Friday, October 27, 2000
New offense boosts Anderson
Redskins adopted Clemson's scheme
By Carey Hoffman
Enquirer contributor
One year ago this week, Anderson's football coaches decided drastic measures were in order.
The Redskins had just ended a disappointing 6-4 season with a 34-6 loss to St.Xavier. “We told ourselves: "We'll never beat St.X (running) out of the I-formation. We won't get to a state championship game using the I,'” Anderson coach Vince Suriano said. “We had to do something that would give us a chance against schools with larger talent pools.”
The answer they decided on was adopting the wide-open spread offense run by Tommy Bowden at Clemson University. The results have been just what Anderson longed for — an 8-1 record this year and a shot head ing into tonight's game with visiting St.X to return to the playoffs for the first time since 1997.
St.X (6-3) already knows it will qualify for one of the eight Division I playoff berths in the region; the Bombers need a win tonight to preserve home-field advantage for the first round. Anderson could gain a first-round home game with a win or, with a loss, could risk sitting on the fence for the final spot.
Anderson has averaged more than 400 yards of offense a game this year by lining up quarterback Kenny Riddell in a no-huddle shotgun set in which he essentially is a single wing with opportunities to both run and pass.
“You think looking at it that it's a passing-type offense, but the run is what you have to stop,” St.X coach Steve Rasso said. “They spread you out so much, it limits what you can do on defense.”
The question this week will be whether Riddell and all of Ander son's offensive options can defeat St.X before its fast and physical front seven on defense get into the backfield and wreaks havoc.
Suriano said that after running the ball successfully over 26 years as a high school coach, he was unwilling to go totally to an offense that forsakes the running game. He and Anderson's staff looked into offenses run by Kentucky and Purdue, but it wasn't until Suriano ran into an old friend — Clemson's Bowden — at a coaching clinic last winter that he found what he was looking for.
Bowden has Clemson unbeaten and averaging almost 500 yards of offense a game while still running 55 percent of the time. That was exactly what Suriano had in mind.
“I saw Clemson in that shotgun offense last year with all those wide receivers and I said to myself: "Who runs that? What fool is going to run that kind of offense?'” Suriano said, laughing. “That's me, one year later.”
Complete prep football coverage at Enquirer.com/prepfootball
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