I recently attended the first annual American Cabernet Sauvignon wine tasting put on by the Masters of Wine Institute.  There were 101 examples of Cabernets to try from California, Colorado, New York, Oregon, Virginia, & Washington State.  I talked to them about adding some Texas Cabernets next year & was told that they reached out for some this year & didn’t get a response.  I’m sure that will change next year.  We had roughly 4 hours to try the wines.  I didn’t get them all sampled, but managed to try 51 wines in under about 3 hours and 50 minutes.  That’s a new wine roughly every 4 ½ minutes.  I added up the prices on the wines I tried & if I had bought a bottle of each to try, it would have cost me $4,821.91.  That made the $100 entry price for the event quite the bargain.

The obvious football corollary for me was the hurry up offense.  The hurry up offense has been derided as a gimmick and has sometimes been considered somehow less credible than a traditional offense.  Over the years though, it has showed it can be an important part of the NFL experience.  One of the wines I tried was from Double Back Wines, which is owned by former NFL quarterback Drew Bledsoe (New England Patriots, Buffalo Bills, and Dallas Cowboys).

Here are the wines that I tried in the Cabernet Sauvignon tasting.  Most of the wines were from 2011.  The request was that wineries provide their 2011 Cabernet or if that was not available, their most recent release.  You will see some obvious exceptions to the rule. These are in the order in which I tasted them.  These notes are pretty sparse, but that is a function of the event. If you see some deterioration in the notes as I progress, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.  I have added a few notes about the wines after the fact including some pricing information.   I was spitting more than I was drinking, but even spitting, some alcohol is absorbed by the lining of the mouth.  I should add that I was not driving anywhere that night!

One important thing that I should note is that most of these wines are years from their peak.  A lot of the tasting notes are similar because certain traits seem to show up more quickly.  The nuances that distinguish a great Cabernet can take several more years to develop.  It would be interesting to duplicate this tasting with the same 2011 Cabernets in 5 years.

Barboursville Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 2010 Monticello Virginia $39.99
Dark purple almost black. Raspberry & blackberry on the nose & that follows through on the palate. Mild tannins. Long finish.

Paumanok Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 Tuthills Lane Vineyard Long Island, New York State $100
This has a deep color moving from purple to black. It has strong blackberry notes on the nose.  It is a nicely rounded fruit forward wine without many tannins.  The main fruits are ripe blackberry & plum. It has a somewhat short finish.

Ridge 1997 Monte Bello  Santa Cruz Mountains $150
This is a traditional Bordeaux blend.  Cabernet predominates.  It is almost black with red rims. It has a delicate nose, or maybe it needs to open up.  Red fruit, with raspberry & some spice. Spice with some fairly hard tannins.  This wine has years still to go. As it softens up a bit, the softer spice & licorice comes out.

I tried this again almost an hour later & it has opened up quite a bit.  The nose still doesn’t show much, but the taste is amazing.  The tannins have mellowed out.  The spice & the raspberry have come together & this is a delightful wine.  This is the best I have tried tonight to this point, but of course it isn’t a fair comparison because of the difference in vintage.

Daou Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 2011 Paso Robles  $57.99
79% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Cabernet Franc, 5% Merlot, 9% Petit Verdot.Big ripe fruit both on the nose & the palate. This is almost overpowering after the Ridge, which has more finesse.   It has big sweet fruit with low tannins.  I can see how this would be a fan favorite, but it is really kind of one note to me.

Canyon Wind Cabernet Sauvignon 2011 Grand Valley Colorado $29.95
Candy apple on the nose.  This is a sweet, low tannin wine with some herbal components.  This wine did not work for me.

Antica Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 Napa $55
There are complex herbal notes on the nose. It tastes of dark fruit with a strong herbal component.  There is definitely some sage & fennel in this. Medium tannins, long finish.  Delicious wine! Parker gave it a 92.

Lokoya Mount Veeder Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 Napa Valley $350
This has fresh red fruit.  There are soft spices.  It has medium to low tannins.  I really noticed cranberry on the second sip.  This is a soft & easy to drink wine. I saw some reviews of this wine that touted its minerality, but I didn’t get that in this tasting.  I really enjoyed this wine, but I couldn’t spend $350 on it.

Hess Collection Mount Veeder Cabernet Sauvignon Napa 2010 $55
The nose needs to open up.  There is some red fruit. I also taste plum with some black pepper.  This has solid tannins. I need to try this again later.  I wanted to try it again that night, but didn’t get back to it.

