Know Your Air Raid!
By Josh Davis
The Air Raid offense seems simple enough, snap the ball back, drop a few steps and throw to a variety of receivers who are basically running around down-field in a controlled sandlot football fashion, which has been drawn up in the form of real routes. If you can get some blocking someone is bound to come open and you throw that guy the ball. Throw 90% of the time, mix in a few screens and the occasional draw play just for fun, and you have your air-raid. Right?
That’s what comes to mind for me anyways, but it’s so much more than that. It’s not just a bunch of pass plays thrown together on a play chart to pick from, it’s a diverse, set-the-defense-up offense. Mike Leach has made it a way of life. He’s boasted it in books and seminars as the most interesting, most complex and most complete form of football we have ever seen. As a fan though honestly, that’s impossible to grasp because he’s showed it off to college football over the years like it’s the easiest offense in the world to master. It isn’t so. Leach has taught it to his teams like a Jedi-knight teaches his pad-won with countless hours of “mystical” training and rigorous memory work. The offense isn’t predicated on just pre-play reads by the offense, but a bounty of post-snap reads as well. The beauty of it is, if done correctly, it really looks like sandlot football while the offense just picks apart the defense on a play-by-play basis.
Chris at Smart Football has released “The Air Raid Offense: History, Evolution, Weirdness – from Mumme to Leach to Franklin to Holgerson and Beyond”, which is a deep and fascinating look into what we will be seeing this Fall on the Palouse. I haven’t had the time yet to fully read this “Air Raid Opus”, but it looks simply fascinating. It’s highly in depth and intuitive and I will be delving into it as soon as I get a chance to immerse my attention in it. Give us your thoughts after reading it. We’re one month away from Fall camp and it’s time to know your air raid!