Spread brings success to HSU

— Scott Maxfield was a 35-year-old, first-time offensive coordinator when he arrived in tiny Senatobia, Miss., 16 years ago, looking for a way to jump start his coaching career.

He turned to what was then a relatively new offensive system, the one-back Spread, which had given him the most fits during his previous years as a defensive coach.

“I hated to see the Spread,” Maxfield said of the system that had teams passing as many as 40 times per game and was just beginning to make its way through college football in the mid-1990s. “I felt like that would give me the best chance to give the other guy the most trouble.”

Almost two decades later, Maxfield’s system - “Option football through the air,” as Henderson State’s offensive coordinator Mike Volarvich calls it - will be on its biggest stage Saturday when the Reddies (10-0) host Missouri Western (11-1) at noon in their first NCAA Division II playoff game.

Maxfield is hoping what fans see will be as exciting as what the Reddies have displayed so far this season.

Behind sophomore quarterback Kevin Rodgers, the Reddies’ average of 53.3 points per game is tops in Division II, while their average of 520.5 total yards and 374.2 passing yards rank third.

But there is little difference between what Rodgers will do Saturday and what Maxfield’s other quarterbacks did on junior college fields in Senatobia, Miss., Poplarville, Miss., and Brenham, Texas.

It’s a system that wasn’t copied from other coaches - Volarvich couldn’t think of a school at any level that runs exactly what the Reddies run - or even one that has gone through any major overhauls.

Even as other schools that began running Spread offenses in the 1990s have shifted to more balanced schemes based off zone read option plays, Maxfield and Volarvich have remained committed to their system.

It’s the same system Maxfield developed after a visit with Paul Petrino at Louisville and with the coaching staff at Louisiana Tech, where he was an offensive lineman in the late 1970s before becoming offensive coordinator at Northwest Mississippi Community College in 1996.

All it requires is a few fast receivers and a smart, steady hand lining up at quarterback in the Shotgun formation.

“He doesn’t have to be fast. He doesn’t have to be 6-5,” said Maxfield, who has guided Henderson State to its first undefeated regular season and its first outright conference title in almost four decades this season. “He’s got to be accurate, and he’s got to be smart.”

Here’s how it works.

Volarvich - who worked with Maxfield at Pearl River Community College in Poplarville, Miss., and at Blinn Junior College in Brenham, Texas, before arriving in Arkadelphia in 2010 - calls a play that has four receivers running one of up to a dozen different routes.

He doesn’t designate primary or secondary targets, but rather a side of the field that will limit the quarterback’s options to two or three. The quarterback decides where to throw based on what he sees from the defense - a decision that’s made between the play call and the snap.

It could be a fade route to Robert Jordan, a slant over the middle to Dustin Holland or a deep pass to Darius Davis.

“You have to be an extension of [the coaches’] mind out on the field,” said Rodgers, who has thrown for 3,590 yards and 40 touchdowns with 8 interceptions this year. “That took me awhile to figure out.”

It hasn’t always looked so easy in Arkadelphia. Offenses at Northwest Mississippi, Pearl River and Blinn put up some of the best statistics in junior college football before Maxfield arrived at Henderson State in 2005.

The Reddies were coming off nine consecutive losing seasons and had long had the tradition of plodding offenses.

“They threw for 600 yards [in 2004],” Maxfield said.

Maxfield brought in 19 players from his Blinn team, including quarterback Dane King, who transferred from Baylor. But the Reddies scored 23 points or less in seven games and finished 3-8 in Maxfield’s first season.

Kale Gober, who is in his third year as Henderson State’s athletic director, was a redshirt on Maxfield’s first team.

Gober was an unheralded football player at El Dorado High School before trying to walk on at Louisiana Tech. He eventually landed in Arkadelphia and ended up being the team’s long snapper, but it wasn’t a perfect fit.

He recalled that the fastest player on Maxfield’s first team was a defensive end who ran the 40-yard dash in 4.8 seconds.

“You’re trying to run a Spread with guys who can’t Spread,” Gober said. “It was really tough. It was almost like force-feeding that first year.”

That’s why Maxfield is hesitant about taking much credit for what the Reddies have done this year, because he said he has the biggest collection of talent he’s had at the school.

“If you had a bunch of 4.9 guys out there, we’re probably not having this conversation,” he said. “You’ve got to get guys in here who can score touchdowns.”

He has plenty this year.

Jordan has caught 56 passes for 949 yards and 10 touchdowns, Holland has 49 receptions for 761 yards and 4 touchdowns, and Elliot Hebert has 33 receptions for 579 yards and 9 touchdowns.

That is what allows Maxfield and Volarvich to stick with a system developed almost two decades ago, even as others have updated their Spread offenses.

“When it comes down to it, it’s hard to tackle a fast guy, one-on-one, out in space,” Volarvich said. “If you can get those guys the ball out in space and make defensive guys tackle, more times than not you’re going to make them miss.”

Sports, Pages 22 on 11/23/2012

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