La Jota Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain Napa Valley 2011 $75
82% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Merlot and the rest Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot aged in 90% new French oak. There is raspberry & cherry on the nose.  It has soft, slightly sweet, fruit, but not in a bad way at all.  It has medium tannins.  I like this more on the second taste.  This is a nice example of Napa Cabernet.

Cakebread Cellars Dancing Bear Ranch 2010 $115
93% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Cabernet Franc, 1% Merlot.This has an earthy nose.  This almost reminds me of a South African Cabernet.  There are some herbs, some raspberry, some leather, medium tannins. This is a well-built Cabernet that I think will age extremely well for 20+ years. This would probably be delicious with wild game. One thing I like about this wine is the earthiness.  There have been so many wines that were all about bright fresh fruit that I was ready for something with a little more nuance. This got 96 points in the Wine Advocate.

Cade Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon Napa 2010 $79.99
Blackberry & black cherry on the nose.  Black & Bing cherry on the palate.  Mild tannins.  Nice long finish with cherry & spice.

Maybach 2010 Amoenus Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley, Calistoga $150
This took a second to open up. Then it had blackberry on the nose with medium to high tannins.  It has sweet red fruit.  The fruit has almost an overripe quality to it.  I don’t mean that they picked it too late.  It tastes a bit like biting into a plum that has been sitting a little too long & concentrated sugars.  This is actually pretty tasty.  It doesn’t have a lot of nuance, but it is very good. This got 96 points in the Wine Advocate.

Krupp Brothers 2009 M5 Stagecoach Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon $119
90% Cabernet, 8% Merlot, 2% Cabernet Franc.  Very soft dark fruit.  If you were going to describe a wine as velvety, this would be a good one to use. The finish almost goes from lighter to darker fruit as you drink it. There is some mint and spice as well.  It is very easy to drink.  It has low tannins.

Black Bottle 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, Diamond Mountains Magnum $800
The fruit on this thing just about explodes in your mouth.  It does have a nice balance of tannin as well, so I think it would be great with a steak.  There are also some pie spices here. I enjoyed this wine, but I’m having a little trouble understanding the price.

Pedroncelli Cabernet Sauvignon Dry Creek Block 007 Estate Vineyard 2012 $18
This sure is young!  There is candy fruit on the nose.  This wine tastes almost exactly like the Luden’s cherry throat drops that I bought the last time the girls were sick.  I guess that means it has some cherry & menthol.  It does have a ton of tannins, so this may develop into someone completely different.

Anakota 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon Helena Dakota Vineyards Knight’s Valley $69.99
Complex nose with some fruit and some herbal notes.  It is kind of hard to pick anything out in particular. There is fennel and dried herb.  There are medium tannins. To me this wine tastes a little hollow.  The finish is nice.  The immediate taste is nice, but the mid palate is lacking to me.  All of the critics seem to love it though.  Wine Advocate gave it 95 points and Wine Enthusiast gave it 92.

Benziger 2010 Signaterra Sunny Slope Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Sonoma County, Sonoma Mountain $49
This has a very spicy nose.  Its color is almost black.  It needs to open up.  I really don’t get anything from it.14.5% alcohol, but it tastes hotter.  This is a biodynamic wine.  It has medium plus tannins.  I definitely want to try this another time when I can decant it.

Laurel Glen 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon Sonoma County, Sonoma Mountain $65
Super tight wine.  All I got was that it was sweet & soft.  I’ll see if I can try it again later. (I didn’t get the chance)

Arrowood Reserve, 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon Speciale  Sonoma County  $90                                                                                                                                                                       Black fruit and chocolate.  It has high tannins.  It is soft on the mid palate.  I liked this wine.

Chateau St. Jean Cinq Cepages 2010 $75
78% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Franc, 3% Petit Verdot, 2%Malbec.  There is licorice on the nose. It is full of black fruit.  It s nicely balanced.  I taste blackberry & plum with cinnamon & spice.   As it develops I get more red fruit as well.  This is a very solid wine.

Alexander Valley Vineyards 2010 Alexander School Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon $40
Inky black wine with a smell that is somehow inky black as well.  I actually get some soy sauce on the nose with the red fruit.  I like this wine, but it is light at the front & heavy at the back.  That is odd.  It is good though. I think that the herbal component is stronger than the fruit.  Tons of tannin again, so it may change later.

