News
2009 SEC Media Day Notes - Dan Mullen (Mississippi State Football)
By Josh Low, TheBigSpur.comJuly 22, 2009
New Mississippi State head coach Dan Mulllen, who was the offensive coordinator under Urban Meyer at Florida, talked about his definition of the spread. Mullen is considered the architect of Meyer’s attack, which worked well at Utah and Bowling Green before Gainesville.
"I'll give you my definition of a spread offense,” he said. “I don’t know if we're spread option, spread passing, spread running or just spread. To me, we're a multiple spread team. I want to make sure the defense has to defend the entire field sideline to sideline. Through personnel and through formations, we want to create advantageous one-on-one matchups, where I get a player in the open field matched up against someone that he's better than That's the spread offense, the offense we're going to run. The biggest thing we have to do is make sure our personnel will fit that.
"You don't have to be five receivers or four receivers to run a spread offense. We could run it with three backs, two tight ends, get in the wishbone formation one time and spread the field to create the matchups the next time."
For Mullen, personnel also will dictate what plays he ends up using in his attack.
"I can tell you this, as an offensive coach, we use about 60 percent of our offense each year,” he said. “Take our playbook, only 60 percent of it applies to each given team you have. What we have to do is make sure we pick the right 60 percent of it to apply to the personnel that we have, the use that 60 percent to the best of our ability, have our players execute at a high level. If we do, we'll have the opportunity to be successful."
"You don't have to be five receivers or four receivers to run a spread offense. We could run it with three backs, two tight ends, get in the wishbone formation one time and spread the field to create the matchups the next time."
For Mullen, personnel also will dictate what plays he ends up using in his attack.
"I can tell you this, as an offensive coach, we use about 60 percent of our offense each year,” he said. “Take our playbook, only 60 percent of it applies to each given team you have. What we have to do is make sure we pick the right 60 percent of it to apply to the personnel that we have, the use that 60 percent to the best of our ability, have our players execute at a high level. If we do, we'll have the opportunity to be successful."