's a trend toward quarterbacks that can run the ball. It's happening some in the NFL. It doesn't mean one's better than the other."
Josh Heupel, the quarterback who threw Stoops' Sooners to that title in 2000 and is now OU's offensive coordinator, sounds like he champions the drop-back-and-sling-it type.
"Our guy, whoever he is, for us to win a championship and play at the highest level, he's going to do it throwing the football," Heupel says. "We're not going to give up anything, whether recruiting or whoever our guy is, we want him to be able to distribute the football."
Until he makes a telling allowance.
"I think it's evolved to the point where you have specifically designed quarterback runs, and we have the last couple years with the Belldozer package. Certainly moving forward we'll have more flavor with that," Heupel says. "Your guys have to be able to make plays with their feet. You see that at every level of football. High school, college and in the professional ranks. Just look at what happened this year in the Super Bowl. You see the impact Colin Kaepernick has had on that league."
Copying is more rampant in football coaching offices than junior high science classes.
"When I was coming out, you found the wishbone all over high school football," Lott says.
By the time Heupel suited up for Aberdeen (S.D.) Central?
"Spread," he says. "My high school coach came from the Run-N-Shoot system down in Houston."
Now, fast forward to Green's time at Dayton (Texas) High.
"It was a spread offense, but we did a little bit of everything," he says. "We had zone read and a lot of intermediate passing game, stuff like that."
It isn't just the pros catching on. High school offenses are going more multiple all the time, allowing quarterbacks a quicker immersion in run-pass concepts, and giving college recruiters a deeper pool of dual-threat talent to select from.
Green best explains what has happened as a result.
"When I first got into college at Nebraska, you had Michael Vick torching everybody in the league and Kaepernick at Nevada breaking every record throwing and running the ball. But there weren't many dual-threat guys," Green says. "You could see that it was evolving, though. The zone read started coming into play, and quarterbacks had to get 10 yards. Ten yards, then get down.
"From that time until now, quarterbacks aren't asked to get 10 yards and go down. Now it's 'Hey, if you see a seam, take it and go score a touchdown.' That's what kids did in high school. They're comfortable with it. There's no hard transition. They can come in and make those plays immediately."
West Coast and the future
The quarterback evolution is far from complete, but its arc is apparent. Especially to those in Oklahoma.
"People around here remember J.C. Watts running the wishbone, Thomas Lott, Steve Davis," Rader says. "Oklahoma State had Brent Blackman. Tulsa had Steve Gage, who was as much a running back as a passer.
"Then when the West Coast offense and spread came out, everybody started looking for a guy to stand there and throw it. Now we've come to a point where people want the option quarterback with the ability to throw.
"It used to be, 'Well, we can do this or we can do that.' Now people want the 'this and that' combined, and the scary thing is they're getting it.
"It's lethal."
Guerin Emig 918-581-8355
guerin.emig@tulsaworld.com
Original Print Headline: Passing Evolution