Jordan 2010 Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon $56
76% Cabernet Sauvignon, 16% Merlot, 7% Petit Verdot, 1% Malbec.  There isn’t much on the nose.  There is sweet fresh red fruit. I wish I could write more about this wine because it is so popular, but at this stage of its development, it is just a sweet fruit forward wine.  While I was tasting, some other people tried it  & the general verdict was sweet & tight.

Simi Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2009 Sonoma $75
The really light nose contrasts with the heavily spiced taste on this wine.  This has big fruit, but it is really all about the spice.  You could almost heat this wine up & serve it as wassail. Cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, allspice, brown sugar, it’s all there.  There is some nice plum here as well.  This would be a nice wine to sip by the fireside or on Christmas Eve.

Trione Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2009 Sonoma $67
I don’t usually comment on this sort of thing, but his is a seriously heavy bottle.  I don’t know how much they spent on the bottles, but they weren’t cheap.  The wine is very dark, almost black.  It has good mouth feel. There is a ton of tannin!  It has sweet dark fruit.  I think this might be a fantastic wine in about 3 years.  It really needs some time.

Amavi Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon Walla Walla 2011 $32
Dark red fruit in a dark red wine.  It has moderate tannins.  This is a well-integrated & tasty wine, but I am having trouble pulling out individual characteristics.  I would say raspberry & spice are elements of the flavor.

Double Back Cabernet Sauvignon Walla Walla 2010 $89
90% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Merlot, 4% Petit Verdot, 1% Malbec.  Tight nose.  This is a beautifully balanced wine.  It has medium to high tannins.  The alcohol is 14.4% & you can tell it, but it isn’t out of balance. Light cinnamon spice mixed with tarragon & other spices, melds well with the bramble fruit. I liked this and wouldn’t mind setting a few bottles aside to see how it ages.  I expect it to get a lot better over the next few years.

Leonetti Cellar Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 Walla Walla $109
76% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Merlot, 8% Petit Verdot, 4% Carmenere. This is a complex and interesting wine.  I taste fennel & licorice, earth & leather.  This is a really solid wine & I may find it more interesting at the moment because it is different & stands out.  97 points in Wine Advocate. (So it may  not have just been how I felt at the time).

Pepper Bridge 2010 Walla Walla $60
83% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc, 4% Malbec, 2% Petit Verdot. This is almost black again.  This may be a trend in Washington.  This wine was all right.  Realistically I think it would be better with a few more years or hours opened, but it is just ok.  I wouldn’t normally review this wine because I am not getting it. It is a soft wine with high tannins.  How does that happen? I tried it a second time & still don’t get it. Everyone else loves it. It has huge tannins!  It has some cherry & plum.

Va Piano Columbia Valley 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon $35
Here is a soft easy drinking wine.  This is an elegant wine.  It has dark fruit with some olive characteristics.  It has chocolate & beaucoup tannins.  There is a long finish.  I really liked this wine.  This is perhaps the second best wine so far.  This one is definitely a good wine for the price.

Woodward Canyon 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon Washington State $59
Super black wine.  There is licorice on the nose.  This is a very light smooth wine.  There are some earthy textures at the finish.  This is not a bad wine, but not comparable to the previous Washington wines.

Efeste Big Papa 2010 Big Block Cabernet Sauvignon Washington $54
Black dark red fruit with herbs on the nose.  This is a super smooth wine. It has high tannins.  There is dark fruit with a brambly, almost thorny quality.  The tannins are literally mouth puckering. Very nice finish.

DeLille cellars Four Flags Cabernet Sauvignon 2011 Washington $65
Soft, dark fruit (mostly blackberry) on the nose. Almost black again.  Some earth, but more of a dusty smell.  14.2%  & you can feel it.  It is in balance, but you can tell that it has higher alcohol.  Root beer & licorice on the palate.   You also get a lot of fresh plum.  It took me a minute to get into the wine, but once I did, I really enjoyed it.

Cadence 2010 Camerata. Red Mountain Cara Mia Vineyard $60
85% Cabernet Sauvignon with 5% each Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Petit Verdot.  Not as black as the other Washington wines.  This is more of a dark red wine.  I would usually have called this a really dark red wine if I hadn’t just gone through all of those other Washington State Cabs.  This has a beautiful Bordeaux style nose.  There is spice & red fruit on the palate. This is a very solid wine.  The red fruit & the spice mingle together in a particularly nice way. Soft tannins & some sweetness.  I probably wouldn’t have like this wine very much without the spice, but with it, I think it is very tasty.

