Chris Brown's excellent site Smart Football has an interesting read on Hal Mumme, one of the architects of the "Air Raid" offense that has helped revolutionize the game.
Although Mumme, who recently took over as coach at McMurry College in Abilene, has had varying degrees of success, he has never soared to great heights. Nonetheless, his coaching tree is impressive.
When Mumme became coach at Iowa Wesleyan in 1989, he hired Mike Leach, whose previous coaching job had been in Finland. The two perfected the system with stops at Valdosta State and Kentucky before Leach went out on his own, becoming the offensive coordinator at Oklahoma under Bob Stoops.
Brown writes: "The rise of the spread and passing offense in the last decade, particularly in the lower levels of football, may have been inevitable, but Mumme's little system, mesh, shallow, Y-cross, Y-sail, Y-stick, and the others, along with his ingenious practice methods, delivered football forever from its more ancient roots.
"The spread to run offense of Urban Meyer and Rich Rodriguez may ultimately prove more viral and sustained than the pass-first Air Raid. But Mumme's legacy is assured; as prophet, harbinger, and technician of the explosion of the passing game throughout football, particularly at the lower levels. In his way, Hal Mumme might prove to be the most influential coach of the last two decades. I wouldn't bet against it: Hal always likes his odds."
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