Coach ,

It’s no surprise to see the Air Raid offense thriving in 2021. As it has since its inception in 1989, The Air Raid makes its way to the top of the passing offense and total offense stats at just about every level. 

Even in the NFL, Kliff Kingsbury has his version of the Air Raid behind Kyler Murray propelling the Cardinals to a 7-0 start and the best record in the league. 

It’s the offense that just keeps going and going and going…

At the college level leading FBS in team passing are four Air Raid teams and number five is Air Raid-esque Pitt with Mark Whipple running his own version of the offense.

1. Western Kentucky (436.6 yards per game)
2. Virginia (404.6)
3. Nevada (379.4)
4. Mississippi State (374.7)
5.  Pitt (355.0)

In the FCS, first year head coach Kevin Kelley has the Blue Hose at #1 in passing with his version of the Air Raid at 439.0 yards per game (the best in all of college football).

The Air Raid has been passed down a generation from its co-inventor Hal Mumme to his son Matt, the offensive coordinator at Nevada.

Coach Matt Mumme likes the offense’s ability to adapt to fit the players who are in the offense. Coach emphasizes the limited amount of time that is necessary to prepare any offense. The biggest thing that the Wolfpack does starts with an efficient use of time, and it all revolves around a three-day install.  The more that you can go through this install in spring or camp, the more refined it becomes.

“The biggest commodity we have as coaches and players is time.” -Matt Mumme

He explains that philosophy at Lauren’s First and Goal Clinic here (click on image for video):

The install is closely related to how they practice. It’s the secret sauce behind the offense. The concepts really come from BYU and the West Coast offense. They simplified it, packaged it, and created a teaching progression with everything they do related to the concepts in the offense.  They keep it simple and they don’t waste time.

Coach explains how it works with their foundational drill. You might say, “I know this drill,” but listen to the reason they use it, again, it’s about efficiently practicing everything in the offense (click on image for video).

According to Hal Mumme, Mike Leach runs the closest to the original version of the offense as anyone.  As one of its forefathers, the importance of how they practice and the simplicity remain at its heart.  

How simple is it? Instead of a huge restaurant menu-sized laminated call sheet, Coach Leach has an index card-sized piece of paper for his calls. He uses that in practice and on game day.

The simplicity of the offense lends itself to conciseness and clarity in game planning.  Running Back’s Coach Eric Mele has been with Coach Leach since 2012. He’s learned the power of simplicity and it carries over to game planning. He talks about how they oversimplify the game plan in this video:

I am sure like most, you wonder what is on Coach Leach’s “small little folded up piece of origami” as Mele calls it, he shares the situational side of that small call sheet in this video:

Many coaches are scared away from what people say are the downside of the offense: 

• the need for a certain type of player (Matt Mumme already dispelled that)
• the imbalance of pass to run (the Air Raid coach thinks about the run game differently - pass to set up run) 
• worry that it won’t work late season when the weather turns (every coach has this worry - all offenses have to protect the ball in all conditions).

It really comes down to how you want to structure your install, practice and game planning. That’s the true methodology behind the offense, and what you can learn from that alone is certainly applicable to other systems.

Having watched an Air Raid practice myself at Mississippi State, I was thoroughly impressed by the number of reps achieved, the coaching happening before, during and after those reps, and the efficiency in how much they were able to accomplish.

Coaching is the key to any scheme being successful, and the Air Raid guys certainly have that figured out.

Always be growing!

Coach Grabowski