Boudreaux 2008 Champoux & Loess Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon  Washington $100
This has a perfumed finish.  Boysenberry is the main fruit that I get.  This is a wine that shows fruit at first, but finishes with an herbal brambly note.  This may have a weird name, but it is a solid wine.

Tamarack Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon  Columbia Valley 2011 $36
86% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Cabernet Franc, 6% Merlot.  Light sweet nose.  Not in the ballpark of the good wines.  I have really enjoyed some of their wines, but this doesn’t measure up today.

Columbia Crest Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Columbia Valley 2011 $50
This smells a little like a Thanksgiving cranberry salad.  I get cranberry & nut on the nose. Nice wine, but it is nothing special.

Col Solare 2010 Columbia Valley. $55 14.5%
90% Cabernet Sauvignon, 4% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc, and 2% Malbec) Nice nose.  Some herb some red fruit.  Pretty nice.,  really tasty wine.  Well balanced & well integrated.  Maybe some olive, some herb.  Very easy drinking wine.  Solid tannins.  Just a good red wine.

Chateau Ste. Michelle Cold Creek Vineyard 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon $35
This smells like a tapenade.  It has low tannins & big dark fruit.  This is a big dark wine with a long lasting finish.  I was trying to think of a good pairing & I really couldn’t.  It is a good wine & good to sip, but I would drink this by itself. On my last taste I got a really strong meaty taste.

Betz Family Vineyards Pere de Famille 2011 Magnum $150 (for the magnum)
This is a Cabernet dominated blend, but I don’t know the blend.  It has a distinctively earthy nose.
It has a taste of menthol and earth.  It is distinctive & delicious.  In some ways this is a weird & cool wine.

Snowden Vineyards 2010 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley $70                                                                                                                                                                           The nose smells like alcohol & fig, but the wine is actually really soft, with sweet fig & a hint of herbs.  The alcohol is 15.5%, but despite smelling hot, it doesn’t taste hot at all.

Silver Oak Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2009 $110
84% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc, 4% Petit Verdot This is such a smooth wine.  The main impression is smooth & sweet.  Once again I know this is a popular wine, but it tastes sweet & smooth & generic. I talked to a few other people & it was a common refrain.  It is interesting to me that people like this wine so much. Perhaps I am not tasting it at the right time.  Perhaps I am just weird.

Robert Foley 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley $86
This has a dusty nose. This is a fruit forward & smooth wine, but it has nuance that the Silver Oak lacked.  It tends toward the same sweet red fruit of the silver oak, but it is just more interesting.  The finish is full of plum.

Pine Ridge Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2012 $54
Dirt & licorice on the nose.  It has a sweet finish.  Lots of cherry candy.  Not a wine for me.

Freemark Abbey Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 Napa Valley $28
Menthol & mint on the nose.  I tasted bitter cherry with some herb.  It has very high tannins.  This wine is well balanced & would be good with red meat.  .

Gallica Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 Napa Valley $139
This is as black as a Washington Cabernet.  It has a nice nose, with licorice & herbs.  The flavor accents the dark fruit, licorice, & some herbs.  This is a very nice wine.  It also throws a lot of sediment.  It was the only wine of the night where I noticed sediment, although that could have been happenstance.

Joseph Phelps Insignia 2005 Napa Valley $175
92% Cabernet Sauvignon; 7% Petit Verdot; 1% Merlot.This wine has such a pretty nose.  There is some chocolate on the nose, but it isn’t close to the chocolate on the palate. This wine tastes more like hot chocolate than anything I have had.  This wine is soft & easy to drink & if you like cocoa, you should try it.  It sounds like I am selling this wine short, but I’m not.  There are some cherries & some herbs in the mix, but the key to the wine is the mix of mocha and bitter chocolate on the palate.

Louis M. Martini Cabernet Sauvignon 2011 Napa Valley?  The official handout says Napa, but I can’t find a 2011 Napa Cab from them.  There is a Sonoma one & a Napa one in 2010. $34
This may be the archetype of California Cabernet. I think it is what people expect at a restaurant when they order a Napa Cabernet. To me, it is solid, but not interesting.  It has blackberry as the primary fruit & has a sweet finish.

