Vexing attack
SLIPPERY ROCK — Before a game, the Slippery Rock High quarterbacks don't warm up by tossing passes.
They warm up by faking handoffs and pitches.
“They're reping the option,” said Slippery Rock coach Brendan Hathway. “They are reping the pitch.”
It's just one of the many oddities when it comes to the offense Hathaway installed when he arrived from Coundersport three years ago.
He brought with him the flexbone attack. It could just as easily be called the vexbone for how it flusters the opposing defense charged with stopping it.
“It's challenging just to stay focused looking at us,” said senior offensive lineman Dave Voland, smiling. “We have a lot of people moving around.”
And a lot of space between offensive lineman, who sometimes line up a yard apart.
Hathaway turned to the offense at Coudersport to fit his personnel.
“We had different kinds of football players coming up, and we didn't have the lines that we had in the past,” Hathaway said. “Looking around, I've always liked the Naval Academy and what they run and the Air Force and Army, that type of option offense.”
Ironically, the first person he talked to about the change was then-Slippery Rock High football coach Clyde Conti, who is now the coach at Butler.
“He knows the midline option, and he's one of the best in the business at it,” Hathaway said. “I ended up here teaching with him. I'm still picking his brain, asking Clyde stuff about the option.”
One of the strengths of the flexbone is it forces defensive lineman out of their comfort zone. It also gives the quarterback the option to keep the ball on a sneak if he sees a crease and pick up a quick four yards.
“Four yards is a pretty good football play,” Hathaway said.”
It's all made possible by the large gaps created by the wide offensive line splits.
“If you go down to one of Navy's practices, they have a yard stick that they put between the linemen,” Hathaway said. “They like to spread the gaps out and try to hit the holes with the option.”
When it comes to defending the attack, all the rules change.“They don't see it every week. There's a lot of space out there,” Hathaway said. “Just like the offensive linemen have to cover space, now the defensive linemen have to cover more of a gap and go a bit farther than they're used to.“It doesn't always work,” Hathaway added, smiling. “Sometimes those gaps are too big and linebackers shoot through them. We feel it puts our linemen in the best position to make the blocks.”It's not an easy offense to learn.Voland said it took awhile to get the hang of it.“But when you've been in it for four years and you have the coaches we have teaching it, it becomes second nature. It's instinct for me now.”It also takes a tremendous amount of maintenance.Hathaway can see the attack is not as sharp even after one missed practice.It's also challenging for the quarterback, who has to make several reads before and after the snap.“I've been lucky to have a lot of smart quarterbacks play for me,” Hathaway said. “It's just repetition, repetition, repetition.”For junior Jake Whitmer, Hathaway's latest quarterback, the transition so far has been smooth, Whitmer said.“In some ways, I have the easiest job on the field,” Whitmer said. “We all have to do the same amount of reading. The offensive linemen have to read and the running backs have to know what to do. We all have to be on the same page.”Hathaway has added wrinkles to the attack each year and this season will be no different.“We're doing things that's not necessarily the flexbone,” Hathaway said. “We'll be in the pistol a little bit this year. You always have to adapt to the type of players you have.”For now the “vexbone” is the offense of choice in Slippery Rock.But, Hathaway hasn't ruled out abandoning the offense some day if it doesn't fit the personnel.“If I ever get a group with 280-pound linemen and an I back, we'll be running the I,” Hathaway said, laughing. “The flexbone works for us now. It's been pretty good for us.”
