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Posted by Willy on 2/16/2008, 8:32 am
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MORGANTOWN -- Jeff Mullen was in the early days of his first college coaching job in 1991 working as a defensive graduate assistant at the University of Hawaii. The surroundings, of course, were nice. The compensation for his work on the staff was not so nice and placed Mullen in what he called an "urgent" situation.
"You get $400 a semester for a tuition stipend. You try to find a house on the island for that price," he said. "All the grad assistants slept in the office on blow-up rafts, filing cabinets, dresser drawers, whatever they had."
Maybe it was sleepless nights or the inspiration absorbed from always being in the office, but it was during those uncomfortable times when West Virginia's new offensive coordinator began to craft his ideas.
Hawaii's offensive coordinator was Paul Johnson, the new head coach at Georgia Tech who made his name with the triple option offense as the coordinator and later head coach at Navy.
Mullen studied the option and its fundamental principles and carried his knowledge with him to Ohio University and Wake Forest, where he spent the previous seven seasons, the final five as quarterbacks coach.
For the past 13 years, he's been an offensive assistant for Jim Grobe, who liked to blend the option offense with the spread formation, just like the Mountaineers.
"The option is a philosophy based on numbers advantages, angles in blocking schemes and just getting the ball in grass," he said. "We evolved from an under-center, two-step motion, inside-veer, mid-line triple option team to what you now see West Virginia doing. We're really doing the same things (as an option offense) but just out of the shotgun."
The offenses at Ohio and at Wake Forest would take on different looks in different seasons, but did so because of personnel and the way that affected the philosophy.
The plans never changed. The players did.
"There's a perception you can get any player you want in recruiting, but that's not necessarily true," he said. "What ends up happening is that you have to adapt your philosophy and your game-planning and your system to the players you have.
"What happened between 1995 at Ohio University and 2007 at Wake Forest was we evolved from the small, quick guy who couldn't throw the football to the guy who could kind of do both to the guy who can only throw the football. Whatever we had at quarterback that year was the offense we ran, but we never left the ideals of numbers, angles and grass."
The same has been true for years now at WVU.
"Jim Grobe is one of my closest friends in the coaching business and Grobey called and said, 'You need to think about this guy,'" said WVU Coach Bill Stewart, who hired Mullen as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Jan. 24. "I said, 'I've been thinking about this guy, but I didn't know if you'd like me to be thinking about him.'"
The similarities between an option offense and a spread offense are best understood, Mullen said, by seeing how different attacks essentially do the same thing.
In a run game, the offensive line and receivers outnumber defenders and create angles for the runners to exploit. The same is true of a passing game, where blockers outnumber defenders and receivers take advantage with screens or routes that again exploit the space.
"We're going to have a system here at West Virginia that allows for all of that," Mullen said. "Whether we've got a kid who can only run it at quarterback or a kid who can only throw it at quarterback, we're going to have a system that fits. Now, having said that, we'll certainly look for a Pat White runner-thrower so we can put as much pressure on the offense as we can."
Though this is his first time as a coordinator, Mullen called plays at Wake Forest and was in constant conversation with the offensive coordinator. He has immediate ideas for the Mountaineers. Mullen wants to attack the defense with different players, formations and play calls and do so with an unpredictability that comes from being effective in multiple areas.
"I think you've got to be balanced," he said. "You've got to run the football to win. I don't think you can ever get away from being a physical, dominant offensive line that can run the football any time you want. I want the quarterback that can run and throw and I don't ever want to ever get backed into a corner where you have to throw. I want to throw and I want to throw on my own terms. You don't want to be forced into a corner when there are too many people in the box because all you can do is run. Then you're just hurting the football team."
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