Merryvale 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley $65
78% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Cabernet Franc, 6% Merlot, 5% Petit Verdot. This is another soft, easy drinking slightly sweet red.  Vanilla and blackberry are the primary components for me.

Swanson 2010 Alexis Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley, Oakville $75
This has soft sweet tannins.  At this point of the tasting, this is generic.  That probably has more to do with it being the 49^th wine I tried than its own failings.  It wasn’t a bad wine, I just didn’t have anything t say about it.

Spring Mountain Vineyards 2008 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley, Spring Mountain  $75
The first thing I typed about this wine was prune.  There are definitely other elements to the wine.  I tasted spice, earth, and leather, but they were all wrapped up in prune.  The nose also has a distinct prune note to it.

Grgich Hills 2010 Yountville Selection Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley, Yountville $140
This shows very ripe fruit with some plum, blackberry and cocoa.  It has low tannins & ripe fruit, but it doesn’t come off as sweet.  It is a nicely integrated wine & a good place to stop for the night.

 

The hurry up offense by any other name is a lot of fun

I think my first exposure to a hurry up offense was watching Roger Staubach run around like a crazy man at the end of a Sunday game, hoping to pull a rabbit out of a hat & often doing so.  I know that there were times when I wondered why they didn’t have the same urgency at the beginning of the game that they had in the last few minutes. I didn’t know it, but there were already people out there working to make that a reality.  In fact, the seeds were sown as far back as 1933 when throwing the football was considered somewhat shady.

Darrel “Mouse” Davis is often referred to as the godfather of the Run & Shoot.  There is even a new documentary, The Mouse that Roars by J. David Miller & Spencer Lee that argues that modern NFL & NCAA offenses are primarily proliferations of concepts that Davis introduced.  Davis definitely deserves credit for popularizing the concepts, but he didn’t invent them.

In 1933 Glenn “Tiger” Ellison started to coach the Middletown Ohio High School football team. He also taught English.  I don’t know how well his English students did, but his quarterbacks did very well.  He produced 8 All-State quarterbacks and was named coach of the year in 1961, mainly due to his innovative offensive scheme.  In 1965 Parker Publishing released his book Run & Shoot Football: Offense of the Future (which you can find on Amazon for about $45).  One of the people who turned to Ellison was Mouse Davis.  He then installed the offense to great effect at Oregon & Portland State.

In 1975, June Jones was playing quarterback for his third different college football team.  That usually isn’t a recipe for success.  Things worked out a bit differently for him.  Although Portland State had not had much success passing in the past, Jones was a nice match for the Run & Shoot offense that offensive coordinator Mouse Davis had installed.  In two years, Jones ended up passing for 5,798 yards with 50 TD against 20 interceptions.  That was enough to launch him in to a 6 year career as a professional quarterback.  He spent 5 years with the Atlanta Falcons & a year in the CFL with Toronto.

After his playing career wound down, Jones got into coaching.  In 1984 he became the wide receiver coach for the Houston Gamblers in the new United States Football League (USFL).  The man who brought him onboard was offensive coordinator Mouse Davis.

They installed the Run & Shoot offense & with Gambler’s quarterback Jim Kelly, they rewrote the professional football record books.  In their first season, Kelly passed for 5,793 yards and 45 touchdowns.  They were the first team in professional football to have 2 receivers with over 100 receptions.  Richard Johnson had 115 & Ricky Sanders pulled in 101 catches.  The team finished 13-3.

The Run & Shoot starts with motion from the receivers with adjustments to their routes on the fly based on defensive reactions.  It generally uses 1 running back and up to 4 wide receivers.  It depends on the quarterback being smart enough to read & react to the defensive coverage, especially how the defense shifts after the wide receivers go in motion.  Some concepts are really basic.  If the defense puts fewer than 5 men in the box, you should run the football.  You will have a numbers advantage.  If they keep men in the box, you should have a mismatch with at least one receiver.  There is a lot more to it, but that gives you an idea.  Another crucial point is that you can run every play from your base offense.  That means that you can line up quickly without huddling and pressure the defense.  If they bring in two lighter players on the line to spread out & cover receivers, you can repeatedly run the ball at the lighter line without giving them time to bring in the big boys.  Conversely, if they have the lanes clogged with 300+ pound defensive lineman, you run lots of quick passes & wear them down.  You control the pace.  You don’t go fast all of the time, but the defense never knows when you will put down the accelerator.

