continued from Part One

The proper question should be “Which teams run a Spread?” as the Spread is more of a philosophy.  I also want to establish a definition for the Spread.  For the purposes of my articles, I will define the Spread Offense as follows: 

The Spread Offense is an offense, used by an individual team, in which the majority of the team’s formations are spread across the field, using wide line splits, employing at least three receivers, and the QB lines up in the shotgun a significant amount of times (ie. 50%).  Further, the team must use the spread-it-out formations a for a majority of time during each game.

It is important to note that almost every team has a package in it’s playbook that uses spread-it-out formations.  Most use some kind of shotgun formation for their 2 Minute Offense or to rally from a significant deficit.  We are talking about teams that employ such a package the vast majority of the time.  Such a package is, in fact, that team’s “bread and butter.”  A team who uses some Spread and Spread elements, but uses it a small percentage, is not a Spread Offense team.  For instance, look at Ohio State.  Ohio State used a large amount of Spread during the 2006 season when Troy Smith was QB, but with Todd Boeckman at QB and Chris Wells at RB, they simply do not use it much.  However, with the arrival of Freshman QB Terrelle Pryor, the Buckeyes might use the Spread packages to present a change of pace for their offense.  Still, however, they will probably not use the Spread a majority of the time, therefore, they would not be considered a Spread team.

I will mention the BCS conferences first, and later I will add the non BCS conferences.  These teams are the ones that I have been able to find documentation for.  Remember, some teams run some spread as a change up, but not full time.  Some may have ran the spread last year, but I cannot find documentation for it this year.

BCS Conferences

Big 10

Northwestern
Purdue
Michigan
Illinois
Penn State–The Spread HD in 2008
Indiana
Minnesota

One article said all but two teams were running a Spread Offense, and another said all but three teams were running a Spread Offense.  Another article said nine teams will run some form of the Spread.  It appears that Iowa, Ohio State, Michigan State and Wisconsin are the clear cut non Spread Offense teams.

Big 12

Missouri
Texas
Kansas
Baylor
Oklahoma State
Texas Tech
Colorado

Oklahoma has been running a no-huddle offense, but it doesn’t appear to be a majority spread attack.  Nebraska is said to call its offense the Midwestern Offense.  Texas A&M runs a West Coast Offense.  Kansas State runs a Pro Style Offense.  I’m not sure about Iowa State.  There is an indication that they will pass a lot and run some shotgun.

Big East

West Virginia
Cincinnati
South Florida

SEC

Florida (Spread Option)
South Carolina (Cock-N-Fire)
Vanderbilt
Auburn
Arkansas (Power Spread)

Pac 10

Oregon
California
Washington
Arizona State
Arizona
Washington State (“the stretch”) Coach Duff is not calling it a spread, but it sounds like it could fit the definition that I have in this article.

ACC

Wake Forest
NC State
Virginia

Georgia Tech runs the triple option out of a “spread” like formation which the coach refers to as “the spread” while others have referred to it as the “Spread-Flex” or the “Flex-bone.”  It is a hybrid of the wishbone and a spread type of formation.  However, the QB is under center almost all of the time disqualifying it from our definition.

The next article in this series will list team from the non BCS conferences.  Information can be hard to find, so if you know (or think) your team runs the spread, contact me to let me know along with a link.  Further, if you know of corrections that need to be made in this article, please contact me sending me links for documentation.