The USFL may not have stayed around for too long, but the concept of the Run & Shoot was here to stay.

In 1988, Sam Wyche adapted the offense & emphasized the no huddle aspect for the Cincinnati Bengals.  They called the system the “Attack Offense.”  With quarterback Boomer Esiason they managed to make it to the Super Bowl although they lost to another innovative coach & quarterback (Bill Walsh & Joe Montana).  Walsh had even written a book which said the offense of the future wouldn’t huddle and the quarterback would call the plays with just 1 word at the line.

The team the Bengals defeated to advance to the Super Bowl was the Buffalo Bills.  As the USFL imploded, the Bills acquired a franchise quarterback who knew a little something about a no huddle offense.  Quarterback Jim Kelly teamed with head coach Marv Levy & offensive coordinator Ted Marchibroda to install their “K-Gun” offense.  Their fantastic use of the no huddle & aspects of the Run & Shoot enabled them to become the only team to advance to 4 straight Super Bowls.  Although the lost all 4 (Wide Right), they were an amazing offensive team.  Kelly finished his pro career with over 45,000 yards passing and was named to the Hall of Fame.

June Jones spent time in the NFL as a head coach & has been extremely successful with his offense in the college ranks.  Mouse Davis also coached college offenses to record heights.  In the meantime, a number of NFL teams adopted portions of the system.  More teams put 3 or 4 receivers on the line & receivers in motion became somewhat standard.  There was still a feeling that portions of the hurry up offense were just a college gimmick. In fact the next big hurry up offense coach was in the college ranks.

Chip Kelly used perhaps the fastest no huddle offense ever to lead Oregon into national prominence.  Kelly moved from the defensive side of the ball (at Johns Hopkins) to line coach & then to offensive coordinator at New Hampshire.  In 7 of his 8 seasons at New Hampshire his “Blur” offense averaged over 400 yards per game.  In his final 4 seasons there, the team averaged more than 30 points per game.  That got him the offensive coordinator job and soon the head coaching job at Oregon.

At Oregon, he took an also ran team to an unprecedented 4 straight BCS berths.  That made him the coaching candidate du jour for the NFL. He was contacted by NFL coaches like Pete Carroll & Bill Belichick to discuss the offense.  The Tampa Bay Buccaneers wanted him to become their head coach in 20012.  He turned that opportunity down, but the next year he accepted the head coaching job with the Philadelphia Eagles.  In the meantime his use of the spread offensive concepts frustrated other college coaches.  My favorite interview on the subject is with South Carolina defensive coordinator Ellis Johnson in an interview at footballscoop.com.  In that interview he sounds like my kids when they lose to someone & whine that it wasn’t fair.  He said “One thing that has gotten into it that I’ve been pretty outspoken, that I really think is starting to deteriorate some of college football is the hurry up offenses.”  “What it’s about now is who can snap the football before the other team lines up.  You can’t hardly get your players on and off the field.  You can’t get your signals in and out.  It’s become who has the best signal system or verbiage system”

There were definitely doubters of Kelly’s transition to the pros.  The message boards were full of people saying that he would be back coaching a college team by the next year.  Instead, he coached the Eagles to a division championship.  The team averaged 417 yards per game & almost 28 points, which was a marked increase from the previous year.

In the meantime, other NFL teams have incorporated more of the hurry up offense into their systems.  The New England Patriots use a 1 or 2 word system to call plays that greatly speeds the process.  Tom Brady will step to the line & say something like “Bama right” & that will tell the team what the play is & what the formation will be.  It can move lightning fast when they want it to. In 2011 they left a serious impression on Tampa Bay defender Gerald McCoy in a preseason game  Afterwards he said “Man, I’m telling you man, they came out, they’d turn around huddle, snap, oh, ‘There’s the Mike, Go!’ I was like, ‘Dang! Um, Mr. Brady, can we line up?’ He didn’t care. He was like, ‘You’re not going to line up.”’ McCoy said. “When we turned around one time I checked back around and my hand was going to the grass and they were like, ‘Hut!’ And I said, ‘Noooooooooooo!’”  That’s a reaction that will keep offenses moving quickly& defensive players hurrying to catch up.  I would have loved to see that when I was a kid & I’m happy I get to see it now.  I wonder what Staubach would have done in that kind of offense.